Vegas "washing-out" HDV

MH_Stevens wrote on 11/13/2006, 9:19 PM

JimH and DavidSinger between them said this:

"...... I must point out, Vegas seems to wash out my HD footage. If I play the raw M2T files through the camera...... they look much more saturated." "We shoot Z1U's, and immediately noticed that wash-out effect ourselves............... So we set Zebra to 80 and shoot with very little zebra, if any. That keeps us matched to Vegas for production work.................."

I have also noticed that my Cineform avi intermediaries when played in a player are more saturated and look better than when played through Vegas. Will someone explain why this is and how does DavidSingers "under-exposing" the Z1 help?

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Serena wrote on 11/15/2006, 1:49 PM

In fact the methodology described is designed to expose for good skin tones and let highlights look after themselves (to an extent). Not really about coping with the inadequacies of operators, although it helps. Setting the zebras at 80% leaves some head room for highlights while getting good rendering of skin; nice technique. Indeed this is the general approach in film.

Grazie wrote on 11/15/2006, 1:59 PM

Double freeking posts by me . . . deleted by message!

Grazie wrote on 11/15/2006, 2:02 PM

Thanks Serena, I've never heard that explanation expressed so succinctly.

Question here? Zebs, are they ONLY an average of the whole area, taking into account ALL the film/video plane? Or JUST that area which is "highlight-ing"?

This forum IS the business!! Luv it . . .

farss wrote on 11/15/2006, 2:16 PM

Just the area they're highlighting.

MH_Stevens wrote on 11/15/2006, 5:33 PM

mdopp:

The "washed-out" being discussed is not VC1 but SD DVD (as with DVD Architect). Also the imported source was Cineform AVI that look great when played directly in a player like Nero (not via Vegas) as opposed to a final format rendered in Vegas. Nothing to do with the preview monitor, even though I see the washed-out effect there.

GlennChan wrote on 11/15/2006, 9:52 PM

The image looks washed out because Vegas will decode to studioRGB color space. This will show you everything in the image, although this image is not what the end user should see. The appearance of the colors is also incorrect.

As I mentioned in my earlier post (the second in this thread), there are a few ways to make the image appear correct. This will clip the illegal values (superwhites, superblacks) unless you are using an external monitor (some/many monitors can display superwhites).

DavidSinger wrote on 11/16/2006, 7:08 AM

This old dog is learning new tricks.
I'll step back and reconsider my settings.
So far, cam-to-editor-to-finish is working,
but that might be totally coincidental.
I'd better find out if I want to stay sane as a control freak.

Glen,
"B- Use the secondary display option. In the Vegas settings, check the "studio RGB" box (or it's something like studio RGB to computer RGB)."

I'm using the Optons/Prefs/PreviewDevice Windows Secondary Display, but the Use Color Management option was not checked. OK, so now I check it and Studio RGB (16-235) shows up as default-checked, plus *7 monitor profile options*!

I'm going with "sRGB COlor Space Profile.icm" (which is what popped up as default-checked), but if you have any suggestions on these choices, I'm all ears, because making this switch didn't seem to affect the display at all. It's a 22in display 1600x1050 on BestFull.

MH_Stevens wrote on 11/16/2006, 9:08 AM

And GLENN - the "washed-out" I see is not just in the Vegas preview screen it is in a Vegas rendered final product WHEN COMPARED to viewing the original m2ts (from the camera) raw, as in playing directly from the camera or playing the captured m2ts from the computer with Nero. I don't think all your preview color space settings has anything to do with this.

GlennChan wrote on 11/16/2006, 6:26 PM

I'm using the Optons/Prefs/PreviewDevice Windows Secondary Display, but the Use Color Management option was not checked. OK, so now I check it and Studio RGB (16-235) shows up as default-checked, plus *7 monitor profile options*!
The studio RGB check box does do something. You can toggle it on/off and see how the following test pattern looks like:

http://glennchan.info/Proofs/forums/sony/LevelsTest.veg

In that test pattern, you should notice a white patch superimposed onto the color bars. This is 255 255 255 RGB white, which is brighter than the white in Vegas' color bars.

You should also note that there are three PLUGE bars visible. The pluge bars are the three dark bars to the bottom right. The leftmost one should be below black level, the middle one at black level, and the rightmost one above black level.

If viewing material on a *television* or *broadcast monitor*, you should not be able to tell the difference between the left and the middle pluge bars. You shouldn't be able to see a dividing line there.

2- I don't think the monitor profile options do anything as Vegas doesn't seem to apply the appropriate color management (or any for that matter). Photoshop does, and you can see huge differences with the print film .icc profile. Flipping to that profile in Vegas doesn't appear to do anything.

And GLENN - the "washed-out" I see is not just in the Vegas preview screen it is in a Vegas rendered final product WHEN COMPARED to viewing the original m2ts (from the camera) raw, as in playing directly from the camera or playing the captured m2ts from the computer with Nero. I don't think all your preview color space settings has anything to do with this.
Ok got it.

What you should try is applying the "studio RGB to computer RGB" preset in the color corrector. Some encoders (like WMV and many web streaming encoders) expect computer RGB levels. If you feed it studioRGB levels, then your encoded levels will be incorrect.

I would apply the color corrector to a nest. This is safer than putting it at the video preview level (because render to new track will not work well- it will render with the color space conversion, which is not what you want).

2- Unfortunately in Vegas, you have to manually wrangle your levels / color space conversions.

fldave wrote on 11/16/2006, 6:59 PM

Wow, great stuff everyone. I'm going to print the Z1U/FZ1 recommendations out and shove it into my camera case. I'm also going to invest in Spot, et. al. new DVD "Inside the Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 Camcorders". Then I'm going to practice, practice and practice.

I've noticed some of my footage is more washed out than I expected. Some is not. So I'm basically a newbie idiot and need to learn to shoot correctly!

Thanks for the tips.