What settings to save project for best quality ?

ribbony wrote on 7/14/2012, 12:00 AM

I have video clips that have reasonable detail coming from a canon 600D DSLR. They are in MOV format & the camera was set to the highest quality setting.

However after using Vegas to save the test project (no editing) in the highest quality format I could find, the resultant video has lost all the detail in the highlights. Where you could see details on a white background in the original, now you just see one shade of white. The sky also seems to be distorted in colour with bands of colours rather than graduation.

For the format of the clips that I begin with (copy of details below), what is the best option to save the Vegas rendering so as to get the best quality. I tried the best setting I could find via selecting "Sony AVC" - in m2ts format with these characteristics:
Audio: 192 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, 24 Bit, Stereo, AC3
Video: 29.970 fps, 1920x1080 Upper field first, YUV, 16 Mbps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.000

I also tried this option with similar loss of highlight details:
Main Concept MPEG2
Then the highest quality of the BluRay options in the drop down box:
Video: 29.970 fps, 1920x1080 Upper field first, YUV, 25 Mbps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.000
Elementary Stream
Multifile

Details of original files:
General
Complete name : D:\Images Travel 2012\Canon 600D\C Video Khumbu\MVI_03188.MOV
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 180 MiB
Duration : 31s 732ms
Overall bit rate : 47.7 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-03-20 10:27:23
Tagged date : UTC 2012-03-20 10:27:23

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L5.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=15
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 31s 732ms
Bit rate : 46.1 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Original height : 1 088 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Original display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.743
Stream size : 175 MiB (97%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2012-03-20 10:27:23
Tagged date : UTC 2012-03-20 10:27:23
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : sowt
Duration : 31s 732ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 5.81 MiB (3%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2012-03-20 10:27:23
Tagged date : UTC 2012-03-20 10:27:23

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 7/14/2012, 12:15 PM

For starters, render to Progressive since your source is Progressive.

"the resultant video has lost all the detail in the highlights."
You must conform your video levels to 16-235 in Vegas before rendering. Otherwise highlight and shadow detail will be lost.

Usually this is done using a set of video scopes in Vegas Pro. For Movie Studio users there is another failsafe method of achieving the required levels. This is described in detail in my video tutorial, starting at about 4:30 to 6:08.

Note that DSLR footage
This is because dslr footage is shot at RGB (0-255) levels, rather than REC 709.

ribbony wrote on 7/15/2012, 12:25 AM

Excellent information !

The setting project properties was something I had not realised existed, amazed that previous videos turned out so good. Can only figure that the earlier projects input video footage I used was more suited by default ? (Samsung WB650 in MP4 format)

Your video tutorial was just the thing to understand the tonal range compressed a little so the highlights retain more detail. The results are better, but it could do with some more again. Are there setting to play with to tweek this a bit more ?

I have tried the Sony AVC format to save in. Is that the best one to be playing with ? In VMS10 there only seems to be limited formats that have drop down options for the high quality 1980x1080. You mentioned the video needing conversion to YUV , is there another option ?

musicvid10 wrote on 7/15/2012, 5:04 AM

You haven't yet said what your video will be used for?
Bluray, Youtube, computer playback, home media center, web streaming?

ribbony wrote on 7/15/2012, 5:11 AM

Ah sorry. Playing on big screen TV's to groups of people. Also will burn a dvd for similar use, but direct to the TV from a USB dongle is the primary vector.

Though in Oz we use PAL, almost all decent TV's play NTSC so that has been the way I have gone with the settings in the last few years.

musicvid10 wrote on 7/15/2012, 5:38 AM

I would suggest starting with the "Good" method in the tutorial with the following changes:
-- Render to 1920x1080 Progressive
-- Apply the levels fix as described
-- Play with the average bitrate until you find something you can live with

Then, as you gain some experience, experiment with the "Better" method in the tutorial, again at 1080p. The Sony AVC encoder is fine for producing Bluray, but is not as efficient for HD playback, and may stutter as bitrates go up. Handbrake should enable you to use lower encoded bitrates with not much of a quality hit. Experiment.