Improving compression from Vegas

Gerko wrote on 1/30/2005, 12:27 AM

Hi there,

I'm just trialing some Vegas video and DVD Architect, and while I'm impressed with the audio output, I'm not getting as such good results with video. I'm rendering to MPEG-2 files, using high-quality, but the image quality on the DVD I produce isn't as sharp as what I get with Canopus Procoder using Edius. Is there a way I can improve on the video output off Vegas, or do I need other tools to get better quality video?

Cheers

Gerko

Comments

jaegersing wrote on 1/30/2005, 1:10 AM

Hi Gerko. I have the same programs that you have, but wouldn't agree that Edius output is generally better than Vegas. To state the obvious, the differences are due to either the video rendering (in Vegas/Edius) or the MPEG encoding.

The video quality after rendering depends mainly on what process and effects you have applied to the video. For example, resizing and slomo will usually make the image softer. If you want to compare the outputs from Vegas and Edius you would need to make sure similar processing is being done in both of them. I do not doubt you when you say that you have sharper images from Edius, but I have also seen many examples where the Edius output is softer than Vegas. It all depends on what is done to the video on the timeline.

You don't mention the MPEG bit rate you are using for encoding. Higher bit rates (>6Mbps) should give you good results with most encoders. Procoder really shines when it comes to low bit rates, so if this is what is causing your dissatisfaction, you could try frameserving into Procoder from the Vegas timeline. The link below has more info and there is a free download of Satish's frameserver program.

Richard Hunter

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