Build 595 artifacts

sunflower wrote on 3/2/2012, 11:48 AM

Hi --

I am new to Vegas Pro (my history is film and traveling mattes). This is my first post. I just loaded Vegas Pro 11 build 595. The computer is a new (Windows7 64-bit) Dell XPS 8300 -- i7-2600 3.4 gHz -- Nvidia 560Ti. Our work station is never connected to the Internet and is dedicated only for editing Vegas Pro (no outside plug-ins). Camera is XA10 AVCHD 1920x1080 29.970 fps. Vegas render set to mp4 HD 1080p. The problem is that the export contains highly visible dirty artifacts not seen in previews nor in rendered previews. I have tried everything to eliminate this problem, including 32 bit floating point @ Best and turning off GPU. Now I am stuck. Is it me or does Vegas 11 have fatal flaws? A 20 second test HD sample posted on YouTube --

-- shows dark clumps of pixels on a 32 bit solid green background with a 32 bit solid red tree blowing in the wind. You can see that Vegas wipes this clean every 0.5 seconds then creates new artifacts. There are also dirty artifacts on the red tree. It looks like the video is exported before the mask is totally processed. The mask was created via FX added b/w, contrast, mask generator, and compositing = Multiply (Mask) with child solid 32 bit red color. I have spent several days on this problem. Am I doing something wrong?

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 3/2/2012, 12:58 PM

Any chance you could upload the VEG file? Also, did you modify the mp4 render settings, or did you use one of the standard templates and, if so, which template did you use?

sunflower wrote on 3/2/2012, 1:46 PM

http://www.harbornet.com/sunflower/qzz.veg

Posted above. I do not see a method for uploading on this site. I did not modify mp4 settings.

MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) >> Internet HD 1080p

johnmeyer wrote on 3/2/2012, 1:56 PM

Thanks for posting, but unfortunately I was unable to load the VEG file. I got an error message saying that the file was corrupt.

[edit]Actually, the error message I got was "The file cannot be opened by the installed version of Vegas Pro, or the file may be corrupt. Please download and install the latest update of Vegas Pro." Since, at the suggestion of tech support, I just uninstalled Vegas Pro 11 (both 32- and 64-bit), deleted the remaining folders, manually deleted registry entries, and then re-installed everything, I am quite certain that I have the latest version. Also, I have no problems opening other VEG file.
[/end edit]

farss wrote on 3/2/2012, 2:42 PM

"You can see that Vegas wipes this clean every 0.5 seconds then creates new artifacts."

Looking at it it seems very much to me that the problem is in the encoding or probably what you're trying to encode. The H.264 encoder is being pushed beyond what it's capable of encoding.
There's simply too much difference between each frame for the available bit budget. Each I frame is clean but the difference between what has been encoded into the I frame and subsequent frames is simply too great. This is quite obvious as some of the artifacts are quite large areas with shifts in the green background level along straight edges.

You could test this theory by rendering to uncompressed or a codec that doesn't use a long GOP e.g. Sony YUV. In V11 you'll find that codec under "AVI".

Bob.

sunflower wrote on 3/2/2012, 2:52 PM

Thanks.

I am new to all these CODECs. Render 20 seconds to high loss compression mp4 probably is the source of artifacts (27 MB). Render the same to avi could not play on my machines -- not with VLC nor Windows Player (2.15 GB for 20 seconds WOW). Render to M2V plays without artifacts (58 MB). AVC (21 MB) and m2ts (36 MB) would not play. I am an artist and not good with technology (can not repair the cars I drive) so this is a difficult learning curve for me. I need recommendations for video decoders.

farss wrote on 3/2/2012, 3:35 PM

"Render the same to avi could not play on my machines -- not with VLC nor Windows Player (2.15 GB for 20 seconds WOW). Render to M2V plays without artifacts (58 MB). "

Uncompressed HD does create a lot of data and yes, you will have a hard time playing it because your disk system will very likely be unable to deliver the data to the CPU fast enough. As such the problem is the decoder and unless you spend a tidy sum on disk arrays you'll never get uncompressed HD to playout smoothly.

What your tests do reveal is that the video you've created is not suitable for the lossy codecs in use today. You could encode to a lossless codec but if your intent is to deliver the content over the web or put it onto a BD DVD or a SD DVD you'll run up against the same problem. To see what I'm talking about watch your video on YT at 240p, the artifacts that you're complaining about look much worse. By comparison most of my videos on YT survive reasonably well at 240p.
You need to avoid creating video where too many pixels are changing from one frame to the next. Now that's a very simplistic statement because it's actually the number of blocks (8x8 blocks of pixels) that are changing. It's OK if the same thing moves from frame to frame, e.g. a reasonably static scene is being panned at a sensible pan rate.

Bob.

sunflower wrote on 3/2/2012, 4:25 PM

Yup, my MP4 documentary was rendered in clear beautiful colors. And I do like Vegas Pro. Made fast work of over 600 media files. Days become weeks cutting, splicing, conforming, and printing film with color filters. I will never go back to film.

The MP4 rendition problem only surfaced by the shot of the tree in the wind.

I plan to archive veg edits with source project media files on BD (several copies for safety) and deliver renditions on BD. M2V and AVCHD did not show artifacts. Blu-ray is fast becoming very low cost.

Thanks for the help,

Doug

Andrew B wrote on 3/2/2012, 9:52 PM

Bob,

I would also figure the high contrast colors are adding to the issue.
When we are encoding for live webcasts, we always advise against lots of movement and high-contrast lines or backgrounds.
Any type of encoding tends to have difficulty with this type of content, and it looks like this is a great example of lots of factors contributing to the end result.

So my idea for a documentary on large group, multidirectional, referee speed skating is on hold for the moment...

Andrew