I'm trying to repo the problem as described in the original thread and not having any joy. I found the original thread somewhat confusing and to contain what seemed like bad assumption hence my effort to first try to reproduce the problem and then under the same test case see if it had been fixed.

My results so far using V9 and V10, latest builds, 32 bit version, show no problem.
Interlacing is preserved to the preview monitor. I assume from the information provided I should see the problem without rendering and I do not. I tried changing the Child's De-interlace method, no difference. I tried nesting the HD child into a SD parent, still no problem.

I just repeated the same using V11 build 683 64 bit and still no problem noted.
I stuck with the previous build of V11 to ensure I was replicating the issue, no joy.

All these test were done at 50i.
Test case projects are here zipped up. The test cases uses only generated media for small size and to overtly display interlacing.

Bob.

"I assume from the information provided I should see the problem without rendering "

No, it has been observed AFTER render. I do say that?

G

"

Indeed but reading back throught the original thread it was also said it is observed during preview. From that I logically assumed there's nothing to be gained by rendering it.

If that's bad info in the old thread then of course I will try rendering it.

Bob.

OK, so I just tried using V11 with my test project setup so the parent downscales to 16:9 SD and rendered out a 16:9 PAL SD AVI file.
Opened a new copy of V11 Build 683 and examined the footage.
V11 reports the media as being interlaced and it looks interlaced to me with lots of very overt interlace combing on the black ball that is flying around the frame.

So, sorry I still cannot repo the problem.

I did previously follow the link in the original post labelled "Here's a method for checking" and that gave me this to read:

"The only conversion happens when previewing or rendering. IF the project is set to progressive & the render is progressive then it's progressive. Technically, the project ONLY effects the preview, you can have a progressive video marked as interlaced in the media properties, the project set to interlaced & render to progressive, it shouldn't make any changes (unless you have a deinterlace method setup). Progressive/interlaced is just something for the playback device, it doesn't change the file at all."

Sorry but I have no idea how that is going to help anyone "check" anything, I don't even know what it's intended to help them check and there's no mention of a method at all.

What I can add that may help anyone trying to work through this issue is the following:

It is quite difficult with the latest versions of Vegas to tell if footage is interlaced or progressive.
Preview monitor set to Best / Full.
Disable Scale Video.
Disable Adjust Size and Quality.....

Bob.

More results, now I think I'm getting somewhere.

I rendered my test subject as Sony MXF, so now I have that as 1920x1080 50i.

Open V11 again, drag MXF onto T/L. Project set as 50i HD, check Preview monitor, all good I see interlace combing. Same this as ChildV11.

Open new V11 project, drag ChildV11 onto T/L, all good still interlaced.

OK, it will not break, so lets try something else.

Previously referenced post says:

"The only conversion happens when previewing or rendering. IF the project is set to progressive & the render is progressive then it's progressive. Technically, the project ONLY effects the preview, you can have a progressive video marked as interlaced in the media properties, the project set to interlaced & render to progressive, it shouldn't make any changes (unless you have a deinterlace method setup). Progressive/interlaced is just something for the playback device, it doesn't change the file at all."

Maybe that's a hint????

If I change the ChildV11 project to Progressive and Specify Interpolate then yippy I see the fields being blended into a grey area where the bacl ball has moved.

Save that, open new V11 project, set is as 1920x1080 50i.
Drag Progressive Child onto T/L.
Looks good to me, I still see the fields as blended i.e. the child project is doing as it's told and "rendering" progressive to the parent.

The only problem I guess is someone hasn't understood this is how it should work.
I've used this fact several times, it's great because that's how it works in After Effects, a child comp delivers "frames" to a higher level comp according to the child's comp's settings. In AE one can also render a comp to a new file and a parent will use that instead of the child comp. Obviously there'd be blood on the walls at Adobe if the precomp wasn't the same as the comp.

Given that V12 adds an Export to AE option I would hope SCS have left things as they've been to keep Vegas in line with the rest of the world. If they haven't I'm glad I haven't already parted with my $139 :)

Bob.

I created a MXF video clip 1920x1080 25p with 20pt text in it.
Text is crisp and sharp.
Opened up a 320x240 25p V11 project, dropped the HD text file into that.
As expect the text is now a fur ball.
Save that as a child project.

Opened a new V11 HD project, 1920x1080 25p and nested previous uber low res project into that.

As expected text is still a fur ball, sanity prevails, the child's project settings still rule, not only in regards to interlacing but also resolution.

BUT...there is here something wierd going on.

V11 only partially scales the 320x240 to 1920x1080 in the HD parent. This is not good, it should either scale it completely or not at all. This probably is a bug.

Bob.

After a well earned sleep I woke to find an extremely helpfull email in my Inbox. The only bad news is I wasted an hour the night before playing a shell and pea game trying to discover what the real issue is.

The real issue of concern is very clearly stated here.
This IS cause for concern, this should NOT happen.

Starting from square one I have again attempted to repo this problem using V11 build 683. I created a HD 50i AVCHD video file using my previously shared little project, then followed the exact steps to produce a MC DVDA SD PAL Widescreen mpeg-2 file from it and checked the outcome. V11 reports the rendered file as Interlaced and the monitor clearly shows the correct interlace combing.

In the interests of trying to get right to the bottom of this I repeated the same tests using V10e 64 and again cannot reproduce the problem, the resultant mpeg-2 file is flagged as interlaced and shows the correct temporal resolution. One additional thing I did note doing this test is the de-interlace method specified in the Parent project has an impact on the outcome. If set to None then horrid artifacts are found on the Preview screen and in the rendered file. Changing it to Interpolate yields an artifact free render and Preview.

The ONLY possible variation that may exist between my tests and the test case posted on COW is I used 50i and I suspect the poster there may have used 60i.

Until someone can contribute some concrete information I'm done chasing ghosts.

If anyone needs some help trying to reproduce this problem I am of course willing to provide as much information as I can. If anyone has any results of their own to contribute please speak up, if this problem is real it needs to be fixed or verified as being fixed pronto.

Bob.

Update.

Following on from a number of private conversations I went back and more carefully checked my results. I found one rendered out file that did display the problem but I wasn't certain how it was created. Back to square one again.

This time same test case but so far only using V10e / 64.
Three different variants.

1) Parent de-interlace method set to None.
2) Parent de-interlace method set to Blend.
3) Parent de-interlace method set to Interpolate.
Examination of the three rendered out 16:9 SD PAL mpeg-2 files using Double PAL (50fps) to examine each field gave the following:

1) PsF. Both fields are identical
2) Interlaced
3) Interlaced

This would seem to account for some users saying they've seen the problem but can't repo it and others saying they cannot get around the problem. The key is the parent project's de-interlace method setting. Using None produces other problems as well so this problem doesn't seem much of a show stopper in reality.

Bob.

I checked here in 10.0e 32-bit and no problems. All is as it should be.

John Meyer suggested to me outside the forum that this is affecting 60i material only, so I did some more testing and that looks like that's the case. My previous tests were just on 50i material.

Here's the testing I've done so far, also showing which ones John Meyer has so far confirmed:

Everything at Best (Full) preview
Everything "Interpolate fields"
MPEG2 template I used was "DVD Architect NTSC widescreen"

8.0c
Preview of nested file - OK
PAL DV to PAL DV - OK
PAL DV to MPEG2 - OK (Confirmed - Meyer)
1080-50i HDV to SD MPEG2 - OK (Confirmed - Meyer)
1080-50i AVCHD (made from HDV) to SD MPEG2 - OK
1080-60i HDV to NTSC DV - OK
1080-60i HDV to SD MPEG2 - OK (Confirmed - Meyer)

10.0e
Preview of nested file - OK
PAL DV to PAL DV - OK
PAL DV to MPEG2 - OK (Confirmed - Meyer)
1080-50i HDV to SD MPEG2 - OK (Confirmed - Meyer)
1080-50i AVCHD (made from HDV) to SD MPEG2 - OK
1080-60i HDV to SD MPEG2 not via nested project - OK (Confirmed - Meyer)
1080-60i HDV to NTSC DV - NOT OK - renders progressive (Confirmed - Meyer)
1080-60i HDV to SD Lagarith - NOT OK - renders progressive

Nasty bug which must have caught out a lot of people.

"John Meyer suggested to me outside the forum that this is affecting 60i material only, so I did some more testing and that looks like that's the case. My previous tests were just on 50i material."

Nick,
no, see my previous post. I can repo the problem with 50i material.
The key seems to be the de-interlace method of the Parent Project.

There's another porblem though. It looks like both Blend and Interpolate produce the same outcome .i.e. Blend.

Bob.

OK Bob so, yes, I get the same results as you. If the parent deinterlace method is set to none then I get progressive output. But I also get identical progressive output if I render the file directly, without nesting. So in the 50i case it's not a problem related to nesting but rather related to using "none", which we've known for a long time is a bad idea when downscaling interlaced footage. I also get this exact same behaviour in 8.0c, either nested or not, so it's nothing new. The 60i problem in my previous post however does appear to be newer than 8.0c and does appear to be related to nesting.

And yes, use of "blend" or "interpolate" gives the same output as each other in all these downscaling scenarios.

Regarding the testing... a potential gotcha.... Make sure you are well zoomed in on your timeline when you preview frame by frame to judge if the output is interlaced or not. If you are zoomed out then use of the left and right arrow keys can skip frames and make it appear that you have interlaced footage when in fact you haven't.

Does any one know if Vegas 12 has this bug?

Jerry K

"Does any one know if Vegas 12 has this bug?"

Why do you think it is a bug?

Bob.

"And yes, use of "blend" or "interpolate" gives the same output as each other in all these downscaling scenarios."

I'm not certain what the implications of this are. Certainly it means the fields are no longer as separate as they were originally. In my synthetic test case this is quite obvious however the footage has no motion blur which would hide the frame blending.

This "issue" really is at the point where we need SCS to say something. It could be intended behavior.

Looks like I need to purchase V12 so I can test this on it, maybe if it's still an issue SCS might consider talking to us.

Bob.

Why do I call it a bug?

Here's why. I shoot and edit avchd 1920x1080 60i with Sony Vegas 10e 64 bit. If I render my avchd clips from the timeline to main-concept mp2 720x480 interlace the render comes out interlaced. No problem. If I nest that same avchd project into a new timeline and render that out the same way the mp2 container checks out as interlace using Media-info but the mp2 footage is progressive. I call this a software bug with in Vegas 10e.

Jerry K

"I call this a software bug with in Vegas 10e."

What de-interlace method is specified in the parent project?

Bob.

Sony Vegas 10e Project Properties:

I use Match Media Setting:
It comes up as:
1920x1080
UFF
1,000 square
29.970 (NTSC)
Pixel Format: 8-bit
Best
Gaussian
interpolate fields

Render As Panel:
Main Concept MPEG-2
DVD Architect NTSC wide
Video: 29.970 fps, 720x480 Lower field first, YUV, 8 Mbps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.212

I use these settings for rendering the footage or the nested video from the timeline.
I always make sure I save the veg file with these settings.

Jerry K

Don't you have two projects, the child and the parent?
Are the settings the same in both?

Bob the settings I use when editing/rendering my avchd 60i footage or nested footage are the same.

Jerry K

I created a 60i version of my 1 sec test case footage as AVCHD.
Put that on the T/L of a compliant V10e project, De-interlace method = Interpolate, saved that as Child.veg.
Created new project same as above, put Child.veg onto T/L and rendered it out as 60i mpeg-2.
Bought that clip into a new NTSC DV Widescreen project, changed frame rate to Double NTSC and looked at it frame by frame. Actually I'm now looking at it field by field.

The file is not "progressive". There is movement between every field. It also isn't exactly Interlaced either!
I find one field contains the clean black ball, probably produced by Interpolation.
The next field contains the same as the previous except only the odd/even lines AND the even/odd lines of the current field. This is a pretty bad mashup.

Certainly the nesting process is not transparent, combine that with the complications of scaling interlaced footage and I'm not certain just what is going on here.

Bob.

Bob I agree with you. There's possibly some interlace but the first few times I nested and rendered out to DVD and view it on my 46" HDTV I noticed immediately during camera pans and other movement in the video the footage looked more like 30p.

Keep in mind if you check the mpeg-2 container with media info it checks out as interlace but the footage I believe is mostly progressive or something like it.

What I would like to know is this problem also in Vegas Pro 12?

Jerry K