Codec levels mapping changed? (&WFM inconsistent?)

fausseplanete wrote on 1/3/2008, 1:22 AM
Since my product is a video for the web, primarily viewed on PC, I choose to render to WMV having full Computer (not TV) levels, from 0 to 255. This I have routinely and successfully done in V7 for some time, seeing proper blacks etc. on Windows Media Player. However V8 gives me greys...

To avoid confusion, this is while still in 8-bit (like V7), not 32 bit.

In V7, when levels are 0..255 on Vegas's waveform monitor (with both settings disabled), then rendered to WMV, the result in Windows Media Player is as expected e.g. when played on a computer, blacks are really black. I just did the same thing from V8 and for the result when played back in Windows Media Player the blacks looked grey. Suspecting a V8 levels issue/change-in-behaviour I investigated further...

Importing the rendered WMV back to V8 the waveform monitor (with both settings disabled) shows levels 0% to 100%. However importing it to V7 the WFM there (with both settings disabled) shows it to range from +6% to +92%.

This would be consistent with V8 mapping 0..255 RGB to 16..235 WMV (Y) when it encoded to and decoded from WMV, while V7 mapped 0..255 RGB to 0..255 WMV (Y) when it encoded to and decoded from WMV.

Questions:
Can anyone confirm or deny that the V8 levels mapping is different from the V7 levels mapping in the way that I have described?
If one was instead to prepare a project as 16..235 RGB would it then render to this same range in WMV or to an even smaller range?
Assuming the mapping is indeed different, presumably the only way I can now get my project to render to full 0..255 (as I require) is to paste everything back to a V7 project and render from V7 - or is there a more convenient way e.g. to configure V8 to render to the full range like V7 did?

Comments

fausseplanete wrote on 1/3/2008, 1:34 AM
Pasting to V7 didn't work... Nothing appeared. I guess V7 doesn't like my use of the new titling generator. Shame it didn't just skip it and paste what it could.

A V8 -> V7 project convertor (e.g. a standalone exe) would be really helpful to myself and others, from what I have read elsewhere in this forum.
farss wrote on 1/3/2008, 1:45 AM
"A V8 -> V7 project convertor (e.g. a standalone exe) would be really helpful to myself and others, from what I have read elsewhere in this forum"

One simple way to solve your current problem would be to render out an AVI from your V8 project and then do what needs to be done in V7. As far as I know there has never been any backwards compatibility with Vegas.

Getting back to your core problem, is it only when you render to WMV? I suspect it must be or this forum would be alive with complaints.

Bob.
fausseplanete wrote on 1/3/2008, 6:56 AM
Bob,

Great minds think alike regarding the render-out, but apart from that,
EGG ON MY FACE! NOTHING WRONG WITH V8-WMV (or indeed V8-HuffYuv).

I have no idea what I could have done wrong, but maybe it's time for a reboot of both man & machine.

Anyhow, I'm mightily impressed with V8's "No Recompression Necessary", which in my case happened because most of the source media were of the same format as the destination, namely HuffYuv. Render-out was therefore disk rather than CPU limited, allowing my GRAID2 unit to come into its own.

Thanks for your advice,
Dave