In the project settings, try changing it from "progressive" to "interpolate." Also, your project settings should be set to what the footage actually is. If you want the footage to end up being 720x480 that happens when you render.

jabloom, I'm talking about rendering, not previewing video while editing.

Darth, I've fooled with all of the possible settings you speak of, from the project settings to the file properties itself and, save for a few different interlacing settings, the BEST jpg you see is what it looks like. Clearly, wouldn't you say that the render under the PREVIEW setting looks to be the best by far?

You definitely, under NO circumstances, want to Render using Preview. Do not do it.

Ever.

You are being misled by the way in which you are viewing the results. Preview throws away half the fields (half the resolution). Thus, you are getting half the quality.

The ghosting you are seeing in Best mode is due to viewing the result on a progressive display. Both interlaced fields are shown at the same moment in time, creating the ghosting. You should instead show the results in an interlaced display, or else deinterlace. I highly recommend the former solution.

So, unless you want to throw away half of the resolution, don't ever use Preview. If you are rendering to the same resolution as the original, use Good; otherwise, use Best.

How do I de-interlace the video then? The "deinterlace" option under the Project Settings doesn't do anything.

Whaaat the fx

Don’t tell me that the preview affects the render !!!!! I know that if you use Boris as a plug then render must be set to best because that’s the data that Boris gets .SO what is render using preview where is it . I just render settings in render tab and never worry about preview it is always on crappy.

Worried Rory

Also, I don't think the "ghosting" is completely due to the interlacing. I started a project in 24p, and I rendered some 3D images in 3D Studio max, with camera flybys etc. with the exact motion blur I was happy with. I rendered that in 24p as well. BEST still adds additional ghosting, whereas PREVIEW does not. How and why in the world is it doing this?

Don’t tell me that the preview affects the render !!!!! I

This thread got confusing from the start. The poster is talking about the Render settings, not the settings in the preview window used to watch video on the timeline. That setting (the one in the preview windows) has nothing to do with how the video is rendered or on the quality of the final rendered video.

As to de-interlacing, it has to be done outside of Vegas. I've never understood why people want to do it, but you can certainly search these boards if you want to have a go. Remember that the process of deinterlacing will definitely degrade the resulting video. The only way it will ever look as good as the original is to view it the way it was intended, namely on an interlaced display.

Just watch it on your TV set and enjoy.

If your 24p has pulldown applied that'll happen for certain.
Reason is the pulldown creates some frames with a field from one frame and the other field from the next frame.

Bob.

Well, the problem I'm having is clarity on fast moving images. When I render a hand held chase scene that me and my friends did on PREVIEW, the fast moving and sometimes shakey camera is crystal clear. When rendered on BEST, the ghost images from the previous and next frame make it such a blurry mess that sometimes it's completely impossible to tell what's going on. I'm still not convinced that PREVIEW deletes an entire field because I made a photoshop image that has a few 1 pixel lines across it. I rendered it in both PREVIEW and BEST and they are identical. See for yourself. If PREVIEW was deleting any lines (I was sure to put some on even numbered pixels and some on odd numbered ones) then you'd clearly see the difference. But.... you don't. Further proof is the fact that BEST adds ghosting to my progressive scan 3DSMAX renders in my progressive scan project with the same exact frames per second.

http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST_PREVIEW.jpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST_BEST.jpg

This is getting interesting.
I just tried to repo your problem with some footage from my EX1 downscaling it to 16:9 SD. Now my eyesight needs a lot of assistance these days I'll admit but still...I can't see any difference between the rendered SD DV if I render at Best or Preview!

If it hadn't been for this thread I'd never in my wildest dreams have thought to even try this because what is hugely different is the friggin render times. I suspect that as the source footage is already of such high res then throwing away half of it before downscaling doesn't matter but it should. This needs more work.

Bob.

"Well, the problem I'm having is clarity on fast moving images."

I would suspect this has more to do with the cam (rolling shutter) and the way mpeg compression works rather than anything else. It sounds like this is happening only with fast moving scenes. Most consumer grade HDV cams along with the mpeg compression have a bit of trouble keeping up with fast moving scenes and even fast pans. Your preview render is in effect "enhancing" the video by getting rid of some bad info that the cam had a bit of trouble in shooting.

Did you look at the screen grabs?

Perhaps "clarity" was a poor choice of works as the images are quite clear. There's just more than one of them. No rolling shutter causes that and it's nothing even remotely like mpeg-2's macroblocking.

Bob.

Here are some more tests. All come from the source 3DSMAX render (which I've uploaded), which is in 24p (you can't render 23.976 in 3DSMAX). The results are interesting. When I have the Vegas Project Settings in 24p, BEST looks identical (save for a few contrast issues) to the original 3DSMAX render. Once the project is in 23.976 (what I have to render in for DVD, WMV, or any other practical usable video file) BEST adds ghosting, whereas PREVIEW looks identical to the BEST that was rendered in 24p. I also uploaded mpeg2 renders of a couple seconds for comparison. In the vids, you can definitely see the increased blurriness from BEST in 23.976, which makes it more confusing to look at.

http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_3DSMAX_24p.jpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_VEGAS_PREVIEW_23.976.jpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_VEGAS_BEST_23.976.jpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_VEGAS_BEST_24p.jpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_VEGAS_PREVIEW_23.976.mpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_VEGAS_BEST_23.976.mpg
http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST2_VEGAS_BEST_24p.mpg

All thoughts are welcome!

EDIT: If you are having trouble saving the mpg files, you can simply go to http://www.christilton.com/blogs/ and browse the directory to right click on the actual files.

I suspect that Vegas is resampling the video because you are going from 24 to 23.976. Try making sure that you have resampling disabled.

Mark

Disabling Resampling makes it even worse, as the ghosting is still there, plus you see the interlacing.

http://www.christilton.com/blogs/TEST3_RESAMPLE_OFF_BEST.jpg

Just looking at these two shots, I'm not particularly surprised. To recreate your steps:

--You are shooting 1080i, 29.97, interlaced
--You are dropping it into a psuedo NTSC-SD project (480P)
----Vegas resizes (resamples) your interlaced footage immediately. First step.
----In Preview mode it doesn't interpolate the new footage
----In Best mode it uses Bicubic interpolation to resize the image, doing it's best to preserve both the upper and lower fields.

You probably should be seeing much more of a blur in the Best shot. Does your camera automatically step up the shutter rate to compensate for bright light? This is what my DV camera does and I have to manually lock it to a 60th of a second and then screw an ND filter to the lens.

You probably need to take some other approach with your footage. Either set you project to Interlaced and then render in the end to progressive, or maybe prerender your 1080i footage as 480p and then add it to the project. Maybe this is something that Gearshift can do for you.

Off to a shoot now. Good luck.

Rob Mack

What you say makes sense, and it also explains why my 24p rendered footage gets interpolated when put into a 23.976 project. However, I still don't understand why it has to look so damn messy! Even if Preview is half res (which I'm still not convinced it is), it still makes fast moving things much clearer and sharper than Vegas doing its damnedest to resample the image "properly." This is all of course when using my Sony HC3 (1080i) and my Canon TX1 (720p).

I noticed that if I set my project at 59.940 (double NTSC), the problem no longer exists and it looks great. Are there any drawbacks to rendering 29.97 projects from a 59.940 project?

Could you post two files (use www.yousendit.com if you don't have a place to post -- they accept up to 100 MBytes for free)?

1. The VEG file for the project that is causing problems.
2. 1-2 seconds of original footage. The simple way to get this is to just queue the camcorder to the place where there is lots of motion, and then start capture and then immediately stop capture.