While installation did you let Mercali install the codec pack?

Thankyou both for the reply.

Yes, I was part of that thread but...
1) I'm a sound man and I found what you all were talking about confusing as all get-out.
2) I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was what you were talking about.
I thought a new thread was therefore appropriate.

As an aside. It seems easy to you because you know what you're doing. I've been there, in the deep forest where I ride my motorcycle, and someone I'm with doesn't know which game trail to take to get out. I find it inconceivable that they could have got there without instictively knowing how to get home.

So I need an sRGB <> cRGB template. Do I do do it s to c or c to s, the <> indicates I have a choice, I guess?
Ahh re-reading your post I see it depends where I am in the forest. :)
Well 1) I take my raw mp4 (fresh from my cam) and import it into Mercalli. There I shorten it as appropriate, perform the stabilisation, and then export as a mov.
2) Then I import the mov into vegas.

And I suppose I'm going to have to figure out how to use a template. I had hoped using one of those Fx thingies that Sony provides in Vegas would do the trick.

I did let Mercalli instal the codec pack.

At first I didn't install the codec pack, but when I ran into levels problems, I tried installing it to see if not installing it had something to do with the problem. I saw no difference with or without the codec pack. Whether you install the codec pack or not is up to you, but it won't affect this issue. I would probably recommend not installing it so as not to overwrite better quality codecs with what might be inferior ones.

Another thing, I would apply a cRGB to sRGB filter to the unprocessed MOV clips and leave the Mercalli processed ones alone (aside from whatever color correction or grading you want to add according to taste). The sRGB range that the Mercalli processed clips are in is the correct one.

I am of the opinion that Vegas is remapping the range of many (but not all) MOV clips from sRGB to cRGB range, but there is no agreement here about that. None-the-less, you want your video in the sRGB range and the processed video is closer to that than your source MOV clips.

So the washed out look of my mp4's processed by Mercalli is correct? (MP4's from GoPro processed into MOV's by Mercalli)

I don't like it, I like dark and deep.

Looks like I will just have to process the MOV's in Vegas by decreasing their brightness so they look closer to the original mp4's.

I just recreated what you are talking about. This is the first time I've seen Mercalli SAL v3 affecting the levels of a source that wasn't MOV. No, don't wash it out even more! This is going to do all sorts of damage to my theory!

OK, check this out. I've turned ProTune off because that just confuses things as to how Vegas is altering the levels.

Here are three situations with GoPro footage.

GoPro footage on a Vegas timeline:



Here is the same frame with a cRGB to sRGB filter added:



Now here is the same frame as processed by Mercalli SAL v3:



By the way, the pre and post Mercalli levels are the same if I import the video to Adobe Photoshop. They only look different in Sony Vegas!

It looks like my theory is back to being alive and well, except it is no longer just with MOV source clips. GoPro clips have their levels remapped as well!

Edit: This is with Mercalli set to output MP4 by the way. The MOV output of Mercalli sucks. In addition to being slow as anything on a Vegas timeline, it has significant banding issues where the output has obviously been unnaturally expanded.

I did this without Protune because Protune further compresses the levels from industry standard, and it is nowhere near as obvious what is going on if I use Protune. As far as the impact of Vegas and Mercalli on GoPro clips, with or without Protune it is the same.

I don't want to distract from the main topic but want to drop the note I tested 22 of the given Quicktime codecs and only two of them expanded the luma range from 16-235 to 0-255. That were H.261 and H.263 and those two already expanded the levels while the encode process.
None of the tested Quicktime codecs made Vegas Pro 12 to expand the given levels after importing the files though decoding were done by Quicktime here (Quicktime H.264 which is decoded by Sony AVC won't be affected by a remapping either).

So there is only a small chance a Quicktime video imported into Vegas Pro will be remapped. It's possible but unlikely and if so and if it's not H.261 or H.263 compression it's worth a closer look onto the installed Quicktime version.

Installing codec packs – as already mentioned here – could cause trouble by replacing properly working codecs in the whole Windows system (which can then even can restrain codecs inside Vegas Pro) so the common advice is to only install one certain codec if really needed and if given by a trustful resource.

Yes mov is very slow on the vegas timeline, but one other "WHAT!!" moment just occured - one of my mercalli mov clips on the timeline just disappeared from the preview window - it's still on the timeline (or was until I deleted it) and it was still in the pan/scan window. Just black in the preview window.
I redid the clip in mercalli to an mp4 and that is how I will do it from now on.

The level doesn't appear washed out with the mercalli mp4 either :)

The level doesn't appear washed out with the mercalli mp4 either :)

Put the Original above it and reduce the Event's Levels back and forth to confirm.

G

Ahh yes, there is a difference.
How do I get to post the 2 jpg screen shots here like you just did Laurance?

You have to post the pictures someplace else then link to them. I put them into a folder in my Dropbox "public" folder, then linked to them from there. You could also do it from a service like Flickr or Picasa.

Just to reiterate, there is no difference between the pre and post Mercalli files in Adobe. There is definitely some remapping going on. If it isn't being remapped in by Sony, it's being remapped by Adobe (in a way that looks to me like correction).

I would love if somebody who has Premier Pro could check the pre and post Mercalli levels and confirm this. My copy of Premier Pro (version 5) currently crashes on startup, so I just did my tests loading the video into Photoshop (which also processes video). In Photoshop, there is no difference between the pre and post Mercalli processed videos. I suspect that ProDAD's tech support is correct in saying that there is no difference in pre and post Mercalli videos in Premier Pro as well, but I would love to see that confirmed by someone on this forum.

The codec that is playing back both the native GoPro clips and the Mercalli processed clips is compoundplug which is a Sony dll. This problem doesn't appear to have been caused by the ProDAD codec pack. In order for it to have caused this, the ProDAD codec pack would have had to not only rewrite this codec, but also to keep the Sony name and identification of the original codec.

I now also installed Mercali V3 and did some tests. It's definitely Mercali which does a remap to some types of video formats including H.264 MP4 and uncompressed AVI. It pushes the levels from 0-255 to 16-235 (which also means it pushes levels from 16-235 to 32-218). Vegas Pro does not alter this signal anymore.
If you export from Vegas Pro as XDCAM EX or as HDV you will see Mercali won't remap these files.

OK here is the two screen shots...
Original:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/167714824/OriginalGoProMP4.jpg

Mercally stabilised:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/167714824/MercalliStabilisedMP4.jpg

OK, I found that dropbox stopped creating public folders by default in 2012, but they do still allow you to create one if you say pretty please :)
However the links above are just that, links, not the pictures that show up on your post above. Obviously there is still one more magic incantation for me to do.

The "public" folder in Dropbox is the only one you can share without an invite and acceptance of that invite. You also have to replace the "https" with "http". The "s" stands for "secure" and with that implace, you can't link an image.

> It's definitely Mercali which does a remap to some types of video formats including H.264 MP4 and uncompressed AVI.

It would have to be "Mercalli and Adobe and Cineform" for your statement to be correct. Vegas handles my Nikon and GoPro native files one way, the three of them (Mercalli, Photoshop, and Cineform) do it another. If Vegas is doing it correctly, then all three of those other companies must be doing the accidental remapping (and generating extra range data in the process).

Re Dropbox, if you don't have a "public folder", try this
upload the file to Dropbox, right-click it, share link, copy link from opening browser, paste link to your message.
Seems the new accounts no longer have a Public folder, but no need to provide email addresses.

For me the realization that native GoPro footage has the same issue pre and post Mercalli on a Vegas timeline is very interesting. Unlike DSLRs and Hybrid cameras, the GoPro doesn't have the processing onboard to put it's video in a specific range. It is not really either sRGB or cRGB. It is in the "wherever the levels happen to be" range. You can see that that is why they added the "Protune" mode in the first place. Because that gave the camera the extra range saved into the codec to compensate for this lack of aperture and processing control.

This is why the levels stretch that you see with the GoPro footage on a Vegas timeline is so telltale to me. Unlike the DSLR video range which is mostly neatly in the 16-235 range (with just a little bit outside of this and overshooting), with the GoPro, the range is not 0-255, but it's not quite 16-235 either. It's got lots of stuff in between. That is why it's so easy to see the expansion with the native GoPro footage. You can clearly see levels being expanded out and clipped on a Vegas timeline that are a lot more subtle with other formats.

Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention.

bdg's work:

Original Footage:


Mercally stabilised:


Grazie