Rendering while maintaining quality

MrCranky wrote on 5/15/2019, 2:32 AM

Hi All,

I've been searching everywhere and playing with all the settings myself, but I'm getting nowhere, just more and more frustrated.

I currently use VP15 along side either my DJI Mavic Pro and currently GoPro Hero 7 Black. For the life of me I cannot seem to get the output quality to match the input quality. I'm not doing any real editing as such for this example, basically trimmed a small section from the start of the video and the end, set it to render with the closest possible settings to the input source (bit rate, frame rate, codec etc) but it looks like turd, lots of compression artifacts.

For my GoPro I'm currently rendering:

4K 60fps

Magix AVC or HEVC

VBR which matches the GoPro source rate

Best render quality

It's most noticeable in the shadow sections of the video.

I'm really at a loss as to what I am possibly doing wrong.

To add to that, when I upload to YouTube, it looks even worse!

Comments

Kinvermark wrote on 5/15/2019, 4:58 PM

Matching the existing footage's bit rate may seem logical, but keep in mind you are now rendering a second generation. I would suggest you probably need a significant bump in bitrate to maintain similar quality to the original - especially given that the footage is 60 fps.

For a foolproof method, export a "visually" lossless intermediate (Magix Intermediate 422 HQ, cineform, Magic YUV, XAVC-intra...) and then pull that into Handbrake and encode there at high settings.

fifonik wrote on 5/15/2019, 6:03 PM

It was a few discussions related to Magix AVC encoder quality already. Here you are:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/uk/forum/magix-codecs-lower-quality-than-sony-avc--115394/

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/uk/forum/quality-issues-with-mainconcept-magix-avc-encoder--110377/

Short summary:

- You cannot have the same image quality after re-encoding using non-lossless encoder. Especially with the same bitrate.

- Magix codecs are not the best in terms of quality

If you need to get better quality you only have the following options:

- Increase bitrate

- Use another encoder (x264 is one of the best at this moment. You can use it through frameserver, intermediate "lossless" file or Happy Otter Scripts)

- Do both

Good luck.

P.S. I'm doing final renders with x264 through frameserver. Using Magix AVC for draft renders.

Chief24 wrote on 5/15/2019, 7:55 PM

Simple. I use a GoPro Hero 6 Black, and a Hero 5 Black. We'll stick with the 6 for now, which also can "shoot" in 4K 60 fps, in H.265 MP4 container, using HEVC.

I also have Vegas Pro 15 Suite, and am also using the Happy Otter Scripts (thanks wwag!). But, prior to that, after GoPro dumped their Studio product and sent Cineform to the Open Source Gurus', would just transcode the footage in Vegas Pro, GoPro Studio (more the 5 than the 6), and sometimes DaVinci Resolve (was a bummer until they got the 60 fps 4K working correctly in Version 15 Basic - don't have Studio).

You can get the Cineform codec running the older GoPro Studio (check MovieStudioZen website, as Derek has a tutorial on transcoding to Cineform, but more so the link to get the program and run); get the Edius Grass Valley free codecs, and you also have the option of getting the MagicYUV 1.2 version (I went ahead and purchased the Ultimate). Follow Wayne's tutorial for installing HOS, watch the tutorial on setting up the ffmpeg and VirtualDub2, and use HOS for "Render Assist" using one of the above codecs. Makes short work of that HEVC file, great for editing, and it may be slower, but I then export out my finished product to Sony XAVC-S Long. Takes longer than the others in Magix AVC or HEVC, using GPU (NVENC or VCE), but I have found it to have far fewer issues and a Hell of a lot Less Artifacting in my finished project. Especially using NVENC! If only a couple of minutes, fine, but on a longer project, that is when you find them.

I am currently exporting a project now on my older rig (i7-6800K, 32GB RAM, RTX 2070) of installing Movie Studio Platinum 16 Suite. GoPro Hero 6 Black at 4k 23.976 fps, OBS screen capture at same resolution, a few Titles & Text, some pictures, totaling approximately 53 minutes - rendering out to Sony XAVC-S Long 4K 23.976 - all default MSPS16, and the render time will be about 1H 45M. I did transcode both the GoPro and OBS to Grass Valley AVI for smooth timeline editing. That worked great until the super CPU killing Text & Titles of Magix!

I did try exporting that project first using MagixAVC (NVENC), but changed the VBR settings to like 70 mbps and 60 mbps, and it actually crashed the render about 10% in! I mean like shutting down Movie Studio and sending me to the desktop! Yeah, I'll pass on the "GPU acceleration by nVidia" for now. But on my "signature rig", haven't really gotten around to a long render project with the new Radeon VII. Might have to put MSPS 16 on this guy, copy over that project and try. Though, was really waiting to see what the new Microsoft updates would be sending out, with the supposed release of the new "Feature Build". About time to do a clean install on this guy, so was waiting, and I really don't like to have too many "Versions" of the Vegas Products installed at one time. Not so much the "Base" programs, as much as the "wonderful third-party plug-ins" we all seem to have "No Issues with"😡

So, I'd transcode that footage, or at least use Proxies (the Vegas proxies work fine - I just got bad eyes and have to constantly keep switching my Preview Mode. Do your editing, then try the listed Render Options listed above by @Kinvermark & @fifonik, as they have provided excellent advice! Or go my route. The choice, and ultimate decision is yours.

Happy Editing!

Mike "The Chief" O'Sullivan

MrCranky wrote on 5/16/2019, 12:52 AM

Thanks all for your tips! I tried doubling the bit rate as soon as I woke up this morning and saw a noticeable improvement! Not sure why I didn't try, I guess I was trying to keep it the same as the source file.

I have downloaded Happy Otter Scripts, and will have a play this evening after work.

Thanks all again for your great advice!

fr0sty wrote on 5/16/2019, 3:23 AM

Glad it helped. Always feed youtube the highest bitrate you can (within reason), as it is going to murder your video's quality when it re-encodes it for a second time, making the version you see on YT the third generation from the original.