Vegas to Youtube, Vimeo, Web -- A New Look

musicvid10 wrote on 1/12/2011, 10:17 AM

This thread is intended to lead to a productive discussion. So feel motivated to offer constructive insight, rather than hen-pecking. Thanks!

Those who have been following the many discussions going back a year or so, know that a handful of us have become interested in using Handbrake as an output engine for the web. Finding an acceptable intermediate between Vegas and HB was a roadblock, until Laurence and I discovered that DNxHD in "709 mode" does not throw the colorspace error with x264 that almost every other YUV/YV12 codec we tried does. Note: Sony's mpeg-2 based MXF also works, and Cineform does not.* So, with that in mind, and based on the collective base of knowledge that has grown since, I have made a number of assumptions.

-- That x264 holds up better below 10Mbs than does Mainconcept AVC.
-- That 720p is currently a better upload medium than 1080i, from an upstream postprocessing standpoint, and playability on most consumer systems and connections.
-- That yadif is a more versatile deinterlace method than blend or interpolate, in most situations.
-- That lanczos3 resize is better than bicubic, with or without sharpening, in most situations.
-- That uploaded media must be strictly conformed to 16-235 levels, to prevent clipping at both ends. Includes generated text and media, and FTB levels!
-- That uploaded media should be streaming-ready.
-- That a DNxHD 220Mbs intermediate is probably overkill for 4:2:0 source, and is probably not worth the extra time and file size over 145Mbs.
-- That the time spent encoding the intermediate and again in Handbrake is reasonable, compared to say, 2-pass VBR in Vegas.

So, using material graciously provided by amendegw, stringer, and kimberly for this purpose, and input from laurence, Nick Hope, amendegw, farss, John_Cline, and many others, here is my second draft of sample video to be included in an upcoming tutorial this winter. Note that this footage has been conformed to 709 levels, and minor gamma tweaks have been applied, so it may not look "exactly" like the originals, but I tried to retain the shooters' intentions as closely as possible..

Be sure to view at 720p. The original uploaded mp4 will also be available at Vimeo, and the DNxHD 145 1080i intermediate (2.4GB) will hopefully be on MediaFire in a day or so.

http://vimeo.com/18690771

Youtube version is good, but no way to get around their splotchiness in FTB/FFB transitions. Be sure to view at 720p.

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Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 5/25/2011, 6:49 PM

Sami,
You are using RF19, right?
I've not heard many complaints about Vimeo using that upload quality.

But if you really want to immerse yourself in eking out highest quality delivery for the web, Nick's Sony Vegas Pro > Debugmode Frameserver > AviSynth/QTGMC > MeGUI/Nero-AAC/x264 tutorial is here:

http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/Vegas-YouTube-Vimeo.htm

musicvid10 wrote on 6/4/2011, 8:28 PM

Well A. Grandt's revelation that Youtube had fixed the 1/2 resolution bug with 1080i, although welcome news, nearly took the wind out of my sails. Having engaged several others, sometimes annoyingly, in my mission to achieve a high-quality workflow in spite of Youtube, all seemed for naught (I learned that word from Alistair), until I actually uploaded Jerry's original peacock clip AVCHD 1080i) to YT and played it back at 1080p. As you can see, deinterlacing and motion compensation are nothing short of horrid!

Either Nick's or my 720p work easily puts Youtube's processing to shame at any resolution.
You can see the whole ugly mess here (select 1080p and full screen):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20519276/yt1080i.png

So that's the long way around of saying that my tutorial is nearly complete and is going up this week as planned. Disclaimer: The tutorial is going to be announced on the Movie Studio forum, where it will reach its target audience -- those who think you see the zebras at the zoo, and who think REC 709 is the local gym. IOW, not you guys who have scopes and a clue how to use them. But as a step back from Nick's excellent but intricate workflow, it may make for informative (and lightly entertaining) viewing for you informed editors.

Jerry, Stringer, Kimberly, Nick, Alistair, and the many here who contributed indirectly, you are the best!

Now, after a full year of work on this, I've got a couple of spinoff projects to begin work on. Look for the tutorial link here in the coming days.

musicvid10 wrote on 6/15/2011, 11:13 AM

Tutorial is up, also posted on the VMS forum.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=766645&Replies=0

Thanks to all who contributed to this megathread!

robwood wrote on 6/15/2011, 1:03 PM

nice! thx musicvid

Steve Mann wrote on 6/15/2011, 8:17 PM

Nice. Really nice. Sony should pay you for your work. It's really appreciated.

BTW - the dropbox address for the HD Levels chat is "404"

musicvid10 wrote on 6/15/2011, 8:32 PM

Glad you liked it Steve.
As far as Sony paying me, I'm not holding my breath.

Try the url in the video:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20519276/dualgray1.png

Seems to be working now. Dropbox has had some issues from random outages.
The reason this grayscale is tuned for Vegas is it uses 128 as a median, rather than 127 like most of the rest of the world. Put it in the RGB parade in Vegas.

prairiedogpics wrote on 3/28/2012, 1:22 PM

Hello,
Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just found it yesterday!

I use a Sony HDR-HC7 camcorder, which shoots HDV.
I watched tutorial on this link for the "Better" method with Handbrake:
http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/DNxHD/HD-Guide.aspx

My question is this:
The video says that "HDV can be used without any alterations".
However, the project settings shown near the beginning are for an AVCHD camcorder (1920 x 1080, 29.970 fps).
The video shows:
Full-resolution rendering quality=Best
Deinterlace method=interpolate

I use Vegas 10e, 64-bit, on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, Core i7 2600K (just built it!!!), and it has a box that says "Adjust source media to better match project or render settings".

See these the default project settings for HDV in Vegas:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dadu007/7024448075/in/photostream
HDV Default
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dadu007/7024448075/" title="Default_HDV by dadu007, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6044/7024448075_9acee07e7c.jpg" width="357" height="500" alt="Default_HDV"></a>

For the best YouTube quality, do I use these settings unchanged as an HDV user or do I change rendering quality to "Best" and Deinterlace method to "interpolate"?
What about the "Adjust source media..." box? Checked or unchecked?

(One last comment: in Handbrake (0.9.6), with HDV footage, you cannot keep the "Keep aspect ratio" checked in order to end up with a 1280 x 720 resolution.)

Thanks for any answers, and thanks for ALL the research you guys put in to this!

amendegw wrote on 3/28/2012, 2:59 PM

prairedogpics,

Let's see if I can help you out.

First, I think I was able to extract your project properties from the flickr paste, and it looks good to me, except that "Full Resolution Rendering Quality" s/b "Best". The tutorial indicates DeInterlace method s/b "Interpolate". The conventional wisdom is that you should use "Interpolate" for fast moving footage, "blend" for slow moving footage. Frankly, I've not seen much difference.

You do not need to check "Adjust source media to better match project or render settings" (you've already matched your project to the source).

Re: the HandBrake issues, you should specify "Anamorphic=none"

Did that catch all your questions?
...Jerry

btw: nice workstation

prairiedogpics wrote on 3/28/2012, 4:18 PM

Yes, you did. Thanks Jerry!

(As for my workstation, it's replacing an 8 or 9-year-old Pentium 4/3.0 GHz machine.
It's a true pleasure to have HDV playback on Best>Full with no hiccups whatsoever! CPUs have come a LONG way...)

Thanks again, Dan

Julius_ wrote on 6/26/2012, 3:03 PM

I just wanted to extend my thanks to musicvid and everyone who helped with the making of this great workflow.

I've been using the "Better Method" from the tutorials and all I can say is wow!
I've had files that were 8gigs (mov) and after following the steps, it was down to 183 megs with almost no loss. Simply brilliant.

I've posted about 15 video on vimeo using this method all with excellent results.

Thank you!

mountainstone wrote on 12/5/2013, 6:14 PM

Just found this thread again, and worked through the process. Have to say, the output using Handbrake looked just amazing. Noticeably better than anything else I've encountered.

Some updates:
Vegas 12 has different rendering settings. You'll have to work through them, but using the YT video link here, you should be able to do it.
example: I can only choose a Quicktime 7 3Mbps video setting as the highest setting in Vegas 12 and then change it.
This thread and video is mainly oriented towards 1080i while I have progressive.
My Audio settings default to QDesign Music 2 when I choose this rendering setting. My audio on the first pass was not good quality. I'm assuming it's because I didn't boost the settings in Handbrake to 320bps. I think the default was 160. It did not sound as good as original
I assume that QDesign Music 2 is a decent rendering codec for music?

In handbrake, you must carefully follow the instructions. Height for example, under the Picture tab, when everything is chosen properly, is greyed out but I just went with it, and with all else correct, it was fine.

So follow the instructions. Get the AVID codec and output your *final* video to it (not worth doing before you are done with the film in it's entirety). Once there the instructions here still seem to be working with minor tweaks. Thanks guys. Great work.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/5/2013, 9:50 PM

No doubt the tutorial is due for an update, but it'll probably be next summer before I find a block of free time to reassemble the team and work on it.

In order of your points:

1. The default template in Vegas was eliminated, which is a shame because it prematched many of the project settings for you.
2. Progressive video, esp. those not needing resizing are just as well handled door-to-door in Vegas. No real advantage to the extra steps, except when smaller file size is an issue.
3. The important step to choose PCM audio from the QT render settings was initially left out, but is annotated on Youtube. QDesign should not be used, it's horrible.
3a. Handbrake currently has the fdk-aac audio encoder, which is vastly superior to faac, all that was available at the time.
4. Anamorphic=None and checking Keep Aspect exposes all the right controls in Handbrake. You shouldn't use Autocrop for Youtube. They have an excellent Wiki / User Guide on site.
6. Recent Avid LE versions (2.3.8 and 2.3.9) have far more templates, greater stability, and Handbrake (libav) now accepts 10 bit DNxHD, a boon for high-bit Vegas editors.

For now, consider the video tutorial a guide, and adapt to suit your needs. Thanks for gathering some of the important changes in one place. This is not only the 300th post in this thread, the video is right at 25,000 views from all sources.