Yeah, I'd hazard a guess that you're capturing in something like 1366x768 and rendering to something like 1280x720.

The other question is... Where are you delivering your output? If it's going to YouTube your answer may be quite different that if it were to be played locally or viewed via DVD or played via a locally hosted Flash Player.

...Jerry

> "Yeah, I'd hazard a guess that you're capturing in something like 1366x768 and rendering to something like 1280x720."

I'm guessing the same thing, The secret to good screen capture is to capture at your delivery resolution because text doesn't resize very well. At a minimum, you should make sure that you render with the quality set to BEST. This will use a better resize algorithm than the default GOOD setting will but the real trick is to not resize at all or at a minimum, resize by a factor of 2x if you have to resize.

~jr

OK. Let's see if I can do it...

General
Complete name : C:\Video temp\Test 4.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 80.6 MiB
Duration : 23s 792ms
Overall bit rate : 28.4 Mbps

Video
ID : 0
Format : MS Video
Codec ID : CRAM
Codec ID/Info : Microsoft Video 1
Duration : 23s 640ms
Bit rate : 27.2 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 50.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.262
Stream size : 76.6 MiB (95%)
Title : ~temp-20110830_1344_14.avi Video #1

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 23s 792ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 411.2 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 4.00 MiB (5%)
Interleave, duration : 99 ms (4.97 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration : 800 ms
Title : Microsoft Waveform: ~temp-20110830_1344_14.wav

And what are your render settings?

Something like this?



...Jerry

Are you editing the video in Vegas, or do you just want to convert your files to a more playable format?

I'm a little embarrassed but I can't seem to get that window from my screen to this message. How did you do that?

I'm good with the format but I would like to be able to edit. At this point, I'm content to deliver the rendered file to be viewed in Media Player or any other viewer that might work. I do know that rendering to MP2 for DVD delivery will compromise the video quality from what is now apparently HD.

Am I wrong? Shouldn't I be able to re-render an avi (which I think is lossless) to another format without degradation?

H

Read the "markup" sticky at the top of the forum list.

Microsoft Video 1 is a lossy format. I you render to another lossy format, there will always be losses. That is fact. You won't get MS Video 1 to smart-render in Vegas. If you render to uncompressed you will be unable to play it. Either Jerry or I are prepared to offer you some material advice if you want good quality playback, but I need to be sure.

?

Let's see if this works.

No, you need to upload your photo somewhere and then link to it.
I'm going to have to check out of this discussion, and I'm sure Jerry can guide you expertly. Best of luck.
;?)

I do want the help. I seem to be incapable of posting my settings window but my corresponding settings are as follows:

Template: AVCHD 1920 x 1080-60i
Audio: 192 kbps, 48,000 Hz, 24 Bit, Stereo, AC3
Video: 29.970 fps, 1920x 1080 Upper field first, YUV, 16 Mbps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.000

Include video (checked)
AVCHD
High definition (1920x 1080)
High
CABAC
29.970 (NTSC)
Upper field first
1.0000
16,000,000
Automatic (recommended)

Hope you can decode that. These are all default settings when I select Sony AVC w/Template: AVCHD 1920 x 1080-60i in the previous window.

Thx
H

That's about as good as you'll get it in Vegas.
Cues Jerry stage left.
[wink]

That's about as good as you'll get it in Vegas.
Cues Jerry stage left.
[wink]

musicvid, you're a helpful guy cause I've been viewing this forum off and on for a long time. Seldom do I ask for help.

I feel that I've somehow offended you by my inability to post my screenshot. I've read the sticky and it isn't at all clear (to me, at least) how I am to go about it.

My apologies for any offense. The "stage left" and "wink" seems a little inappropriate as all I am trying to do is figure this thing out. Asking for help has been a last resort.

Harold

Part of the problem that I see is your capture is at 50fps and you are rendering to 60i (29.97). This will affect the quality because of having to create frames.

Dave T2

Harold, I don't think musicvid intended to offend you.
The comment and wink were meant for Jerry as he always has great screenshots to explain how to do things.
For screenshots, you need to find a site that will host your images,
This can be Flickr, Photobucket, Dropbox or any other site that allows you to post or host content.
For making these links, a lot of us use the Sony Creative Software Forum Preview Tool, created by a long time Vegas user.
I used it in conjunction with Photobucket to post the following.
this image.
Hope this helps.

Mike

Mike, Jerry, Dave, and Johnny Roy are 100% correct, so I hope you accept my deferral. You are in very good hands.

School has started in the US, and so my availability for prolonged inquiries on the forums is limited.

The [cue] and [wink] was to Jerry, as we are good friends, are already on the same page with regards to your question, as well as the suggestions "I think" he is about to make.
Here is a link to Jerry's excellent page on a parallel subject:
http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/DNxHD/HD-Guide.aspx

All the best.

Okie Doak. "wink" duly noted. Here's the short answer to posting an image (it's how I posted the image above).

[img=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20447760/Camtasia-Render.png]

You'll need the free (and highly recommended!) utility Dropbox as a repository for your image. Or you can put the image in any web accessible place. You just need to reference the URL.

Here's a more detailed explanation (the forum sticky): New Markup for Forum Posts

Finally, here's YouTube tut I whipped up to explain how to use SnagIt ($50 - same company that makes Camtasia) and Dropbox to make forum posts. If you don't want to buy/use Snag It, you can substitute the builtin Windows Snipping Tool. Camtasia might have some of SnagIt's functionality builtin (?).



...Jerry

Oh, btw, back to the subject at hand, I agree with DaveT2's post above, "Part of the problem that I see is your capture is at 50fps and you are rendering to 60i (29.97). This will affect the quality because of having to create frames."

Edit: Why was I reading CamStudio and thinking Camtasia?? Must be the first sign of Alzheimer's :-) In any case, please make the appropriate substitutions.

Here's a question for anyone that might want to chime in.

I was assuming CamStudio captures as progressive, but why doesn't MediaInfo show a "Scan Type" for these screen captured avis? hfritsche's textual MediaInfo data does not indicate a "Scan Type". The following is a MediaInfo listing from a SnagIt capture avi.


Here's the properties by right-clicking the Video Event on the Vegas timeline.


Is the CamStudio capture, indeed, Progressive? Inquiring minds want to know.

...Jerry

Edit: Changed references from Camtasia to CamStudio

> "Oh, btw, back to the subject at hand, I agree with DaveT2's post above, "Part of the problem that I see is your capture is at 50fps and you are rendering to 60i (29.97). This will affect the quality because of having to create frames.""

I agree with DaveT2 and Jerry, this may be at the heart of your problem and as Dave said, will cause all sorts of frame blending unless you tell Vegas not to resample the video.

Try opening the properties on each video event on the timeline (Right-click | Properties | Video Event) and select Disable resample. Do this for every video event. Then I would deliver your HD footage in 25p since that's 1/2 of the 50p you captured at and will simply drop every other frame. In the future, capture at the same frame rate you will be delivering at or even 1/2 that (15fps).

~jr

Thanks to everyone. I have things to try and enough to keep my mind busy for awhile.

Musicvid... I'm not ordinarily so thin-skinned. In this case, too thin (and apparently misunderstood your comment, to boot). Forgive me. People like you are a tremendous help to people like me and if we don't say thank you often enough, bad on us.

I'll get back on this thread if I am able to provide information that may help others who may be experiencing the same problem.

Harold

Another way to skin this cat..

I use AVIScreen capture. It produces huge uncompressed .avi files that Vegas has a hard time working with so I convert these .avi files in Media Coder to H264 .mp4. The converted screen cap video files are very clear and works well in Vegas.

One thing I like about Media Coder is it's fast, 64 bit and can use CUDA to convert H.264 files. I have done some comparisons and CUDA GPU processing does shave off about 5 seconds off converting a 3 minute uncompressed 10.7gig .avi to 15.4meg H.264 .mp4. YMMV.