Panasonic TM700 and Vegas -studies in rendering

MTuggy wrote on 12/22/2010, 10:41 PM
I received my TM700 today (Merry Christmas!!) and of course, opened it right up as it is a business expense ya know.

Anyway, I wanted to do some rendering tests to see if the 60p recording is any different than the 60i mode when you edit it and render it out.

Here is what I have done so far, I'd welcome other experimenters to figure out what is the best workflow to get the most out of the footage captured in 60p

First - you can really just drag and drop the file right from the camcorder memory to your PC, then drop it right into Vegas. Sweet. Then I set up the project to match the video clip (1920 x 1080, 60p). Then I started rendering.

MP4 - both 1080p and 720p had slight motion artifact (ghosting) on panning sections of the video

I tried using an MXF intermediate (1080-60p) then re-rendered the 720p file with slightly less artifact (ghosting)

Here is the best part though - when rendering out to Blu-Ray (25Mbps) .2mv format, it was smooth as silk, no motion artifact at all. (I did turn off Smart Resample though on the clip properties).

Next I'll try turning off smart resampling on all renders and see if the ghosting goes away. More later.

Mike

Comments

MTuggy wrote on 12/22/2010, 11:08 PM
OK, the only improvement with taking resampling off was with the m2v file format. The MP4's were no better.

I captured some HA 60i HD footage (first step down from 60p) at it rendered out perfectly in MP4 format. Thus is appears going from 60p to 30p (MP4) isn't all that great but rendering to a BD format (60i) m2v file preserves the smoothness of the original 60p format.

Slow motion from 60p is very clear in the MP4's I rendered (which are all 30p) but there wasn't much motion to distort anything. More tests...

Mike
CClub wrote on 12/23/2010, 4:20 AM
Mike,
I just picked up a TM700 recently also... I've recorded several test events in 60p but haven't yet worked with it in Vegas. Just a question: the ghosting that you see... these problems weren't seen in the original clips you copied to your computer and not in the m2v versions. But you lose the 60p when going to Blu-Ray, correct? Did you try wmv, avi? Which codec did you use for the mp4... Sony or MainConcept?
MTuggy wrote on 12/23/2010, 8:17 AM
You are right that I don't see ghosting in the original 60p file on playback - it really only has been with the Sony AVC MP4 format. I rendered my test clips out in MainConcept and they look smooth when I played them back on another machine.

Must be the MP4 format or my computer's ability to play it back (it's been acting like it might die soon...). I'll be testing the rendered files on my work machine today - it may all be a playback issue.

I did render to full HD wmv - some motion artifact noted just like the MP4's.

More info by this evening.
Mike
LoTN wrote on 12/23/2010, 9:58 AM
Hello Mike,

In another forum, I lurked a thread related to some people working on the best way to render TM700 50p footage with minimal quality loss (visual controls and observations made in a dedicated HC room).

The outcome is they had to use the x264 codec and some specific settings in order to avoid any banding, detail loss or motion smoothness alteration

Some info that may be of some interest for you is here.
LReavis wrote on 12/23/2010, 12:43 PM
I just received my second TM700 yesterday (for 2-cam studio shots), and sometimes have rendered out to H.264 - usually using Sony's codec. I don't remember seeing any ghosting, but most tests show the X264 codec gives a much better image for the same number of bytes.

Here's something I copied from somewhere that may help:

"Using Handbrake for H264
-- Start with a 720 30p 8-bit project in Vegas.
-- Render to DNxHD setting the colorspace to 709, and using a 720p 8-bit template.
-- Take the DNxHD into Handbrake, and render using x264, 720p."

I haven't tried it yet with the files produced by the TM700, so who knows?