John,

I see this problem all the time. Which caused me to develop the following prinicple: When stabilizing video in Sony Vegas 11 using the internal stabilizer or Mercalli V2, best results are obtained when matching properties of source footage, project properties and render properties. If render properties must be different, render to an intermediate or a new track.

All three properties must match - Project, Source & Render. I believe your problem is that you are starting with 1920x1080 60p and rendering to MPEG-2 (I assume NTSC WS?).

I'd solve this problem by rendering the stabilized clip to a new track in DNxHD 1920x1080 60p format (obviously, other encoders will also work). Now, your video event will remain stabilized upon render to MPEG-2.

...Jerry

btw: My typical workflow is to shot in 60p, Project Properties 60p and Render to 60p (DNxHD). Then use HandBrake to resize & reduce the framerate. Obviously, that doesn't work when the delivery format is MPEG-2.

Jezzer, that makes soooo much sense. Sometimes people miss the obvious. Maybe John has a reason to do it his way?

G

Jezzer, that makes soooo much sense. Sometimes people miss the obvious. Maybe John has a reason to do it his way?I don't do it "my way:" I do it the way the product was designed. It is also the way it works in previous versions of Vegas.

This is not a helpful comment in any way whatsoever.

However, to the others, thank you for the workarounds. I'll render to a 60p intermediate so I can finish the project.

This is the first AVCHD project I've done in Vegas 10.0d (I've done all previous AVCHD work in 8.0c), and it has not been a great experience. I can see why so many people have had bad things to say about Vegas 10 and 11. Also, the lack of AVCHD smart rendering is a big problem for me. This particular project was video from the Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston. My daughter was running and, since this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, I shot a LOT of coverage. It sure would have been nice to be able to trim all that footage prior to editing, and only have to archive the trimmed footage. Not having the ability to losslessly trim when shooting coverage basically doubles my storage requirements.

Several people have recommended VideoRedo for this, so I guess that will be my next purchase. It sure would be nice if someone at Sony actually used their own product for real work so they could understand some of these issues.

I guess I should say that my statement which now "makes sense" only came about thru many months of testing, angst, going down wrong paths, cursing and WTFs starting with the following post: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=740883Mercalli V2 Interlace Artifacts[/link]

...Jerry

Jerry,

As always, thanks for everything, and thanks also to wwaag.

I rendered to Sony MXF as an intermediate, and then to MPEG-2. However, I found that the MXF intermediates "broke down" very badly. I must be doing something wrong, because there was a big loss of resolution. I then tried using the Cineform GoPro codec, but Vegas 10.0d crashed immediately. I then researched this forum and elsewhere and decided to download the latest GoPro Cineform codec. This seemed to work, and the intermediate looked rock-solid.

I should also mention that I experimented rendering to MPEG-2 using the "progressive" choice for the MPEG-2 codec (even though the output is for DVD). Someone suggested this, in this forum, several months ago. I then did the same render using BFF. I tested both by burning a DVD and viewing each test render, and also by deconstructing the result into individual fields and viewing on a computer monitor. The result of the progressive render was absolutely horrible, but the "traditional" BFF render looked just great.

So, until Mercalli/Sony gets this bug fixed, I can render to Cineform intermediates and then render to MPEG-2, and except for the extra time and storage, it looks like the quality will be unaffected.

I really appreciate your help.

[edit] Ah, I just figured out the MXF "bug." Turns out Sony doesn't let you render MXF at 59.94 fps, progressive, 1920x1080. You can get any two of these three, but then the render template forces the remaining item to the next lower setting. I hadn't noticed that the program was changing what I had already set. Perhaps later versions of Vegas than my 10.0d have upgraded the MXF template to handle true 60p HD.

So is there a Sony bug? I'm rendering to MXF in PAL using SONY, appears ok, but I'll keep a weather eye out for this one.

Cheers

G

So is there a Sony bug? I'm rendering to MXF in PAL using SONY, appears ok, but I'll keep a weather eye out for this one.See my "edit" in the post above regarding what is going on with MXF. YMMV, depending on which version of Vegas you are using. It is definitely broken for 60p renders in 10.0d.

As for Mercalli, it is definitely a bug because it doesn't work that way in earlier versions of Vegas, and it makes absolutely no sense to have an fX "disappear" when rendering, which is exactly what is happening to me and to the others that posted in that earlier thread.

I just wanted to mention here that when you insert Mercalli on a clip it inserts post pan/crop but it is actually better to use it pre pan/crop. That way you can render to different resolutions without screwing things up.

I just wanted to mention here that when you insert Mercalli on a clip it inserts post pan/crop but it is actually better to use it pre pan/crop. That way you can render to different resolutions without screwing things up.That's a very useful tip. I am now rendering to MPEG-2 using the DVD Architect Widescreen template, but I did not not apply pan/crop to the events in order to eliminate the slight pillarboxing you get when going from HD to SD widescreen. However, I may go back and do it "right" and if I do, your hint will be very helpful.

johnmeyer wrote "Several people have recommended VideoRedo for this, so I guess that will be my next purchase. It sure would be nice if someone at Sony actually used their own product for real work so they could understand some of these issues."

I have VideoRedo and it does work. However, before spending extra $, try Sony's PMB software that came with the camera--be sure and upgrade to latest version. You can do all of your initial "cuts" in PMB and it will "smart-render". You set in and out points and then save--it's fast so obviously, it's not re-encoding.

Obviously, Sony knows HOW to smart-render, but for whatever reason, has not included that capability within Vegas, which is a shame.

wwaag

"Turns out Sony doesn't let you render MXF at 59.94 fps, progressive, 1920x1080"Ha! It turns out that I deteted a phrase in my original post - something to the effect of "MXF is not an option as an intermediate as everytime you modify the framerate to 59.97fps, the framesize reverts to 1280x720" - but I was getting too wordy already.

That said, I've had luck rendering 60p to a new track with Lagarith, the free Cineform download, and DNxHD. I normally default to DNxHD.

...Jerry

before spending extra $, try Sony's PMB software that came with the cameraI did install that, but was rather blown away by the massive 300 MB it consumes, and the amount of useless flotsam (other applications) that get installed, without any option to just get the main program only.

I just found out that there is a scaled-down version of PMB on the camera itself, and I may try that.

When I did try the full-blown PMB, it seemed exceedingly clunky for doing basic cuts-only edits. Why can't software engineers learn from a simple app like VirtualDub? It always seems that shareware authors understand how to design functional programs much better than their commercial software developer counterparts.

What exactly does "render to an intermediate or a new track. ". I understand rendering to an immediate but how do you render to a new track?

Thanks

"...how do you render to a new track?"
Double-click the video event to create a loop region around that event. Make sure you choose a high quality encoder (e.g. MXF, DNxHD) and match the render settings to your Project Properties and check the "Render loop region only" option.

Once you've rendered to a new track, you can delete the video event with the Stabilize FX.

...Jerry

Glen. Tools->Render to New track. QED.

Edit: Jerry beat me - again.

Willem