Still photo cross dissolves look awful

babayard wrote on 12/26/2009, 8:04 PM

Hello,

I have still photos that cross dissolves, and when these are rendered for DVD, they look terrible. The photos have smooth gradients (sky) which become very quantized and look like topographic maps in the cross dissolve. I've tried countless setting in the render as dialog box, and I can get a beautiful version by making an uncompressed avi or mov but then when those are compressed to DVD, the same ugly banding in the gradient occurs.

I've tried the image property setting for improving flicker, and experimented with the resample properties in the same area.

Is there something that might be done to eliminate, or at least reduce this effect? Thanks!

Comments

Byron K wrote on 12/27/2009, 11:53 AM

If your photos are huge i.e. 10mp, you may want to resize them close the final format 720x480, 1280,720, 1920x1080. Maybe this will help.

You may also want to just render to straight to mpeg2 and use this file for the DVD.

Also double check the File>Properties and verify that Rendering Quality is set to Best.

The DVD program may be recompressing the AVI to MP2 so depending on the DVD application, the compression CODEC sometimes doesn't work to well.

babayard wrote on 12/27/2009, 5:03 PM

Byron, thank you for the input. The photos are 1080px high as I intend to render to Blu-ray eventually. Even so, I've also tried images at 480px high so that it renders at size. File properties rendering has been set to "Best" for all my tests, and I've been using DVD Architect 4.5 that came with Vegas Movie Studio.

As far as rendering goes, I've tried MPEG-2 in various settings as well as other file types in countless settings (it's mind boggling how many options there are with the different codecs). Each has varying degrees of effect on the quality but none get rid of the banding, at least so far.

The best quality comes from M2TS at 1080 and M2V at 1080-60i but these settings aren't satisfactory for DVD as I understand it... and so far, I haven't even been able to write to DVD to test.

Markk655 wrote on 12/27/2009, 5:26 PM

Babayard,

Do you want to upload the pix to see if someone can reproduce it? Perhaps also upload the short movie (mpg)?

Can you describe exactly what template you selected for:
Project properties and for rendering (eg bitrates?) You mention DVDA...Have you tried rendering to mpeg in Movie Studio (instead of DVDA to try to pinpoint if the problem is in DVD creation (or similar)?

Eugenia wrote on 12/27/2009, 5:51 PM

Maybe DVD mpeg-2 simply doesn't have enough bitrate to render properly a dissolve. I suggest you create a new HD project, and render the dissolves separately in an intermediate codec. Then, import that footage where the dissolves would be in your DVD/BD project, and then render that via mpeg2. Might work better.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/27/2009, 6:21 PM

My experience with dissolves and fades was miserable in Vegas Pro with the default VBR settings, even with 2-pass. Understanding that custom bitrates are not available in Movie Studio, my solution was to raise the minimum bitrate from 192,000 to 2,000,000.

With that noted, is there any way to invoke CBR in Movie Studio?

babayard wrote on 12/28/2009, 12:30 AM

Hello and thank you to all who've offered some advice. I really appreciate it.

First of all, as requested, I've posted some files to my website if anyone is interested in seeing what the problem is, and if you want to try to duplicate (or improve) my results.

This zip folder has the VF file and three jpgs in a timeline with cross dissolves:
http://brucebayard.com/video/tests/TEST.zip (about 700kb and it might require relocating the media when you ope the VF...)

This zip folder has a MPG file which is a typically bad version with bad banding in the transitions, especially black to brown, and a HD 1080 M2TS file with significantly reduced (and by now acceptable) banding:
http://brucebayard.com/video/tests/TEST_002.zip (about 11MB)

I apologize for the zip files, but in testing links, I found this the best way to insure download...

In all cases, my testing is now directly out of Movie Studio precisely to avoid DVD ARCH as MARKK665 suggests. I've used pretty much all the templates that render a file which can be burned to DVD in NTSC format. Only when I moved into the HD templates could I find anything that could be customized to up the CBR or use 2-pass VBR as MUSICVID suggests. I've been able to get good results from a number of different settings in HD, and with the suggestion from EUGENIA, I imported one of those HD files into a Movie Studio project and rendered that to NTSC. That result looks quite a bit less chunky. I think this is definitely an avenue to pursue further.

Again I really appreciate everyone's input. I feel less like I'm chasing a ghost.

babayard wrote on 12/28/2009, 2:27 AM

Now I've got an entirely different problem to deal with: Inserting a HD file of just the transitions back into my original movie, when I preview that, everything fits fine, but when I render it to NTSC DV, the HD clip is SHORTER than the still images. When I view the properties of the clip, it shows up at 1080 high, but in the rendered video, it is shorter than the other images by a significant amount. I'd say about 20-25%.

Should I start a different thread for this problem?

musicvid10 wrote on 12/28/2009, 8:31 AM

Once again proof that a picture is worth a thousand words.

First, what are you playing your .mpg video in? I can see some blocking in the transition from the inadequately low bitrate (see below).

Second, the bitrate of your .mpg is abysmally low. Your average bitrate (2.3Mbs) is about where I would set my minimum. Try the DVD Architect template, I believe it is about the same as the default in Pro, 6Mbs.

I will post a link to a file rendered with the default DVDA template settings in a while.

Your last question does not contain enough details. Project Properties? Media Properties? Render Properties? You may find some useful information in my tutorial here:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=12&MessageID=660127

Certainly using MediaInfo as suggested in that link will enable you to see your file properties for yourself and save you the guesswork. Yes, start another thread for your question about video aspect.

Which version of Movie Studio are you using?

musicvid10 wrote on 12/28/2009, 9:02 AM

Here is your project rendered two ways:

TEST_Good: Using the default DVD Architect .mpg template. 6Mbs ABR, 192Kbs MIN.
You should get the same results using the template in VMS.

TEST_Better: Same, except I raised the MIN bitrate to 2Mbs and used 2-pass VBR, which is what I use to reduce blocking in fades.

********
Link good for one week.

It is worth noting that you project qualifies as animation. The MainConcept codec is optimized for camcorder video, and some artifacting may be unavoidable, especially without the custom rendering options availble in Vegas Pro.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/28/2009, 9:10 AM

when I render it to NTSC DV, the HD clip is SHORTER than the still images.

That's because HD is 16:9 Widescreen and NTSC DV is 4:3.
Use the NTSC Widescreen rendering template and all will be good.

babayard wrote on 12/28/2009, 10:58 AM

Musicvid,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my problems. I downloaded the test files you made and see the same kind of banding problem there. I would assume from that my player is no good. I'm using VCL to view files on a DELL U2410 1920x1080 monitor. I use Cyberlink Power DVD player to view DVDs.

Regarding the Sony products, I'm using SVMS Platinum v9.0b build 92. DVD Arch 4.5d build 107

Regarding templates and bitrates, when in SVMS and choosing Render As, if I select a file type and template, I have found no place in any of the DVD formats to alter the bitrate. This has been a great frustration for me, in that every file type offers a different settings dialog box but nowhere to change bitrate.

I looked around in DVDA and found a setting in the prefs under Burning where I could set minimum video bitrate, and the highest I could set is 9.800. I will experiment more with that, but the first attempt using an uncompressed avi file (which is 122GB for 8.25 minutes) gave me warnings and wouldn't let me burn a disc.

see screen shot of settings and warnings here:
http://brucebayard.com/video/tests/screenshot_01.jpg

So, I'm going going to take a break. Obviously, I don't know what I'm doing, and need to step away from it for a while.

Again, I really appreciate your efforts to get me up to speed. I will review the info on that page you posted.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/28/2009, 11:19 AM

Download the .zip again. The "Better" file is, well ... better.

I'm sure you know you must set the deinterlace mode manually every time you open a file in VLC. Bob or Linear works best for your type of work.

Also, some of what you are seeing may be moire pattern on your monitor. That is a whole different issue. Play around with the "reduce interlace flicker" switch on your Vegas events to see if that makes a difference.

I suspect that some of the output control you need may not be available in your version of VMS. Even Pro version owners have problems with animation and MainConcept, but animation-grade MPEG-2 codecs are terribly expensive.

Going to Blu-Ray, with much higher bitrate and resolution, may actually be your best option, as you have already discovered. Good luck!