Vegas Platinum, Still Photos, Gaussian Blur

jtfrazer wrote on 9/26/2005, 2:10 PM
Hi,

I upgraded to Platinum from VMS 4.0 a while back and am quite happy with it for video work. I had hoped that Platinum would handle still photos better than VMS 4 but it doesn't look that way. Last night I tried making a slide show that included some panning and zooming and I got the same type of artifacts, flickering, glitter, etc. that I saw in 4.0. I tried the recommendations found in this forum and in the Vegas forum - things like changing the size of the image and adding a tiny amount of gaussian blur, but the artifacts were still unacceptable.

By the way, adding the smallest amount of gaussian blur (0.001) resulted in an image that was unrecognizable!

I had hoped that I could use Platinum for slide shows instead of upgrading to ProShow Producer but I just bit the bullet for the PSP upgrade.

Jim

Comments

Tim L wrote on 9/26/2005, 4:29 PM
The new VMS 6 (Regular and Platinum) has a switch you can enable individually for each event to reduce interlace flicker.

I'm not at a computer with VMS right now, but I think you right-click on the event (i.e. on the still photo), select "switches", then select "Reduce Interlace Flicker".

I did a project with some still photos a couple weeks ago and used this, and didn't really notice any problems when playing the DVD on a TV, but I don't know how bad the photos would have been without this feature enabled. (Some photos don't have much problem to begin with.) Also, I didn't do any panning, and had just a very slow zoom on one of the photos.

Adding a 0.001 Gaussian Blur shouldn't make a photo unrecognizeable. You may notice a slight blurring, of course, but the image content should still be quite clear. Perhaps you added it inadvertantly as a keyframe in the middle of the photo, and the beginning of the photo was using a heavier setting from the default preset? (I keep doing this kind of thing by accident.) With VMS 6, you can set different effects values throughout a single event.

Tim L

Edit: (about an hour later...)
Hey, how about running a test for us and reporting back. I'm curious how effective the "reduce interlace flicker" setting is, and you're in a perfect situation to find out. Assuming you still have the same project that you burned to DVD earlier, go through and set each still photo for "Reduce Interlace Flicker", then re-render and burn a new DVD. You should be able to do a direct before-and-after comparison for us -- compare first DVD to the second. I'd love to hear the results, whatever they might be.

Thanks!
Tim L
jtfrazer wrote on 9/27/2005, 7:35 AM
Tim,

I'll try the test when I get a little time. I'll also check the keyframe thing, but I'm pretty sure I applied it at the beginning.

Jim
jtfrazer wrote on 9/27/2005, 8:13 AM
Tim,

The gaussian blur problem I saw happened because I inadvertantly added two instances of the FX. I was setting the values in the second instance and the first was still at its default values.

Adding the "reduce interlace flicker" along with a gaussian blur of 0.001 produces the best result, though it's still not satisfactory to me. My test picture is of a church with clapboard siding. As the image is zoomed, I see what look like wavy interference fringes along the siding. When the zoom is finished, I cam barely see that the siding is there (probably due to the gaussian blur).

Since I do quite a few slide shows, I'll stick with the other package for that type of work. It's a lot less work and the finished quality is better. That being said, VMS Platinum is GREAT for my video work.

Jim
Tim L wrote on 9/27/2005, 9:15 AM
Thanks for the effort. I imagine clapboard siding is a pretty good test for something like this. Too bad VMS didn't give the results we were hoping for. (Hey Sony Guys up in Madison... Can you put this on your list of things to do? :-) Pretty Please?)

I've never used any other packages. Any idea how "ProShow Producer" can do this successfully? Does it soften the image overall, or have some kind of bob-and-weave-and-blend-and-something algorithm? Just curious.

Tim L
jtfrazer wrote on 9/27/2005, 5:53 PM
I don't know what PSP does to get around this issue. I think the images are a little soft, but not nearly as soft as what you get after applying the gaussian blur and other fixes with VMS.

Jim
lg777 wrote on 12/5/2005, 6:49 AM
Does the photo slideshow improve with Vegas 6? I've been waiting to get this 'fixed' for a long time and I have used Vegas Studio.

For slideshows, I've used Proshow Gold, MoTV and they produce photos way better than what I can do on Vegas Studio.

Jacksmyname wrote on 12/29/2005, 12:02 PM
I just received VMS Platinum yesterday. I'm rather disappointed in the image quality it produces.
My wife is using ProShow Gold, and I use ProShow Producer. Both create slide shows with image quality that far surpasses VMS.
Jack
dibbkd wrote on 12/29/2005, 7:30 PM
I have to say I have made many "photo slideshows" with VMS 6 (and 4.0) and feel it has excellent quality.

I add a few transitions, pan/crop, music, and maybe a video effect and it makes a great photo presentation.

I have never used ProShow before, so can't compare, but I honestly couldn't ask for a better picture quality than what I am getting now.