Replies – Forums – Neil Randall

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Neil Randall
February 26, 2011 at 3:18 pm in reply to: Brightness/Contrast increase on render

Tried it out and my version of 9e crashes on any 32Bit render. D/L the 10c trial and it renders but the output is still blown out. Here’s the summary:

Five separate machines (desktops/laptops)
Vegas Pro 7-10 (32 & 64Bit)
Win XP Home/Pro (32bit) / Win 7 (32 & 64Bit)
8bit and 32Bit projects (Video and Full range)
Various file formats (AVCHD/AVI/MOV/DV – SD/HD) Some raw, some transcoded
Various render formats (AVI, MP4, QT, WMV, MPEG2, M2TS)
Various media players (WMP/VLC/QT)

Every single render comes out with increased levels. The easiest way to explain it is the difference between 32Bit Video Levels and 32Bit Full Range. Pick any scene with some highlights and the switch totally blows out the whites.

I’ve tried matching monitor profiles for colour mamagement, and constraining the levels with Level/Broadcast Colours. No dice.

This has been going on for years. It’s not a coincidence, given the variation in the projects I’ve worked on. If anyone thinks they can spot what I’m doing wrong, I’m happy to post a detailed workflow.

Cheers,

NR.
Neil Randall
February 25, 2011 at 10:20 am in reply to: Brightness/Contrast increase on render

Thanks.

I have tried that before but found it caused Vegas to crash. I’ll try it again on an untreated clip and see what happens to the render.

Ta,

NR.
Neil Randall
February 4, 2011 at 5:40 pm in reply to: Render contast increase

Well, my work lappy is a Dual Core T4400 @ 2.2 GHz w/ 4Gb RAM and Win 7 Home Premium, running Vegas Pro 9e. Not exactly a dedicated cutting workstation, ergo, the difference between using MOVs and AVIs is night and day. It plays them at about 5 FPS – and that’s at draft/quarter.

More importantly, Prism can’t be doing anything, because the renders are clearly more contrasty than the what Vegas is showing. It wouldn’t matter what I put on the timeline – what I see ain’t what I get!
Neil Randall
February 4, 2011 at 12:16 am in reply to: Render contast increase

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Mike Kujbida] “Why would you do that instead of using them natively?
There’s no way of guaranteeing that Prism isn’t doing something to your source video.”

I’ve read (and I think it’s generally accepted) that H264 is a pig to edit in Vegas. It was suggested that transcoding to something Vegas is happier with would make for much easier workflow, and having been transcoding to AVIs, I agree. The MOVs shuffled along like slideshows, whereas the AVIs are very smooth.

Here’s a typical quote: “After working with a littany of codecs (HuffYUV, Lagarith, DNxHD, Jpeg2k), I’ve really only found one suitable for working in Vegas with no proxy. And that’s the new Matrox VfW codecs. They are i-frame, high quality, and reside inside a .AVI container. They are not as efficient as Cineform, meaning they make larger files for the same quality, but that quality is EXCELLENT. Even doing mathematical differencing, once you get over about 150Mbps, the loss is negligible. I’m not working in Vegas a lot these days, but when I do, this is my only codec of choice.”

This, too: https://www.postmagazine.com/Publications/Post-Magazine/2011/January-1-2011/Editing-HDSLR-files-natively-may-not-be-a-smart-.aspx

However, I’ll have at a look at your suggestions and see if they help – whatever is doing this, it’s been evident since I’ve been using Vegas for the last five years, across all edit machines; DVD and media players; and TVs I’ve tested it on. Gotta be something I’m doing wrong.

Thanks again,

NR.
Neil Randall
February 3, 2011 at 5:46 pm in reply to: Render contast increase

Didn’t embed. Sorted.

Thanks,

NR.

Screen of Vegas preview window Best/Full.
href=’https://i1.creativecow.net/u/190618/vegas.jpg’>

Screen of WMP playback. Largest I could get.
href=’https://i1.creativecow.net/u/190618/wmp.jpg’>

A small side-by-side screen of both Vegas and WMP on the same screen next to each other.
href=”https://i1.creativecow.net/u/190618/side-by-side.jpg”>

Thanks,

NR.
Neil Randall
January 31, 2011 at 2:11 pm in reply to: Brightness/Contrast increase on render

I did some research and discovered there’s no specific ‘cure’. Instead, it seems a case of making sure Vegas’ video levels are ‘correct’ for your rushes, and that your monitor colour profile matches Vegas’ preview window video driver.

Having implemented the advice below, I’ve managed to get a dry clip to render and look near-identical to the preview, so I think new renders should be closer to the original footage, provided MBL doesn’t screw things up.

In the meantime, if anyone knows more or has better results with other ‘fixes’, please, let me/us know.

Anyway, read this (both parts): a href="https://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/glennchan/levels_in_sony_vegas_part_one.htm"></a>

Now read this (can’t remember where I got it):

When you view the video in a player like VLC, MPC or Windows Media Player, it’s probably being rendered using the video card’s overlay feature (or by video card acceleration) and it does not get affected by the desktop gamma/color settings. Some video card drivers have separate color controls for video, and some players have their own controls. In addition, some drivers and/or media players try to convert TV levels to PC levels (or vice versa) for viewing on a PC, so the video may appear darker or more contrasty. You can simulate this in Vegas by putting the Levels effect in the video output FX and selecting the “Studio RGB to Computer RGB” preset.

Do this:

Go to: Options -> Preferences -> Preview Device -> Turn On the “Use color management” -> Select the needed profile from the “Monitor color profile”.
Neil Randall
November 29, 2010 at 11:02 pm in reply to: Brightness/Contrast increase on render

Nobody?

I’m having to reduce my gamma to approx 0.7 using a colour corrector on the o/p video bus in order to retain the correct brightness/contrast. A side-by-side comparison of the original in Vegas and the render shows it’s definitely at fault.

Ta.