How do I render at 4:2:2?

craftech wrote on 4/8/2006, 10:57 AM
In another post DSE suggested rendering an avi at 4:2:2 if I wanted to try letting DVDA encode the Mpeg2. Problem is that I don't see an option for this.

There is no 4:2:2 or YUV or Sony Codec in the drop down lists. I am using Vegas 4d

Is there a way to do this. Am I overlooking something. Can I download something to try it that will integrate into Vegas 4?

John

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/8/2006, 11:21 AM
I believe the SONY YUV codec was added in a later release of version 5. You could render uncompressed AVI and get 4:4:4. You may also want to try huffYUV (something like that, anyway) which i believe does 4:2:2. It's a free download that is direct show compatible, so it will be available as a compression option for AVI in Vegas.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/8/2006, 11:28 AM
Wow, I just realized I still have V4 installed. I opened it up and looked to see what codecs are available.

As you probably know -- since you know more about this than I do -- in the Render As dialog, you can choose "Save As Type" and then select "Video for Windows" and finally, click on the Custom tab. You then click on the Video tab in the Custom Template dialog. When you click on the "Video format" list box, you should see all the codecs installed. On my computer I see two codecs, one free, and the other only $19, that might do what you want. The first is the HUFFYYUV codec, and the other is the MainConcept MJPEG codec. I tried briefly to find out if these two encode in 4:2:2 colorspace. I couldn't find the answer (although I am pretty sure that HUFFYUV is 4:2:2). However, even if they can't, you can find one that does, and once you install it, you should be able to access it in V4 in the manner I described above.

craftech wrote on 4/8/2006, 12:09 PM
The first is the HUFFYYUV codec, and the other is the MainConcept MJPEG codec. I tried briefly to find out if these two encode in 4:2:2 colorspace. I couldn't find the answer (although I am pretty sure that HUFFYUV is 4:2:2). However, even if they can't, you can find one that does, and once you install it, you should be able to access it in V4 in the manner I described above.
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I checked as well and it didn't say whether HuffYuv was 4:2:2 or 4:4:4. After checking which version there were the least problems with I downloaded and installed version 2.1.1 so I'll give that a shot. It now shows up in the dropdown list.
Hopefully it won't be as huge as uncompressed avi. Thanks for the quick responses.

I take it the Sony YUV inf codec file is not available for download?

John
riredale wrote on 4/8/2006, 12:41 PM
I think one of HuffYUV's claims to fame is that it is lossless. To me that implies it exactly encodes and decodes whatever quality was present in the original.

I have played with it a bit, since I need some format that can take the 1080 original into VirdualDub (in order to use Deshaker) and then back to Vegas again. HuffYUV does it fine, and it's a LOT smaller than uncompressed 1080.

EDIT: Some modes but not all are lossless...
craftech wrote on 4/8/2006, 5:10 PM
HuffYUV does it fine, and it's a LOT smaller than uncompressed 1080.
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I just maxed out my hard drive with Huffy and Vegas shut down after hours of rendering at 75% because of lack of space. It doesn't seem to take up any less space than uncompressed avi. I was under the impression it would.

John
johnmeyer wrote on 4/8/2006, 6:31 PM
Two things. First, I verified (at least I think I verified -- I can never quite trust stuff on the Internet) that HuffYUV is 4:2:2.

Second, I rendered a seven second NTSC SD DV clip to uncompressed, to a DV AVI file, and then to HuffYUV. 
DV AVI: 26.9MB

HuffYUV: 78.2MB

Uncompressed: 294.0MB
This is pretty much what I would have expected, namely that HuffYUV is better than 3:1 compared to uncompressed. I was using version 2.1.1 (I could never get 2.2 to work), and have "Predict Gradient" set for both compression methods. I also have both "RGB" options checked (always suggest RGB ... and Enable RGBA ...).

I quickly did a test using compression other than "predict gradient," and the file sizes were quite a bit bigger, although the render went faster.

craftech wrote on 4/9/2006, 6:48 AM
I rendered a seven second NTSC SD DV clip to uncompressed, to a DV AVI file, and then to HuffYUV.
DV AVI: 26.9MB
HuffYUV: 78.2MB
Uncompressed: 294.0MB
This is pretty much what I would have expected, namely that HuffYUV is better than 3:1 compared to uncompressed
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First off thanks for doing that John,

I don't doubt that the codec takes up less space than uncompressed. My problem is that I have two 120GB drives nearly filled with the clips from this project. It is that complex so I only have about 35 GB left on each drive. To render project number one (which is one hour long) to Huffy I need more space than that and I can't really remove anything from either of the drives because they are all necessary for the two projects.

I guess I could try it again using the "predict gradient" option. I really do want to try an intermediate 4:2:2 render and then let DVDA encode the Mpeg2 from that rather than going direct from the timeline in Vegas just to compare the two.

Have you tried comparing the file size of the Sony YUV codec included in Vegas 5-6 with the above? Just curious about that.

Thanks again,

John

Edit: I see Paul Holmes posted the answer in the other thread and linked to the comparison test page here.