blurry render

williamk wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:01 AM
We rendered an MPEG 4 and got a good quality picture etc but had the warning of a virtual memory shortage. There were a few issues on the timeline that had to be fixed and we increased the virtual memory and rendered a second time. Here is the problem. With the second render the quality of the video was bad. It was blurry and unclear throughout. The only thing we changed was the virtual memory and fixed the small things on the timeline. But the whole timeline was blurry after the second render. So the only assumption is that changing the virtual memory caused the footage to blur after render. The original footage is still great.

Can the virtual memory be the problem?

Also should we do it in Mpeg 4 or Mpeg 2?

Vegas 6

Thanks

Williamk

Comments

jrazz wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:11 AM
I would think it would have more to do with the changes you made on the timeline. You could have accidentally bumped or nudged something or doubled a track level effect. I would check those things. What did you correct on the timeline?

j razz
williamk wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:16 AM
We fixed a event aspect ratio to match the others. We didn't touch the track or other events. Just a couple of events that had the wrong aspect ratio.

Very confusing.

WilliamK
jrazz wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:28 AM
If your aspect ratio is wrong that could definitely make it blurry. What do you mean you changed it to match? What was the original and what did you change it to? What were the other aspect ratios in the project?

j razz
williamk wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:31 AM
Thanks for the reply

That's just the thing. The aspect ratio that we changed isn't the part that got the most blurry, it's the parts that we didn't change. We increased the aspect ratio of an event to match the rest of the timeline and maintained aspect ratio etc. This was the only aspect ratio we changed, on small event, and not the other footage that was made blurry as well.

williamk
jrazz wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:46 AM
For troubleshooting sake, render a 5 second clip containing part of the file you changed as well as part of the clip you did not change. See if it was a fluke with the encode. Now, change it back (the aspect ratio of the small clip) and then render a test clip again. Do like a 5 second clip to see if it is not blurry anymore.

If it is not, then it is something amiss with the aspect ratios of the project. If it does work, then you had some type of error with the original encode.

j razz
MarkFoley wrote on 9/26/2006, 10:51 AM
Have you checked the opacity of the track is still at 100%
williamk wrote on 9/26/2006, 11:09 AM
Still 100

We are trying out the tests to see if there is an encoding error.

Will let you know the results soon.

Also should we do MPEG 4 or MPEG 2

William K
jrazz wrote on 9/26/2006, 11:19 AM
William,

You never stated what the original footage is from or what you are encoding it for. What is your intended distribution method? DVD- mpg2 should be used, mpg4 can be used for other things. What is the purpose of what you are doing?

j razz
williamk wrote on 9/26/2006, 11:28 AM
DVD video is the plan not digital download so I guess Mpeg 2 it should be, but I aways thought mpeg 4 was better quality. Most of the footage is avi but some mpegs and a mixture of other codec. It's quite a hodgepodge of footage. We still haven't done the test yet as some things came up but will do asap.

Thanks

Williamk
jrazz wrote on 9/26/2006, 11:36 AM
avi retains quality better (especially if it is lossless). mpg always lose quality. Everytime you re-encode you lose quality with mpg and it can be significant depending on what template you are using.

Also, I would use the DVDA NTSC/PAL videostream template for the video and the AC3 audio for the audio (EDIT: this way if you make your disc in DVDA it will not re render anything and no additional quality loss will be sustained). Use Best and change the bitrate to the best you can get for the size of your project. (do a search for "bitrate calculator" with a username of johnmeyer using the search feature on this forum-the one below the blue bar up top).
NTSC or PAL is depending on what region you are in- US- use NTSC, pretty much everywhere else you will use PAL.

Hope this helps.

j razz
williamk wrote on 9/27/2006, 7:58 AM
Well we rendered again in Mpeg 4 and the quality was better. It must have been an encode problem. We wanted to try to burn a DVD using Mpeg 4 but DVDA 3 doesn't support it. Does DVDA 4? Or is there another way to burn an Mpeg 4 DVD. I guess we should have checked out DVDA prior to all this headache.

Jrazz. Thanks for all your help. It must have been an encode issue with the clips. A little scarry but computers tend to make your life harder than easier sometimes.

I've done a lot of reaseach about the difference between Mpeg 2 and Mpeg 4 and it appears that although Mpeg 2 is what most dvd's are, Mpeg 4 is the future. From what I can understand from the many varying viewpoints is that MPeg 2 is still the standard for DVD but Bluray and HDDVD is friendly with Mpeg 4. Also many European broadcasters are using Mpeg 4 because of the high compression rate for their markets. SkyHD uses Mpeg 4 while sky SD uses Mpeg 2. It appears to me that High Definition will be more inclined to Mpeg 4 and not mpeg2.

So in the end we would like to compare the quality of Mpeg 4 vs Mpeg 2 on our DVD player which may or may not play Mpeg 4 at all as it is a few years old, but it's worth the attempt.

So I guess my question is:
Is there a way to burn an Mpeg 4 in DVDA and if not is there another (free) download that can burn an Mpeg 4? Will Roxio work?

Thanks
William k