Mixed formats mess. Need some help.

ddm wrote on 5/22/2010, 8:17 PM
Ok, I'm editing a 4 camera concert and i've run in to a bit of a problem. I've got 4 cameras and they're all different formats. (don't ask) I have 1 sony 1080i camera, 1 sony SD widescreen, 1 Panasonic hvx200 720/24p, and a Panasonic HCM150 720p/24. The hvx files I converted to avid dnxhd 720p/24 and it looks like it did the conversion properly. My finished product will be an SD DVD. So I've started an SD Widescreen project in Vegas (9.0e) 60i, and all was looking good as I was previewing in "Preview/Auto", when I switched to "Best" preview the 720p footage took a huge hit, interlacing nightmare. Hmmm. I have played with the "interlace method" settings but none seem to help at all. I can get some satisfaction by switching to an hdv 720p template, the SD footage is uprezzed, but no worse for the wear, but then the 1080i footage goes real soft. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. Should I convert the files separately to a single format? Not sure why that would make a difference. I did make a dvd of the HCM150 footage a few weeks ago, from a 720p/24 project, I rendered a 24p mpeg 2 file and then burned that with DVDA, DVDA rerendered it to 30 frame but the footage still looked pretty good, no interlacing artifacts, anyway. Any ideas would be most welcomed.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 5/22/2010, 8:23 PM
You need not concern yourself with how the files look relative to each other in the Preview. You have chosen to create a Project in compliance with your Render, which is what I would do in such a "format salad" situation.

What you need to do is render a short version containing all four formats to SD DVD, since you have stated that will be your output format. Be sure to select "Stretch video to match output" and "Best" quality in your Render Settings to bypass slight formatting differences during render.

Then, by playing on the output device of your choice, you can draw some proper conclusions and proceed from there. A DVD disc costs 50 cents.
ushere wrote on 5/22/2010, 10:43 PM
and if 50cnts is too much, use a rewritable ;-)
ddm wrote on 5/23/2010, 12:26 AM
Ok. Good Idea, and I've got a boatload of disks that were only 20 cents each. So i've burned 2, one with blended and one with interleave, seem to look identical, none look as bad as in "Best/Full" preview. That was disturbing.

The 720p/24 stuff still doesn't look quite as good as I wish it did, the original stuff is gorgeous. Any other settings I might try?

thanks for the suggestions, much appreciated. I burned the disks with the new burn timeline to dvd feature of 9e. Pretty darn convenient, but I'm not sure if it's rendering "best." I assume it is since that what the project is set to.
ushere wrote on 5/23/2010, 12:43 AM
i would be equally interested to know what the default burn from t/l settings are.

sorry i can't help with the 24 bit.

but i did the same sort of thing as a test - burn from t/l, then burn from render (at my settings).

there was some slight difference - probably bit rate, even though it was only a 15min program....