DV codecs, cropping and color artifacts...

Zwampen wrote on 10/26/2004, 2:18 AM
Hi all,

I have some problems that I hope you guys can help me with. We have a mixed editing environment here with Media 100, Final Cut pro, Avid, and Vegas edits. DV tape decks used are Sony DSR-20P. We use Vegas to export to different computer video formats (WM, Real ...)

1. When capturing a DV tape from the Media 100 (Mac) the video turns out to have color artifacts, espescially on the edges of white text on a blue background where the white becomes green. Why is this? Is it a difference in the DV codecs used (I have read some posts here that mention different DV codecs)?

2. All media I get on from the other edtis (on DV tape) I need to crop in different ways. I think the Media 100 is the worst where I usually just zoom in from about 720 to 700 pixels to make sure I don't get black bars on either side of the video. What is the correct way to this when importing DV video with different origins to a Vegas PAL DV project?

3. Even the Avids that run on PC gives a small black line on the top and the sides which I have to crop away. Will a change of DV codec solve this? Which one do you recommend I use in that case?

4. How should I crop, on the whole video track or for each video clip on the timeline, any difference (quality, resolution...) in the end?

5. Have I understood this correctly, can I only have three DV codecs installed, SOny, MS and a third codec? Which one do you recommend me to use? Should I switch between different ones depending on the current project?

Comments

SonyEPM wrote on 10/26/2004, 3:18 AM
Is the material on your DV tapes straight from a DV camera or is this rendered footage (from Media 100 etc)?
Zwampen wrote on 10/26/2004, 4:08 AM
The materail is put on DV tape from the other edits. Either Mini-DV or full sized. Then I capture the video using the Vegas Capture tool and pull it straight in to Vegas 5.
farss wrote on 10/26/2004, 6:16 AM
Lots of stuff there but I think the older Media 100 systems didn't talk firewire to the decks so that'd explain why you're seeing artifacts on the tape.
Bear in mind Vegas captures what's on the tape as pure data, does nothing to it so what you see is what those systems wrote.
I've seen similar things from othere systems though inc Premiere, not all NLEs display the full DV frame so on some of them you don't see the black bars.
I suspect you shouldn't crop / stretch the frame, you'll cause a small quality hit doing that. Yoy should carefully check the AR between system though just in case. Create a circle on the other system and check that it's still a circle when you capture it in Vegas.
All that said many issues have arisen between Vegas and other systems and every time Vegas has been proved to be doing the right thing.
Bob.
Zwampen wrote on 10/26/2004, 7:47 AM
The Media 100 outputs via a firewire cable to the DV deck, which is set to "DV" and not SVHS or video. So the deck records via the firewire cable as do the other edits.