FCP vs Vegas continued....

GmElliott wrote on 6/8/2004, 8:43 PM
Re: Spot's thread about FCP vs Vegas's interpolation I tried some experimenting of my own. I took a clip I captured via Vegas (DV avi format) sent it to a friend who uses Final Cut Pro and asked him to slow it down 20% and return it to me. I did the same. Once I got his clip back (in quicktime format...settings equivalent to DVavi) I dropped them both on the timeline. Now I don't know if the interpolating quality is something that has to be judged on an external monitor- or if sending a Vegas Catpured DVavi to a Mac and having it converted to quicktime to be compatable in a Final Cut Pro interface will nullify any volidity of the experiment. Non the less here's what we came up with.....

http://www.msprotege.com/members/LazerBlueP5/FCPvsVegas.mpg

Comments

InterceptPoint wrote on 6/8/2004, 9:00 PM
We win.
B_JM wrote on 6/8/2004, 9:29 PM
wow -- amazing ..

thanks for the test

thomaskay wrote on 6/8/2004, 11:22 PM
Got to be honest. I don't see much of a difference.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 6/9/2004, 4:56 AM
Too, the Vegas image appears to have retained more detail and clarity!

J--
GmElliott wrote on 6/9/2004, 5:42 AM
Yeah the biggest difference I could see wasn't in the movement but the color rendition. The Vegas version looks like the original clip- you can see some bleaching of the whites in the FCP version. Compare the sky at the very beginning of the clip. Also the embroidering on the brides dress is more defined in the Vegas version. This all may have to do with the FCP codec. So maybe this is more aptly a FCP codec vs Vegas codec. I don't know...maybe this isn't even a realistic way to judge- I just figured I'd give it a shot.
dat5150 wrote on 6/9/2004, 7:33 AM
The Vegas clip looks more clear. Speed looks equal.
taliesin wrote on 6/9/2004, 7:50 AM
Yes, this is a codec issue of many dv codecs. They do clip details above RGB 235.

Marco
vitamin_D wrote on 6/9/2004, 7:58 AM
...especially in Vegas (supersampling, force resampling, etc??), but to be fair, in FCP as well -- does FCP have a resample function on by default?

- jim
JJKizak wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:21 AM
Actually I couldn't tell the difference. They both had the flowers jumping and they both had the background buildings jumping. In
my opinion both are unexceptable.

JJK
farss wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:45 AM
The Vegas one looks better, less loss of detail due to interpolation BUT trying to slo mo that far is asking for trouble. I think this sort of came up in a discussion about one of the Artbeat clips of a dove. As SPOT pointed out it looks fantastic because it was shot at 1000 fps to start with. When you've got that many frames to start with you can wind the speed through a huge range and still have beautiful looking results. One tip that I think helps if you cannot afford a high speed camera is to get the shutter speed as fast as possible, the less blur there is to start with the sharper the result will look and if you don't like the look you can always dial some blur in.
jwall wrote on 6/9/2004, 10:51 AM
Watch the flowers....in FCP they stutter quite a bit, but in Vegas they're smooth as silk.
rmack350 wrote on 6/9/2004, 1:30 PM
That's what I was wondering, whether FCP was adding blur to compensate for a step-framed look.

The Vegas slo-mo leaves the details sharp. The flowers and the clouds were the most obvious difference to me. Final cut just obliterated the sky detail.

Rob Mack
vitamin_D wrote on 6/9/2004, 10:17 PM
As JJ says, though, they're equally unacceptable... it's just a question of how far below the threshold either goes.

Which is why I was curious about the Vegas settings -- I might be able to see how to get it better if I knew the settings (just as a pro at FCP might be able to do it there, as well).

Any truth to the rumors of better slo-mo from rendering first to high def WMV before going to AVI, Spot? Someone claims elsewhere that it's a trick of yours :D

- jim
GmElliott wrote on 6/10/2004, 6:48 AM
I simply added a velocity envelope to reduce it to 20% speed and resized the clip to match the length of the Mac clip. I left everything at default (ie Smart Resample, Reduce interlace flicker UNchecked).
thomaskay wrote on 6/10/2004, 7:40 PM
"Any truth to the rumors of better slo-mo from rendering first to high def WMV before going to AVI, Spot?"

I'd like to hear about this.



"I left everything at default (ie Smart Resample, Reduce interlace flicker UNchecked)."

So there is more you could have done to make it look better in Vegas?



Spot|DSE wrote on 6/10/2004, 10:39 PM
Nope, not a trick of mine. I know where the claim it's mine came from, but not quite. I think someone saw a VASST trick like this and misunderstood it.
I've recommended that with footage that is weird aspect and low frames to be upsampled to WMV-HD, then to AVI, simply because of the scaling. Same concept as supersampling when working with odd aspect ratios coupled with low framerates. I don't know what scaling going to WMV-HD does technically, but on some vid it really lets it come to a marginally acceptable stance. It'll be soft though.