Render to be as smooth as original

gmanjapan wrote on 4/22/2010, 1:35 AM

I have Vegas 7 Pro and I'm trying to take an mp4 from a sony digital still camera and add a custom soundtrack.

The source mp4 is 1280x720 AVC 29.970fps progressive

I set the project format to the preset "HDV 720-30p (1280x720, 29.970 fps)"

Then I render as "MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4)" and I have video set to 1280x720, 10Mbps average 20Mbps max, 29.970 fps,

When it's done rendering and I playback the file it looks like its running at 15-20fps where as if I playback the original it's smooth as silk. This is not a issue of machine power. I have a very high end machine. This is a rendering issue. I'm not setting something correctly.

I've tried different bit rates. At 4meg per second I get a 70meg file. The original is 104meg. If I set it 50meg per second I get a 425meg file. Both rendered files playback exactly the same, both look about half the framerate as the original

Really I'd be happy if there was a way for me just to replace the soundtrack without recompressing the video but short of that, how do I get it to at least render as smoothly as the original?

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 4/22/2010, 3:54 AM

The problem may not be in the render, but in the playback.
How are you playing it back? In the Vegas timeline? On a software player?

Post your system specs.
Post your camera make and model.
Post all your original file details (download MediaInfo).
Post all your project settings.
Post all your render settings.
Upload a short sample of your original video.
Upload a short sample of your rendered video.

(Bob caught me in mid-edit).

farss wrote on 4/22/2010, 4:05 AM

"The problem is not in the render, but in the playback."

Are we really certain of this?

What I'd suggest doing is this, add the timecode FX to the original material, render it out and check frame by frame. I've seen the results of some tests which suggest Vegas can duplicate frames at random causing errors in motion.

Bob.

gmanjapan wrote on 4/22/2010, 11:23 PM

Here's the details and the videos

---------New Project Settings------
Video:
Width: 1280
Height: 720
Frame Rate: 29.970 (NTSC)
Field Order:None (progressive scan)
Pixel aspect ration: 1.0000 (Square)
Full-resolution rendering quality: Best
Motion blur type: Gaussian
Deinterlace Method: None

Audio:
Master bus mode: Stereo
Number of stereo busses: 0
Sample rate (Hz): 44,100
Bit depth: 16
Resample and stretch quality: Good

---------Source-Video----------------
General
Name: MAH00933.MP4
Folder: F:\share\source-video
Type: MainConcept AVC/AAC
Size: 8.05 MB (8,242,737 bytes)
Created: 2010/4/22, 22:54:05
Modified: 2010/4/23, 13:53:10
Accessed: 2010/4/22, 22:54:05
Attributes: Archive

Streams
Video: 00:00:10.511, 29.970 fps progressive, 1280x720x32, AVC
Audio: 00:00:10.496, 48,000 Hz, Stereo, AAC

ACID information
ACID chunk: no
Stretch chunk: no
Stretch list: no
Stretch info2: no
Beat markers: no
Detected beats: no

Other metadata
Regions/markers: no
Command markers: no

Media manager
Media tags: no

Plug-In
Name: mcmp4plug.dll
Folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Shared Plug-Ins\File Formats\MCMP4
Format: MainConcept AVC/AAC
Version: Version 1.0 (Build 686)
Company: Madison Media Software, Inc.

------Render As Settings----

File name: MAH00933-rendered.MP4
Save as type: MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4)

Project:
Video rendering quality: Best

video:
Frame size: (Custom frame size)
Width: 1280
Height: 720
Allow source to adjust frame size (unchecked)
Profile: Main
Frame rate: 29.970000
Allow source to adjust frame rate (checked)
Field order: None (progressive scan)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0000
Number of refrences frames: 2
Use deblocking filter: (unchecked)
Constant bit rate (bps): 4,000,000

Audio:
Sample Rate (Hz): 48,000
Bit rate (bps): 128,000

-------Camera-----
Sony DSC-HX5

-------Vegas-----
Version 7.0e (build 216)

------System------
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600
System Manufacturer Dell Inc
System Model XPS 630i
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz, 2403 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 1.0.8, 7/15/2008
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB

------GPU----------
Name ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9442&SUBSYS_05021028&REV_00\4&10BD3C89&0&0018
Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x9442), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Adapter RAM 512.00 MB (536,870,912 bytes)
Installed Drivers atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver Version 8.681.0.0

Here's the original source video
http://greggman.com/downloads/examples/MAH00933.MP4

And here's the stuttering rendered video
http://greggman.com/downloads/examples/MAH00933-rendered.MP4

Any ideas what settings I need to change in Vegas to make it render without the stutter?

farss wrote on 4/23/2010, 5:46 AM

Doing a frame by frame compare of your original and rendered file they are significantly different. You are correct, it is not the player, something has been seriously stuffed up.
It looks as though Vegas has assumed the source frame rate is something different to what it is and has interolated every second frame. No wonder the motion looks a mess. The other curious thing is the rendered file is one frame longer than the source.

So, in V9.0b I rendered your source to uncompressed and compared that to the original. No difference, so far so good.
I then rendered your source file to the Sony AVC codec at 6Mbps. No mixups here either. There is significant image degradation but then again the source is an absolute horror anyway that I'd expect to go badly down with recompression.

Unfortunately I don't think I have 7.0e installed on a machine so I can only assume what you've found is an old bug. It seems to be fixed in at least 9.0b if that's any help.

Bob.

gmanjapan wrote on 4/23/2010, 9:58 AM

It's not any help considering I'm a stupid hobbiest when it comes to video so I paid full price for Vegas 3 thinking I was going to edit video, never did. Upgraded to V6 to edit one video, upgrade to V7 to edit one video. Each time I run into bugs or missing features. Very expensive for something I only use like once every 2 - 3 years :-(

gmanjapan wrote on 4/24/2010, 12:57 AM

So apparently the issue was this

Allow source to adjust frame rate (checked)

Unchecking that option (which was checked by default), cleared it up.

Thank you JM.