Thanks, I'm in V21 still as 22 won't let me render without crashing.
Properties read full range as intended.I tried adjusting the levels plugin but couldn't fine tune it to pulling the blacks back up without affecting highs and mids. I'll then probably have to adjust the main out with either colorfast2 or the CG panel.

Something is wrong here, I'm not seeing issues with similar Sony footage (though I work in 21.208 and not newer builds).

Could you share screenshots of the project with waveform scopes and the same point in the rendered file brought back into VEGAS also with scopes?

Is this what you meant?

project in 8bit full .......................project in 32bit



reimported render in 8bit full ........reimported render in 32 bit

EDIT: I think you found the issue. I rechecked the properties and it actually does read "undefined". I now batch changed all the media to "full", but the issue persists. hings look fine in Vegas but there are crushed blacks in the render. I might have gotten things wrong on this issue for ages...I used to work and render in 8 bit full when not using LOG and LUTs, and there wysiwyg.
Could it be that Vegas gets confused with LOG footage, and that the LUT filter can't seem to define the color range?
 

Thanks for doing the test, we're getting somewhere. The undefined metadata is a known issue with 21.300+ (fixed in 22).

In scopes studio RGB is unchecked?

The first two clips look good- 8-bit full and 32-bit full (view transform off) are matching nicely. 32-bit full render looks similar. The 8-bit render has crushed blacks. Just to check you have compositing gamma set to 2.2 for 32-bit full to match 8 bit full?

Here's what happens with a LUT Fx if the gamma is set differently:

Thanks! As I work in 32bit video levels, gamma is greyed out and set to 2.2 by default.Yes studio RGB is unchecked.
I ended up using the color curves plugin to limit the black levels to slightly above zero, and that finally worked.

You can't work in both 32-bit video and 8-bit full and expect they'd look the same. You'd work in 32-bit full with view transform off.
Edit: alternatively you can work in 8-bit video and do the levels changes to full and back manually.

I guess I worded that wrong. I "work", meaning edit in 8 bit for preview speed, then switch to 32 video levels just for the export. In 8 bit, what I render looks like what I work with. In 32 video levels, I need to apply the levels limiter. I'm a bit slow sometimes, but I think I'm starting to get it...

I understand what you mean but not why you are continuing to choose mismatched project settings.

Try 8-bit video/32-bit video if you want to handle levels conversions by hand (full range footage and photos are WYSIWYG but anything in video levels needs to be converted to full to match the other footage).

Otherwise if you want VEGAS to do levels conversions, 8-bit full/32-bit full (with view transform off) will also match.

Yes, I get it now. My brain didn't quite compute for some reason.

Sorry to everyone for jumping in and slightly hijacking this thread. 😬

I'm using Vegas 20 (22 crashing) and working with GoPro Source that is Full Levels. Vegas sees it as Full, as does Media Info.

But my render output using the Internet UHD 2160p 59.94 fps (AMD VCE) template is 16-235.

I have the project set to 8 Bit Full. I have tried the Studio RGS to Computer RGB plugin, but it seems to make no difference.

I thought I understood Levels but apparently not .... ugh. I probably don't need full, but I'm trying to experiment with YouTube, mostly for better understanding.

So confused. Any help greatly appreciated!

Steve

@stevecrye I think you're doing everything right until the end. Use 8-bit full, use the provided render template and render legal 16-235 range footage. You're done.

The manual levels correction is only needed for 8-bit video projects as VEGAS won't automatically squeeze the levels from full in that mode. I don't see why you'd want to do this by hand, especially if you find it confusing.

...

I thought I understood Levels but apparently not .... ugh. I probably don't need full, but I'm trying to experiment with YouTube, mostly for better understanding.

So confused. Any help greatly appreciated!

 

Steve

 

@stevecrye YouTube expects uploads to be renders in limited range and boosts them to full range even if they're already full range. You can experience that by forcing Vegas to render full range by changing a parameter in the render template which by default is set to limited range and uploading the full-range render to YouTube. The render template parameter is on its Project tab.

This whole thing about levels has been quite confusing - well for me and by some comments from other users in general. My video camera (Sony AX700) has 10 picture profiles where you can adjust a range of settings which allow you to take your footage in log or what you see is what you get. I prefer the latter so there tends to be less post processing to deliver the image I want. Limited range is not what I shoot in and my settings deliver 0-255 and I want to keep this range. So my project template settings include 8 bit full range and initially when my rendered output used H264 my rendered template had full colour selected in the render template tab. In V22 this provided rendered output that accurately matched the preview window - great as when editing you knew what results you were going to get, happy days. I spent some time a few months ago moving to the new replacement for H265 (which was never my favourive render option) AV1. Using variours metrics I settled on VBR bit rates with AV1 of 53 ave and 106 max to give virtually 99% match rendered output to input. Great achieved fantastic quality at smaller files sizes with AV1. In V22 magix AV1 template produced a lower quality output than the now depreciated free Voukoder. Magix have acknowledged this now and have improved it in V23 (if you can get it to accept your settings without crashing with unknown error). With free Voukoder not available in V23 the best - albeit paid alternative is Happy Otter (HOS) Render+ which has just been updated to work with V23. So going back to the levels issue I find that 8 bit full range is rendered in HOS with default settings (AV1 NVENC) produces increased brightness, saturation and black levels. This can be corrected by changing a default setting to limied range, giving perfect match of the rendered video to the Vegas preview window - confusing? This issue has been discussed here: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/happy-otter-scripts-for-vegas-pro--113922/?page=50#ca944068

Now to V23, myself and other users quickly found that V23 is using some sort of colour transformation setting where the default setting means that setting 8 bit full range does not change the preview window display. So changing from full to limited range is not evident in preview. Confusing? Luckily you can change two settings in the V23 internal menu to disable this behaviour and bring back changes in preview if you change from limited to full range. Maybe someone who fully understands all this could make a sticky to explain all these differences.