I thought there was no such thing as "uncompressed" beings it's compressed right in the camera.....
Anyway...will "uncompressed" take up more space than the footage originating in the edits?

That's true, DV is compressed. It has been said here elsewhere, on many occasions, that there is no difference--visually--between DV compression and "uncompressed."

J--

So what IS "uncompressed" isn't it captured right out of the camera as NTSC DV?

Elliott: yes, it is captured already in DV from the camera ... as long as you are using a DV camera. You might have captured uncompressed video from an analog source instead though. However, in most consumer cases DV will be better than uncompressed from analog.

The point is though, that if you have changes to your material then it will be REcompressed when it's rendered to DV. Each of these recompressions can degrade the image a bit. If you use uncompressed then you avoid these multiple recompressions even when the source was compressed to begin with.

Now, does this matter? If you haven't altered the image in any way other than cuts then Vegas doesn't render from DV to DV; it merely copies the frames bit for bit. In this case there is no reason to use uncompressed as you won't gain anything in the slightest. If you have altered the image and you merely want to clean up the timeline, and the section you render will then be used exactly as-is with no further alterations other than cuts, then you'll only get one recompression because the final render won't recompress this section. So again in this situation there's no need for uncompressed. However, if you make alterations to the image before doing this sectional render, and then alter this rendered section when using it in the final render, then you will be suffering an extra recompression. In this case using uncompressed does make sense.

Does it make a lot of sense? Probably not. Vegas' DV codec has been shown to last 99 generations of recompression with almost no visible degredation. The 100th generation is virtually identical to the original DV stream. Most of the loss occurs during the very first DV compression which would be in your camera if you are using a DV camcorder. So, unless you're a purist with tons of hard drive space to burn, uncompressed probably isn't necessary.

And yes, uncompressed takes nearly 8 times as much space as DV.

I defy you to see the difference between the original DVD material, and something that has been rendered using the Sony DV codec. Someone did a test about nine months ago, and posted the 100th generation of something that had been rendered 100 times using various codecs.

The only time I would recommend ever considering using uncompressed is if you were avoiding DV compression altogether. Since DV compromises the color space, you can get better quality by never using DV at all. Of course this means your original material must be in some analog format, like that from a Beta SP camera.

Bottom line: If you capture or film in DV format, just use the Sony DV encoder and render whenever you need to and don't worry about it.

"Someone did a test . . ."

;)

There once was a Veggie named Chien,
Whose renders we all here have seen,
He rendered five score,
Then rendered once more,
To prove Vegas video's clean.

Kelly, I hope this somewhat makes up for my oversight! :)

Well done, John.

Gary

Very good!

Although, to be a purist (and why anyone would think that limericks have anything to do with purity is way beyond me ...) i'll refer you to this

Thanks for pointing out Kelly's render tests. I never saw that link. He certainly answered the question!

Dan

If I use this GSPOT software to view my installed video codecs, what name will show up for Sony's DV codec?

If I use this GSPOT software to view my installed video codecs, what name will show up for Sony's DV codec?

I don't think the Sony Vegas DV codec is available outside of Vegas.

=======================

Kelly: I never would have guessed the correct pronounciation. Hopefully you'll give me a pass based on artistic license (if a limerick can be considered "artistic" ... ) .

Artistic or not, i don't think it's a concept that applies. Limericks are an art form completely unto themselves. I think the only artistic or purist things about limericks are those that are neither. ;)

Hey, at least in this forum i don't have everyone asking me if i know what my name means in French! That's a major relief.


There ... anything but artistic and pure.

O.K. You brought it up.

What does your name mean in French?

It doesn't. It's not French.

Great stuff. I vote this is the best thread for the month of September.

Love the limericks.

On the render test. I was showing it off at work as proof of concept that DV renders don't have to chew up the footage. Compared to the results with the MS codec, Vegas was really impressive-but-the test was done on a still frame. Were there any tests done on moving footage? It'd be nice to show a demo of a more realistic scenario.

On "uncompressed". There's not a lot of advantage in Vegas to rendering DV footage as uncompressed but there's a very big advantage to using it with generated media and any sort of effect or compositing where you want to preserve the original image. DV compression totally tears up the edges of text and graphics, including blobs you might want to use for masks. Basically, you'd want you graphics to go through as few renders as possible.

Rob Mack

It shouldn't make any difference whether still images or moving images are used. DV is a discreet frame compression, so each frame is a complete still image on it's own, unaffected by adjancent frames. I seem to recall one of the SONY software engineers saying pretty much the same thing in one of these threads.

Any diagonal lines, especially with strong red contrast will look awful in DV. Then again, strong contrast and strong reds look awful on televisions anyway so they should probably be avoided.

Henceforth, every reply to this thread must include an original limerick. So, here goes:

Great stuff. I vote this is the best thread for the month of September.

I suppose you can do that, except that the majority of this thread was from last May.

John

I suppose you can do that, except that the majority of this thread was from last May.

Not if we keep replying with semi-meaningless posts (like this one ... )

:)

there was a video guy named Joe

HEY! Where were the limericks? I think we need to extract penances from John and John for their oversights.