Stu Maschwitz originally described this approach to recover extra info for DV footage... so I think it's safe to assume that this applies to most cameras.

But in all of the footage examples I've tried so far from my project, the extra info doesn't make a huge difference; it adds a small amount of detail to blown out areas - but they're still blown out.

I don't think this is enough to justify the pain of migrating the whole thing to Premiere. Possibly it would be more useful for DV footage.

The official response from Sony ....

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... have spoken to our engineering team about this and they mentioned that the function that you are looking for is not available in Vegas 7. However, this will be something that is added into the next version.

Our website states that Vegas 8 should be out before the end of 2007. I have added the link to press release regarding this below.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/news/ShowRelease.asp?ReleaseID=660&CatID=0
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Shegar,
you mentioned that this is for a film out before. I hope you've spoken to your lab and understand the issues and costs involved.
Bob.

Probably best to start a separate thread about film out :-)

Hi, I'm new to Vegas, having used Premiere for about 10 years.
As I understand it Premiere Pro uses YUV not RGB for DV-format material, i.e. no conversion to RGB is made. I think this was introduced when the first Premiere Pro version was introduced. Not needing to convert keeps the color space untouched during the entire editing process.

Could it be that Vegas still uses conversion to/from RGB space and thus loses information?

Regards
Tomas

Premiere can decode to Y'CbCr color space... but a lot of its filters need to operate in R'G'B' color space (0-255; "computer RGB") so those filters can clip off the illegal values if you don't apply something like the proc amp before it.

2- In Vegas, DV material is decoded into RGB (16-235 range is the default; "studio RGB") before material hits filters in Vegas. It does keep many illegal colors, but not all illegal colors. See the .jpg s I linked to... that should make more sense.

As far as I can tell, this is what's happening.

Glenn,

I have a Sony HC7 which always seems to blow out the highlights and record superwhites when filming high school football games. I tried your 'remap superwhites' color curve preset and it seemed to work fine. Have a technical question though. In the preset, in the lower left hand corner, a point has been added to create a small horizontal line in the 'black' zone. What does this do and why not simply have a pure diagonal line come down through this area without the additional point? Just curious.

Thanks...

If you select the two points in the bottom left, you can use the arrow keys (left/right) to adjust black level/pedestal. In some cases you might want to move it to the right to deal with flaring (e.g. sunlight hitting the lens).

(I counted three points actually.) Yes, but if you only want to remap the superwhites and not mess with the blacks, then you can eliminate the points in the lower left hand corner. Right? Or are they benefiting the elimination of the superwhite issue by being there?

Yes, but if you only want to remap the superwhites and not mess with the blacks, then you can eliminate the points in the lower left hand corner.
Yes.

Thank you sir! I have been playing with Brightness and Contrast, Levels, the Color Corrector, and now Color Curves per this thread... And this seems to be the simplest and most unobstrusive method to recover some highlights. The midtones and shadows look just fine.

Thank you

@1markus4,
So, which method did you find most effective in restoring details/saturation to the blown-out areas? Is it the Color Curves from Glenn - if so, all of them? Did you modify them? (Removing the three points in the lower left portion suggests you did - all of them?). Last but not least: what are the Vegas project settings you're working with - are you using the 32bit video with 2.22 gamma?

Frankly, in my tests only the one mapping superwithes back into the 235 limit seems to have a considerable effect, but still all it does is turning the white into gray, without any detail restoration (I'd even say it washes away any traces of them)... The CC (secondary), supposed to restore the highlights saturation, has zero effect here. Perhaps the details I'm trying to restore simply aren't there at all - how do I make sure?

I'm trying to repair a shot very similar to yours - in order to maintain details on people faces, I had to overexpose the windows behind them. Very typical, I guess - only I'm using the V1 camera, supposed to deliver superior latitude...

"Perhaps the details simply aren't there - how do I make sure?"

I think you can very safely assume that the detail of whatever was outside the window is toast...and then some. No recording medium has that sort of dynamic range, not even film. That's why even when shooting film you still see a huge amount of lighting in use.
In your scenario you have one of two choices, gel the windows or up the light inside the building. Neither are exactly easy.
How to know the details are gone, apart from common sense. The typical exposure level for skin is roughly 70 IRE, that's why it's a preset for zebras. That leaves you 30 IRE before hard clipping. Your exposure level inside was what, F4 and outside, F16 at a guess. You see the problem?
Actually it's probably way worse than that, I'd hazard a guess the camera had some gain applied indoors and outdoors it would have been asking you to switch in ND2. So your highlights aren't toasted, they're nuked.

Bob.

Bob, the common sense says just what you have stated - but my eyes can see a bit more than that:).

I didn't have to use gain inside; using 25p with 1/25th shutter speed plus black stretching helped to maintain faces details a lot. When I watch the raw m2t clip, they ARE traces (and I mean it - just traces of some greens from the trees outside the windows).

However, after rendering in Vegas, all those traces are gone leaving
- pure white when no filter is used, or
- pure gray when the 235 limit is applied, using Glenn's curves.

So my experience shows so far Vegas cannot improve, but can happily do away with clipping areas' details (or remnants thereof).

Still hoping there is a better way, though - it's just that while I understand each of the many factors involved on its own (like the gamma used, studioRGB or computerRGB space adopted, level setting for the highs, video format for rendered output, viewing device calibration etc) - when it comes to educated use of all of them acting together, I'm completely at lost.

PS Here is the link to 4 grabs, comparing various versions - Glenn's curve seems to be most effective in wiping out details in the window area! OK, it's "broadcast safe" with no superwhites; but otherwise doesn't work for me...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=755922&postcount=5

I doubt there's any one simple answer as to the best use of them.
In that shot I'd think having the superwhites clip is the best choice, if anything I'd probably clip them more. The remnant bits of leaves are visually distracting, better to just have solid white there. You've also got part of the top of the green jug clipped as well, not much to be done about that either.
The problem really goes back to how this was shot. Closing the curtains and lighting the room is the best answer. Just gelling the window without adding light in the room would just make the whole thing darker without addressing the real problem of way too high contrast in the lighting.
The other alternative would have been to rearrange the room so the subjects are opposite the window, that way you get the window out of the shot.
Agonising over shots like this in post is a largely futile exercise, putting your energy into shooting stuff right in the first place is way, way more productive. If that means you've got to be an elephant in the room instead of a fly on the wall so be it.

Bob.

megabit,

I'm using Vegas 6.0d with a 'defaults' template for testing. I'm trying to move data between 235 and 255 down into legal without displacing any other data within the footage, UNLESS (and this is subjective) it helps to recover detail.

With regard to managing superwhites, all of the plugins (brightness and contrast, levels, color curves, color corrector) seem to allow you to pretty much accomplish the same thing. I think it all boils down to how much peripheral damage you are willing to accept given the limitations inherent in the particular tool. All I want to do is bring down the superwhites, or recover detail in the highlights. I don't want to mess with anything else. Everything else in my footage is close to 'spot on'.

Glenn's 1st color curve preset brings down the superwhites, but it also moves everything else down as well to some degree. I don't want that. So I started from scratch, creating a subtle, gradual curve up in the upper right corner to remap the superwhites ONLY. No adjustments are needed in the lower left hand corner (blacks).

I REALLY like Glenn's Color Curves preset for adding film-like contrast and de-saturating highlights.

From now on though, taking a cue from another thread here in the Sony forums, I'm going to depend on my zebras more, and expose for the highlights, i.e. reduce in-camera exposure. For my footage, I think blown highlights are far more harmful than shadow with less detail.

Personally, I think the dynamic range of these newer cameras is inadequate. (CMOS chips maybe?) I expected more from the HC7 and FX7. Good as film? No.