Norman Black
Forum Replies Created
-
[Rick Wise] “Not exactly an “improvement.””
OpenFX plug-ins operate this way. In OpenFX you can control exactly which parameters of an effect are keyframed. This means you need to click the clock for each item you want to keyframe.
Some video FX plug-ins in Vegas are still old school and you click the animate button to activate keyframing.
-
Output type mpeg-2 allows higher bitrates. If you start with “program stream NTSC …” that selects DVD output type which limits you to DVD max bitrates which are 9 peak and a much lower average. 9.8 is really high for SD material, even without B-frames.
I don’t know what the file output type differences are between DVD and MPEG-2 output types. Different output types can output to different file containers. You never spec’d what file type you needed.
I don’t know about the level setting, but the help file (? button) seems to indicate Main should be fine there.
-
For Mainconcept mpeg-2 encoder.
On the video tab
To get 4:2:2 color you need to select High or 422 in “profile”Set B frame to 0.
To select a transport stream that is on the system tab.
-
[John Abraham] “So it would probably save me time in the long run if I just render out in CBR?”
Why would you use CBR when VBR will give better quality in nearly all cases? One pass VBR should normally be better than CBR, and VBR two pass should/might be better than VBR one pass.
The real question is what bitrate settings will give you the smallest file for upload while resulting in the best Youtube quality. For that I will not try to give an answer, except that with the Vegas encoders at low bitrate you will probably want to encode a little higher than the Youtube recommendation. Hence my previous statement about trying 10Mbps average if you are not happy with 8Mbps.
-
[John Abraham] ” I didn’t think two-pass offered that much more quality, plus it takes almost twice as long, but I guess I’ll just have to suck it up.
“It may improve and it may not. It all depends on the specific video you are encoding. The only thing you can say is that with MC AVC is that two pass VBR will very nearly always get the best quality. You would have to render one pass as well and compare to see it you really needed two pass or not.
If you really want the best quality, then output an intermediate format like DNXHD and use Handbrake to do your final encode. Handbrake uses the x264 AVC encoder.
Youtube always re-encodes so it is commonly quicker to just throw some extra bitrate at the Vegas encode and upload that.
-
Your settings seem fine. Youtube recommends around 8Mbps average for 1080p30 footage. The Vegas AVC encoder is not as good as the one Youtube uses so maybe you should aim for 10Mbps average in Vegas.
VBR is fine and is the best quality. It does not care about parts of frames. What it does is try to keep an average bitrate near your setting but allowing higher bitrates on harder to encode sections and lower bitrates on easier sections. By harder is mean video sections that need a higher bitrate for a given quality. If the whole video is “harder” then you cannot get much gain.
To get the best use of VBR you want to use two pass. Only in two pass can the encoder get an idea of what parts of the video are easier and harder. VBR without two pass is not as variable as VBR with two pass.
Fast moving video needs high bitrates for better video quality. This is because the encoder cannot find as much frame to frame similarities to get better compression. The only way you can improve video like this is a higher bitrate, but since you are Youtube uploading and they are re-encoding to lower bitrates it ultimately does not do as much good. But they use x264 which is a better encoder and uploading a higher bitrate file from Vegas will help.
-
[Rick Anvican] “So I guess the sRGB range really is just a guide that broadcasters, editors and other users adhere to,”
It all goes back to analog Black and white TV and we are carrying things forward. In a digital broadcast system there are no interference problems, loss of signal lock or signal over saturation.
In a clean, designed from scratch system, much of the confusion we have would not exist. It works fine but is not clean, IMO.
29.97fps exists because color TV was patched in, backwards compatible to BW TV and in analog they needed to avoid interference.
Studio swing, aka 16-235 digital, exists because of the way analog is done. In analog your useable min/max are never at your min/max signal levels.
Digital mimics the analog swing because for a time the two systems were mixed. In digital having an absolute low (0) and max (255) is trivial unlike analog.
In digital transmission you no longer have to worry about interference.
Digital eliminates all the quirks of the old analog system, but we keep the standards, probably in part because that is the way people have been working for over 50 years. It is what they know. It is not broken, just quirky.
Personally I really don’t like the 16-235 thing. We are only 8-bit and are giving up precious video levels when we have so few. Because people are stuck in a legacy mentality, a solution is not to fully utilize 8-bit but to go 10-bit. That 10-bit is just like 8-bit and does not use all 1023 levels. Where 0 is illegal in 8-bit in 10-bit that extends to 0-3. 235 goes to 940 and so on.
Digital still photography thankfully has not been saddled by legacy, since legacy there was printed photos and not transmissions.
-
[Rick Anvican] “[Norman Black] “Really only 0 and 255 (for AVC i think) are truly illegal values.”
Would those bits be reserved with similar purposes like they were in analog PAL signals where they stored technical information?”From what I have read are reserved for synchronization (timing references).
-
I think “illegal” is an unfortunate term. “out of range” is better I think since legal video signal can exist outside of 16-235 or 0-100 IRE (assuming 16 => 0 IRE and 235 => 100 IRE)
Going back to the analog days this slop at the top and bottom works with the way you do analog circuity, and leaves some slop room for on the fly processing that might have been done in live TV. A little over/under shoot room for effects. Analog is not precise.
In a “perfectly” calibrated video monitor your super back/white video signal just get clamped.
In our digital world the 16-235 swing is trying to mimic classic analog video signal in some ways.
Really only 0 and 255 (for AVC i think) are truly illegal values.
-
VLC is fully self contained and if there is not a decoder option for what you ask you are SOL.
MPC-HC however typically uses external decoders (DirectShow). The exact setup depends on how you got the installation. I’ll speak to what I have. A K-Lite Standard install. This uses the LAV decoder and in the LAV decoder setup options you can select display at studio or computer levels. It defaults to computer since that is what a PC monitor normally expects, otherwise the video (if studio swing) will look flat.
So it is not really a media player option, but a decoder option you typically want to adjust. Of course, the decoder may not give you that option.