[László Kovács]

What if you just create proxies?

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

Hi Amanda,

Recently I had to create a localised version of a U.S. made DVD.
I used a free program, called “pgcdemux” to extract the content from the original DVD. (Because I needed tha audio and video streams separately – I planned to reauthor the DVD in DVD Architect)
You may try it, excellent tool.
Is it really a must to convert? -Different resolution, different framerate – I would not do it if it’s possible to avoid.
Here in Europe PAL is used most widely, not NTSC, just like in Australia.
However, most -if not every- of the players are capable to play both PAL and NTSC DVD’s.
Isn’t that true for Australia too?
Players made for the U.S. market aren’t that clever, those play only NTSC. ☺

So if there’s an option, I would not convert. Your problem is possibly either the disc is copyrighted (encrypted, etc.), and you need to remove the protection if that’s the case.
Or it’s just mastered with a *mac software, that caused me some problems too ????

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

I was writing my reply while you posted your settings.
I think these settings are correct if you finally need an interlaced DVD…
For the rest see my previous response ☺

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

Hi,

I meant the opposite: force the source interlaced if it is wrongly detected as progressive.
If you force the source to be progressive, however it is interlaced, you basically switch off Vegas builtin deinterlace.
What you see on your second sample is the moire of the 2 interlace combs – as your target is interlaced too.
The first picture you posted here seems to me correct – as it is interlaced.
This combing is there by design – this has to be deinterlaced during playback.
If you play at this file (DVD) through an old CRT TV, the deinterlacing will be done in your eyes/brain.
If you play it on a DVD attached to an LCD (or similar tech TV), the deinterlacing has to be done in the TV set.
If you play it on a computer, the player software has to deinterlace it.
(All of my sentences are meant with “- I think” at the end ☺ )
You can however put progressive content on a regular DVD, this is what I do for the last few years, as I always deal with progressive source.
For this, set you project to progressive, and render to progressive.
Here are my settings for such a “progressive” DVD:

Note, that if you create a DVD this way, it’s motion will look a bit more stuttery on old CRT TV’s compared to the interlaced DVD (as the picture is now 25p instead of 50i).

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

Oh, it’s too early in the morning… ☺
I forgot to mention: if you see that combing on the preview only, be aware of that preview is just preview with different quality steps.
In “preview” and “draft” no deinterlacing is done, if you set the quality to “good”, the deinterlaceing will be done for you – at a cost of more processing power required for the preview.

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

Do you see that combing effect on preview only, or in the rendered video?
If you rightclick an event on your timeline, properties show progressive (wrong), or upper field first?
Sometimes Vegas detects P/I incorrectly – in my case a 25p footage from Canon xa10 is detected as interlaced – however it is progressive. I have to set it manually to P.
Your case may be the opposite, an I detected as P. Set the interlaced flag manually if it is wrongly P.

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

And what happens if try to feed only with 16..235 the mainconcept encoder?
Put a solid black [16,16,16] in a track below your movie, do that resize then, and repeat the color shifting test.
Side note: in Vegas preview where you see a black in an empty space, it’s not really a black but a tranparent (which results in pure black if nothing below, but that transparent is not affected by FX levels on output…

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

Hi Brian,

That project is gone, but found a similar long video, and I believe I could reproduce your problem.

I guess you see something like this:

The point is to insert a chapter marker somewhere in the middle of that timeframe the message tells you.
Should look like this:

And after that the dialog will look like this:

Choose that marker for the layer-break and I think you’ll be fine.
Just one sidenote: if you place the marker, make sure it’s clean, not with an exclamationmark. This marker is in bad position (it has to be on a keyframe):

If you see that yellow mark, drag the marker, you’ll see some blue triangles at the right position:

I hope I could help ☺

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

A good syncing point can be also, when someone used a flashlight (took a photo). If you got it on the footages from all cameras, this can be an excellent syncing point.
If there’s no such thing, you can sync only based on the audio.
To be honest, I mostly sync by audio – pan one audio to the left completely, the other to the right completely.
I adjust then the position of one of the footages unti I hear the least possible echo. This method works also if there’s no sudden sound (claps, etc), just overall smooth audio.

Best regards

László Kovács

[László Kovács]

Without being completely sure (as you use a pixel format I never do), for your problem I would blame the black you added around the original video.
If you encode to an mpeg-like codec, there are the “legal” levels (16-235), which don’t make problem.
When the levels are outside of this range (say they are “illegal”), the encoder may produce wrong results, which also may fool the decoder later – how wrong it is, depends on the encoder itself, I think.
So simple said, codecs, like wmv or lagarith expect computer RGB range (0..255), while mpeg-like codecs used in video industry expect studio RGB range (16..235).
So if you added that black as RGB (0,0,0) be it better RGB (16,16,16).
OR, alternatively add the levels FX to the video output with the preset ‘computer rgb to studio’.
(If you do this, remember to add the reverse of the same effect to your source media: levels (studio-to-computer), otherwise the colors and the contrast of the source will look a bit washed out)
Again, I mean this with 8bit pixelformat.

I also noticed, that Mainconcept AVC encodes way much faster if there’s no “illegal” level on its input.

Best regards

László Kovács