Thanks...I'm playing around with Lagarith right now. It works, but file sizes are around 60% of uncompressed AVI, which is still huge.

I'm creating these intermediates as part of stabilizing 1080/60i footage using Mercalli V2. While Mercalli will stabilize interlaced HD directly, the resulting loss of sharpness is dramatic. I'm guessing the algorithm is forcing multiple deinterlacing passes.

By creating a 1080/60p intermediate, and then stabilizing the intermediate, the end result is almost magically better. But at the cost of these huge intermediate files...

Cineform probably is best ($99 at VideoGuys); PicVideo is cheaper (for home use), faster, and produces smaller files (with slider set at 19 instead of max., 20): http://www.accusoft.com/picvideospecial.htm. But after 6 generations, it doesn't look as good as Cineform.

One other advantage for some: PicVideo will allow any size frame, up to 2000x2000 - great for animations, whereas Cineform only seems to allow standard sizes - at least that how it seems when I try to render odd sizes - like 1200x1280 - from my animation programs.

If you de-interlace, be sure to do so with Mike Crash's Smart Deinterlace, like this:

1. Set Project Properties to 59... frames per second, best rendering quality, interlace set to None, 1920x1080 (presuming that you are starting with 1920x1080i).

2. Download Mike Crash's free Smart Deinterlace.

3. Use Smart Deinterlace effects on media (go into the media window and right-click, or right-click on the FX button on any event and choose the source file for the Smart Deinterlace). In order to avoid artifacts, you should right-click on the clip, click Properties, then clear the checkmark for Smart Resample.

4. In the Smart Deinterlace FX window, choose “field” preset. In clip properties, set resampling to “none.” Motion Threshold: 5. Choose cubic, and motion denoiser.

5. Or, if you have an entire track on the timeline that has many interlaced clips, you can do them all at once by clicking on the track FX button; but there is a trick: You must go down to the bottom of the Smart Deinterlace FX window where it says "Smart Deinterlace" and make sure that the little triangle at the far left points to the left; if pointing to the right, click it once to make it point left. (You won't need to worry about this if you apply Smart Deinterlace to individual clips in the Project Media Window instead of to the track.)

Then render out with Cineform using its Progressive setting. Result: No judder, no comb, no loss of resolution.

Use the "medium quality" setting in Cineform - not much advantage to using High HD.

You'll need to do this in a 32-bit version of Vegas - there's no good deinterlace method yet that I know of for Vegas 64-bit

PicVideo is wonderful and I use it for odd formats as well since it isn't tied into specific formats. First generation looks wonderful, but as was mentioned, mjpeg doesn't hold up as well after multiple generations. It doesn't smart-render either. Still a wonderful codec though, and very CPU efficient on everything: preview, render and final playback.

I've downloaded and installed Mike Crash's Smart deinterlacer, but I can't seem to find it in Vegas. Doesn't show up under video FX. Am I looking in the right place? Is there another step I need to do ? I'm lost guys, give me a hand please . . .

Can you confirm that you can export the PicVideo codec as 1080/60p from Vegas, and then import back onto the timeline & edit? It sounds promising. I've got to do something about these filesizes. Uncompressed is killing me. :)

"I've downloaded and installed Mike Crash's Smart deinterlacer, but I can't seem to find it in Vegas. Doesn't show up under video FX."

It should be there. In order to be sure that it installed correctly, use Windows Explorer to look for sdeint.dll under c:\Program Files (x86)\sony\filters (presuming you're using Win7).

"can export the PicVideo codec as 1080/60p from Vegas, and then import back onto the timeline & edit?"
You bet - I do it all the time

wilgen, are you using Vegas 32-bit? The crash plugins aren't supported in the 64-bit version.

Here's a free alternative (maybe) to PicVideo:

Export the AVI Intermediate as a JPEG image sequence. You can reimport the sequence back into your project as a single entity using import media. This gives about 1/10 the file size (a folder full of images) versus uncompressed AVI, with no discernable loss in quality.

I'll probably keep my AVI's on a hard drive somewhere just in case, but this looks like a viable way to replace them.

I'm probably missing something here but intermediates are usually temporary. Just used to produce a master. Why would anyone worry about keeping them or their size?

Save your sources, save the finished master, delete the temp work files, and move on.

No?

These are (stabilized) intermediates that were extremely time-consuming to make, and that are necessary for any render out of the project. So, yeah, much as I'd love to get rid of them, I'm kind of obligated to keep them. Hence my search for a manageable format for storage.

Ok, so essentially, you are keeping these as masters.

Then I suggest 1 of 2 possible paths.

Path 1: Jpeg2000

Sony Vegas ships with a Jpeg2000 codec for free. It's pretty good. Only problem is that it resides in a .MOV container. Not the best for Vegas re-use

Or you can do what I did, and purchase a different Jpeg2000 encoder such as the one from Morgan Multimedia. I used to use that one quite a lot in Vegas. And it uses the .AVI container, which is great for Vegas.

Jpeg2000 is the core codec for Cineform, and REDRaw. It creates exceptionally good looking footage with file sizes similar to H.264 at good bit rates. At 100Mpbs, you are talking about 1gig per minute, and at that rate, 1080p should look nearly indistinguishable from the source footage.


Path 2: Windows Media Encoder

I'd suggest downloading the free encoder from Microsoft (or buy the good one) and use it. Windows Media Encoder at 100Mpbs is going to be essentially indistinguishable from the source, and it's a very common file format.


Both of these paths will take you away from codecs that are limited to certain frame rates or frame sizes. I've encoded SD with both, and 4K with both. They work quite well.


If you weren't doing 60p, I'd be suggesting the Matrox VfW codec. But it won't encode 60p.

Perrone,

Where do you find the Morgan codec in Vegas? I've downloaded the trial and installed it, but I can't find it in any of the render templates. ?? V10/64-bit

It's not a 64bit aware codec.

PicVideo also is only 32 bit, but Vegas-64bit can read the PicVideo files without installing any codec.

Can the files at least be read by Vegas-64bit?

Tech correction:

"Jpeg2000 is the core codec for Cineform, and REDRaw. It creates exceptionally good looking footage with file sizes similar to H.264 at good bit rates. "

CineForm is not JPEG2000 based (although REDRaw is), CineForm shares the wavelet nature and quality goals of JPEG2000, but is 5-8 times less compute intensive than JPEG2000. We encode and decoder much faster.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

Ok David,

Thanks for clearing that up. I knew you were wavelet and assumed (wrongly it appears) that you were J2K based.