Video capture quality

Vicious wrote on 7/18/2005, 12:06 PM
I recently installed Vegas 6 to use as an editing system for 8mm film transfers. Originally I had Avid on the same computer using the same capture card. When I capture film footage in Vegas though, the quality of playback is dramatically inferior to the playback out of Avid. I believe I have all the proper settings accounted for (interlacing off, frame rate 29.970) so this should be just a basic capture in...small edit... play out to DVD burner. The question is why is the Vegas playback so much inferior in quality compared to Avid? Are there settings I am missing? Does ALL captured video need to be rendered before a preview?

Comments

boomhower wrote on 7/18/2005, 1:33 PM
If you are talking about playback in the lower preview window....what is your preview setting (best-auto/full, preview auto/full etc)?
Vicious wrote on 7/18/2005, 1:59 PM
Preview is set to Best. I am referring to playback out to an external monitor or DVD recorder.
farss wrote on 7/18/2005, 2:02 PM
What capture card?
In what way does the playback appear to be inferior, lower fps or less resolution or more artifacts?
Liam_Vegas wrote on 7/18/2005, 2:07 PM
If you are talking about preview from the time-line. You will get full-frame rate preview only if your source material is in DV AVI format. Anything else and Vegas will be "rendering" (re-compressing) each frame in order display it via the firewire to the external preview monitor.
Vicious wrote on 7/18/2005, 2:45 PM
The problem is with an apparent lower resolution or jumpy motion (lower fps?). This happens with imported files, also.
Vicious wrote on 7/18/2005, 2:49 PM
If I capture video through a D/A converter, I don't seem to have a choice of what size (640 x 480, etc.) I want to capture. If I match the project settings to what I have captured, it says the file is 720 x 486. Now, if I can only play back in DV AVI format, I will have to render this captured file to play it out through the D/A converter. Is it possible to capture in DV and play out in DV without rendering and without losing quality?
Liam_Vegas wrote on 7/18/2005, 5:19 PM
What is this D/A converter? Unless you have captured via firewire the video will likely not be in DV AVI format. Refer to my other post for further information relevant to your problem.

Do you have a Firewire card? How are you previewing this video (I was assuming via firewire - but your reference to this D/A thing has me wondering).

You can play ANY format video out to the external monitor from the Vegas timeline... but Vegas will be re-compressing each frame and therefore the frame-rate will be reduced. Adjusting the preview monitor quality will improve FPS but at the expense of quality.

Generally this is not an issue in my workflow. If I need to see EXACTLY how a particular piece of video will look then I use the RAM RENDER feature to quickly render a loop of the timeline to RAM and then display that to the external preview in full frame rate/ full quality.
Vicious wrote on 7/19/2005, 10:04 AM
A D/A box is a digital to analog converter (an ADVC-100 to be precise.) It has a FireWire I/O with analog I/O. This is used so that I can burn straight to the DVD burner which requires an analog signal. The D/A box isn't the problem though (at least it isn't with Avid since I can just capture in and Digital cut right out with no loss of quality.) Of course Vegas may have an issue with going through a converter but I don't think it should cause the frame rate and quality loss I'm seeing.
AFW wrote on 7/21/2005, 12:03 PM
Sounds like the 'quality problem' is only in the way V6 is displaying on your external monitor, not in the actual media asset itself. Why not write/export something from Vegas to another device (eg a DVD o tape) and then check its playback on a suitably connected monitor/TV - that way you can confirm that your material is fine and only the timeline display is via 1394 is below expectation?
Former user wrote on 7/21/2005, 12:33 PM
Why are you turning interlace off?

Dave T2
ArthurDent wrote on 7/21/2005, 12:37 PM
Sounds like you're using the "Preview on external monitor" function to play out the video to a DVD recorder. An interesting idea, but quality suffers due to the fact that you're using an output intended for Previewing and expecting broadcast quality.

You need to render an AVI of the project and use the "Print to tape" feature of the Capture program. Be sure to include at least 5 seconds of black before and after the video on the timeline, otherwise you'll go from no video signal to the start of your video instantly, -- recorders don't like that very much.