Why is everything I render fuzzier than the original?

musman wrote on 10/13/2003, 3:47 AM

I have noticed this being the case when I was doing another experiemnt. Everything looks significantly fuzzier and less detailed than the original footage. I tried comparing footage that I added damaged film fx to and also footage free from all fx. Same fuzzy result regardless.
Just compared some more footage and found raw material looks best and as it should on a preview on either the computer lcd monitor or my external monitor when the preview setting is set to "Preview auto". If I put it lower, it looks fuzzy- okay, expected that- but it also looks fuzzy if I set it to a higher setting like good to best.
Please excuse my language, but what the hell is going on here? I must have messed something up royally, but I've experimented with different setting and get the same result each time. Thought I had it set to DSE's settings. Last render the settings were:
NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps)
lower field first
0.9091 (NTSC DV)
29.970 (NTSC)
full resolution rendering quality: Best
motion blur type: glausian
deinterlace type: none (had blended fields at one point and that was fuzzy as well)

when I render I have
interleave every (seconds): 0.250
Now even as I'm trying to copy and paste these settings I'm having trouble. It worked a few times but kept wanting to paste 29.970 (NTSC) for some reason.

Does anyone else have this problem with resolution loss?Think I'm taking a serious hit here and it makes shots at any significant distance unusable.
Please help me if you can and thanks ahead to all.

Comments

farss wrote on 10/13/2003, 7:30 AM

I cannot see you are doing anything wrong but how are you judging the fuzziness?

If you render out some video with no effects or transistions VV does nothing to the video, you just get a straight bit copy. Try doing that and see of there's any difference between the original and the rendered file.

If you can see any I'd suggesting there's something wrong with how you're evaluating the result.

BTW I'd never user the preview window to evaluate how good anything looks in an absolute sense.

JJKizak wrote on 10/13/2003, 8:27 AM

I had this occurr one time and I changed the preferences from gausian to none even though this is not selected on the timeline my result got fuzzed up until I selected none. This is of course viewing the DVD and not the preview window which I never use for anything anyway except for the external preview on the Tv set. Make sure your opacity settings are 100% and not set to 99%. Keep in mind that I tend to talk too much and sometimes loose the facts.

JJK

musman wrote on 10/13/2003, 1:43 PM

Thanks for the help. I have rendered out parts with nothing added, just did it again, and it is definitely fuzzy and has lost some detial. The same thing with changing the preview happens as well- the raw material looks best and most detailed in "preview" rather than "good" or "best".
I'm judging the fuzziness based on both my computer monitor and my external monitor and have always wondered why my rendered stuff looks worse than the original. ALways concluded it had something to do with the fx I added, but testing things w/o fx has eliminated that possibility. But there is no doubt that the raw clips have more detail than the rendered- it's very noticable and have had 2 friends check it out and agree with me.
As for the blur type, I select it but am not given an option for "none". I have "box" and "pyramid" as well as "asymetric" glaus, "box" and "pyramid".
I really need this detail I've lost. Can anyone help me?

musman wrote on 10/14/2003, 3:58 AM

I've just taken still shots of both the raw preview as well as the rendered and displayed at best full quality. The result? The raw footage snapshot looks more detailed, lighter, sharper, and generally better. It does look interlaced to me, meaning there are some jagged lines and part of the clip here looks like it's shifting b/t 2 positions or frames. The rendered version looks duller, darker, and generally worse, but it doesn't have the shifting/ jumping problem.
I just looked at this material through vegas on my lcd computer monitor and my sony tv external monitor. Also same conclusions when viewing the snapshots in "MY PICTURES" in windows.

PeterWright wrote on 10/14/2003, 4:06 AM

As a way of seeing whether you've inadvertently "done something" to the footage before rendering, you could make a loop region of a sample section, then use Tools > Selectively Pre render. Does it render anything apart from transitions and superimposed titles?

If not, what goes out should be identical to what comes in, assuming your project settings are the same.

craftech wrote on 10/14/2003, 7:16 AM

Try NOT using "Reduce Interlace Flicker" if it is enabled. Make sure you actually render a loop to test. I don't believe the switch works in a PTT.

John

johnmeyer wrote on 10/14/2003, 11:37 AM

I have sometimes had Vegas start to behave badly. I am quite certain in each case it was due to my inadvertently changing some setting that gets "remembered" between editing sessions. The solution is to reset everything back to default.

If things still seem messed up, you can reset all of your various preferences to factory defaults as follows:

- Hold down the Shift & Ctrl keys while starting Vegas.

Understand, however, that if you do this, this will reset ALL of your various settings in the options and preferences menus. It may take 5-15 minutes to change these back to where they were.

musman wrote on 10/14/2003, 6:51 PM

Thanks for your help and concern, y'all.
I've uninstalled and reinstalled v 4.0d and not done much to the setting other than putting names and timecode on clips. I've also checked and reduce interlace flicker is not active. Yet, the fuzziness continues.

Here are the weird developments today:

Things look much better when rendered as preview quality. Does have a lot of interlacing lines, but then I use DVFilmmaker and that helps out a lot. Render at any other quality and things look fuzzy.

Even titles preview brighter and sharper as preview quality.

I prerendered a clip today at best setting. I looks fuzzy unless I put the raw clip below it- it looks sharper then. It shouldn't make a difference as the opasity is set to 100% and the are the same footage. So something is rotten in the state of denmark.

What must I have done.

johnmeyer wrote on 10/14/2003, 7:49 PM

If you print to tape, and then play this tape directly in your camera into your monitor, does it look fuzzy? I'm just wondering if this is perhaps a problem with the external monitor preview feature.

musman wrote on 10/15/2003, 12:35 AM

No, I don't think it's an external monitor problem as the fuzziness is obvious on the lcd computer monitor as well. I haven't printed to tape yet, but I think I can see a difference on the pd150's 2.5" viewfinder.

I was advised on another forum to try removing any programs recently installed that deal with codecs. I just bought and started using DVFilmmaker (for deinterlacing) and along the way using it I did download and use once a program they advice if you're having trouble using their software- it's called "DVIO" (for DV in and out). So I just removed the DVIO program and the demo copy of DVFilmmaker, but left the full version of DVFilmmaker. Here's what's happened after reinstalling Vegas as a repair over a previous version:

New projects I open up now work fine. Best quality looks best and preview looks worse, as it should. But, if I open up any old Veg file the problem still exists. I try to copy events from old veg files where the problem still exists and paste them to the new project where there is no fuzzy problem. The computer is not fooled though, and the fuzzy problem follows the (infected?) events. If I copy an event from a new project and paste it in an old veg (file where the events are acting fuzzy), the pasted event works and looks fine. No fuzzy issues.

Does this make any sense? If I had messed up any event properties, wouldn't it have gone back to default when I reinstalled Vegas?

cef wrote on 10/15/2003, 1:28 AM

i sort of experienced the same thing a month ago with a montage i did. i had a still that was set at project size filling up the screen, then i wanted to "crop" the edges of the still to form a square with the "stretch to fill frame" disabled. the picture was fine until it crops to a square with the black background showing on the edges (no media on underlying tracks). when the black background started to be visible, the still got a bit fuzzy, on the preview window and on an external monitor. i did several things to try and cure it to no avail, until i decided to run the video scopes. the blank (black) background was registering as illegal...... the black level was way below 0%. i have not applied any effects or filters yet, on any track nor the video bus (since i was just starting with the project). the cure i found was to just insert a black generated media across the entire bottom track. somehow that didn't happen anymore on my next project.....don't know what i did......

stormstereo wrote on 10/15/2003, 7:57 AM

This might be too obviuos and already tried? Take a look in your preferences under the options menu. The General tab has two checkboxes "Ignore third party DV codecs", this should be checked. And "Use Microsoft DV codec", this should be unchecked.
Best/Tommy
www.stormstereo.com

stormstereo wrote on 10/15/2003, 8:02 AM

And another thing. Make sure that you don't have "supersampling", "motion blur" or "fade to color" envelopes accidently turned on. You would of course notice a rise in render times if they are.
/Tommy

JJKizak wrote on 10/15/2003, 8:30 AM

Also check to make sure that the folder labelled "Sonic Foundry Setup" is deleted. Once your veg file is contaminated its all over but the fat lady singing.

JJK

rmack350 wrote on 10/15/2003, 10:33 AM

Kind of obvious but you might try fiddling with field order.

Rob Mack

Randy Brown wrote on 10/15/2003, 4:38 PM

JJK (or anyone that knows for sure) is it always a good idea to delete this folder after setup?
TIA,
Randy

johnmeyer wrote on 10/15/2003, 5:51 PM

JJK (or anyone that knows for sure) is it always a good idea to delete this folder after setup?

Sony has answer this in the past and the answer was yes, it is OK to delete.

musman wrote on 10/16/2003, 1:14 PM

That's it, I don't think I'm never going to figure this out. Something must be wrong with the settings, but I can't figure it out and have uninstalled and reinstalled vegas and reset things to default.
Here are the 4 reasons for my dismay:

1- The fuzzy problem seems to recur whenever I apply a velosity envelope straight from vegas- but not when I go through excalibur

2- Text still looks sharper in preview mode rather than best or good. This happens even when the fuzzy issue with action doesn't occur.

3- There is little to no difference in the appearance of material viewed or rendered in preview mode rather than best mode. Actually "best" just looks more interlaced.

4- I have uninstalled and reinstalled vegas 4 times now and the problem just won't go away.

I must be inherantly losing resolution using preview, as it takes much shorter to render. But I don't see much of an option at this time.

Stonefield wrote on 9/18/2006, 4:29 PM

I know this is an old thread that I'm digging out. And yes, I do plan to do some more searching here, but I seem to be having the exact same problem here...

Fuzzy DV output, horrible looking text, and low quality end result from matched media settings. And this doesn't happen all the time...

Was this resolved ?

Using Vegas 5