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Videoon 4/3/2015
How 2 tell what codecs Vegas thinks are installed?
Right click the event in the timeline. Go into the properties. It will say what codec is being used to decode that particular event. When you render out, the render as window will show all the options available to Vegas.
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Videoon 2/18/2015
Leveling -- A Comedy of Errors
I set the waveform monitor for 16 to 235 with the 7.5 IRE not checked. This puts video levels 16 at zero IRE and 235 at 100 IRE on the waveform monitor. I make sure that my final videos are within those boundaries. Any video level above 100 IRE and below 0 IRE will have lost details. Too much video above and below will be reduced to poor quality. I use a second monitor to view the videos with a setting to convert studio 16 - 235 to computer 0 - 255. What I See Is What I get on my final videos. Unfortunately there are many ways in Vegas where you can create a situation that is not WYSIWIG. It can be frustrating when you run into unintuitive "gotchas" when you render to other codecs or mess around with the various permutations of the 32-bit floating point modes. The scopes can be a useful tool. But they won't help you figure out the levels situation unless you already have it figured out in the first place.
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Videoon 2/16/2015
Leveling -- A Comedy of Errors
Musicvid... you are horribly confused and you are spreading misinformation on this topic. The waveform monitor, vectorscope, etc. in Vegas do not behave anything like a real set of hardware scopes. Vegas is broken and doesn't follow standards. Sometimes 0-255 RGB levels in Vegas will produce proper levels. Sometimes 16-235 RGB levels in Vegas will produce proper levels. It depends entirely on the codec. It has NOTHING TO DO with whether the footage will be played on an analog TV, computer, etc. (*Assuming that the playback device follows video standards, which most do.) To use Vegas, you don't really need to know anything about video standards. You absolutely need to know how the codecs behave. Unfortunately, the manual for Vegas doesn't really explain any of this. Fundamentally, Vegas has a bad design. Other NLEs handle all this stuff for you. Vegas does not. Deliver only16-235 YUV Dangerous and misguided advice.
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Videoon 10/22/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
I've also used the Brightness and Contrast filter to contain my camera "super whites" to the "legal" range. I wouldn't be surprised if the Computer RGB to Studio RGB filter isn't just a special case application of the Brightness and Contrast filter. You can get those filters to do the exact same thing. I don't like the user interface on the Brightness and Contrast filter. I find the user interface on the Curves filter the easiest (if I use the presets I made to deal with studio RGB levels). It also does useful things such as getting rid of illegal values.
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Videoon 10/22/2014
Survey: What min/max levels does your cam shoot?
Glenn, do we have any control over what codec Vegas is using to decode? For DV, yes. It's deep in the setting somewhere... you can tell Vegas to use the Microsoft DV AVI codec. (I would not recommend doing this.) For other formats, you can convert the files outside of Vegas or whatnot. In practice, I don't think that it would be particularly useful. Life would be so much simpler if Vegas behaved like other NLEs and converted all of the levels for you. (And fading to black will fade to legal black rather than an illegal black, etc. etc.) The decoder for MOV/h264 changed 'long about Vegas 10. Very interesting. That's... unintuitive.
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Videoon 10/21/2014
Survey: What min/max levels does your cam shoot?
Yes, the Nikon D5100 is MOV format. Laurence, what's happening is that the codec used to decode the footage affects the levels. If you right click the clip and go into properties, Vegas will tell you what codec is being used. Some codecs decode to 16-235 RGB. Some codecs decode to 0-255 RGB. This is what I was talking about 3 years ago on 6/27/2011 9:25:04 PM: It may be more useful to say what default codec Vegas uses to decode footage from that camera.
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Videoon 10/21/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
But most DVD's distributed are likely to have been viewed on laptops (therefore, do they need sRGB to display or can they be left as cRGB?). You just need to make a DVD with standard video levels. They will play back correctly on TVs and laptops. Video standards were created so that this is possible. In rare cases, some consumer equipment does not follow standards... but that's typically not something that you can control. For some reason, some people on this forum have been saying that computers are "0-255" and that TVs are "16-235". This is very misleading; it isn't really true. All you really need to know is that there is only one set of correct levels for DVDs, Bluray, MPEG2 files, etc. etc. In Vegas, you create proper levels by giving the codec you are rendering to what it wants. This will either be: -studio RGB -computer RGB --- What I'm saying should make sense. Suppose that you go to the store and buy a DVD. It will play back correctly on your TV (via your DVD player) and on your computer (through Windows Media Player or whatever). The engineers who design this stuff aren't so dumb that you'd have one version for computers and another version for TVs. They created video standards for this reason.
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Videoon 10/21/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
Oh dear, it appears that your cam may shoot 0-255, 16-255, 16-235, 0-235 etc etc and how Vegas deals with this depends not only on the file type but the codec within. And just in case you thought you could inspect the Histogram to see whats going on ..... think again. Not necessarily so :- ( Your camera either records superwhites or it doesn't. That's issue #1. Vegas needs to use a codec to decompress your camera's footage. Depending on how you bring the footage into Vegas, different codecs might be used. All the codecs that Vegas uses will either be studio RGB or computer RGB. That's issue #2- figuring out whether the footage is being decoded to studio or computer RGB. Nick Hope's camera levels thread may be misleading in rare situations. It does not make a distinction between #1 and #2. It assumes that the *same* codec will always be used for footage from a particular camera. If you import footage into Vegas in a weird way, then that assumption may not hold true. e.g. If somebody else captured the footage and sent you the files, then maybe Vegas will be using a different codec. Here is the camera levels thread: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=795690 Its reassuring that at least one other contributor to this thread had formed the same opinion as me regarding doing a Levels conversion from Computer to Studio RGB for DVD. I suspect that's wrong...? For your circumstances, you don't need to apply any computer --> studio RGB conversions. All your camera footage will be decoded with codecs that decode to studio RGB. You are encoding your final product with either Sony Vegas's MPEG2 or MPEG4 codec. Both expect studio RGB. So no conversion is necessary. DVD is MPEG2 BluRay is MPEG4
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Videoon 10/21/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
Now, when I inspect the Histogram I am seeing what appears to be a full range for all the cams e.g. an AC90: It's not a full range. Yes, there are some values below 16. This can be due to: - Borders on the image (not applicable in this case) - The way the camera is designed. If you placed a lens cap on the camera, then the resulting image won't be totally black due to sensor noise. So, the camera might darken the image so that the resulting image will be pretty close to pitch black. - Noise from compression. (This doesn't really explain it.) If you just color correct the image to taste, then you can choose whatever blacks you want to have. Make sure that you are previewing the image correctly though. In your situation, the Video Preview window will be horribly inaccurate and misleading because that is NOT what your image will look like.
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Videoon 10/21/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
Ok so all your footage is being decoded with Sony codecs for the mpeg-2 transport stream and AVC formats. In 8-bit projects, those decode to studio RGB. If you render to either DVD (MPEG-2) or Blu-Ray (MPEG4), both the Sony codecs for that expect studio RGB. So you don't need to do any levels conversions. see http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/v8color/vegas-9-levels.htm for a long-winded explanation *Oh yeah, the Video Preview window won't be accurate. My levels article should explain at least one of the workarounds. -------------------- It looks like some of your cameras record superwhites, or illegal values above white level. Some systems will clip these values and others won't. If you want all your viewers to see the same thing, then you can apply color correction. see http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/color-correction/tutorial.htm -------- VLC and Quicktime Pro behave differently than Vegas. Both of those programs generally convert levels correctly. -------- In your Youtube videos, the "No Computer RGB to Studio RGB Filter " version has correct levels. Your camera records superwhites that are being clipped. This is arguably the "correct" behaviour and is what the camera designers wanted (which I think is stupid, but that's what almost all video camera manufacturers did and it causes a lot of problems). You might like it better if color correction was applied to bring those highlights into legal range.
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Videoon 10/19/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
So here's what you can do. 1- Bring the footage into Vegas. Go into the properties for one of the events and see what codec Vegas uses to decode the footage. If it's Quicktime, then it's probably decoding to computer RGB. But maybe not. If it's some type of Sony MPEG4 or AVC HD codec, it's probably decoding to studio RGB. You can do that for each camera and for each way in which footage comes into Vegas. 2- For simplicity's sake, don't use the 32-bit floating point mode under project settings. I'll assume that all your footage is decoding to studio RGB. (This may or may not be the case.) 3- It may or may not have values from 235-255 on the histogram. If so, you can apply color correction to bring that down. 4- When rendering to MPEG4 or MPEG2, do not apply any levels conversion.
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Videoon 10/19/2014
Levels Computer To Studio For Bluray?
For the MP4 I do not perform any Levels conversion and the videos look great on computers, tablets etc, but too contrasty on TVs. As expected. I think you may have a misconception. All you needed to do was to make a MP4 file with proper levels. That should play with correct levels on 99% of tablets, computers, TVs, etc. There is only one standard set of levels for TVs (in any particular country) and one standard set of levels for formats that play back on computers, tablets, etc. You do not need to make a special version of TVs and a special version for computers. If your rendered video file has the right levels, it will play back correctly almost everywhere. Almost all software and hardware obeys standards and will correctly perform the right conversions. (Vegas does not.) Tried both versions as Bluray n.b. without and with the Levels conversion. Did both Blurays within Vegas Pro, not going to DVD Architect Pro. Both look the same. Is that right? Is there something in the Bluray spec. that makes the conversion unnecessary. That doesn't seem right to me. One (or both) of them should have the wrong levels and you should be able to see that. If you play back the footage on a consumer TV then maybe the consumer TV has some weird type of levels adjustment or image enhancement going on.
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Videoon 10/3/2014
V13 Stability vs V12 32/Full Mode
While the rounding errors exist, they usually aren't relevant because you won't see them. If you use footage from a camera, then there will be noise that hides all of the problems. If you use computer-generated footage then maybe the rounding errors would be a problem. In general, I wouldn't worry about them. So is there any way to preview in Vegas in 8-bit mode that isn't twice compromised? You want your preview to be similar to what your final product will look like. So, you probably want to preview with correct levels. There's no point in looking at a preview with the wrong levels. If the end viewer would see any problems with the levels conversions, you want to see them too. The levels conversion to make the preview correct may introduce problems with banding; this is desirable. --- The simple answer: If you can't see the rounding errors (and usually you can't), they aren't a problem. So just ignore them.
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Videoon 9/29/2014
V13 Stability vs V12 32/Full Mode
Yes, obviously an 8-bit source to an 8-bit codec yields...an 8-bit result. The actual answer is complicated. Whenever you go from 8bit RGB <--> 8bit Y'CbCr, there will be rounding error. You can get rounding errors when going from 8-bit Y'CbCr to 8-bit RGB back to 8-bit Y'CbCr. This is very common in Vegas. Most of the time you won't see problems from this. The 32-bit floating point mode in Vegas may or may not fix that. Sometimes it may not fix things because when you render, Vegas might convert everything to 8-bit RGB and then pass that onto the codec. Glen you're saying imposing linear gamma on 8-bit sources is not advised (which, as a general rule, makes sense to me) I didn't say that? Linear light compositing on 8-bit sources does make sense. The difference is dramatic. Clearly the aesthetics are different; arguably better. From a technical standpoint it isn't really better or worse. ---- I find that the 32-bit floating point mode in Vegas is unintuitive for beginners (bad design). So normally I would recommend that people stay away from it. Switching between the 1.000 mode and 2.222 video gamma mode changes the behaviour of filters. This is pretty unintuitive. Changing how images are composited should not change the behaviour of filters (IMO), but that's what Vegas does. And then changing between video and studio levels changes the behaviour of some but not all of the codecs... again that is unintuitive. But if it works for you then go ahead and use it.
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Videoon 9/27/2014
V13 Stability vs V12 32/Full Mode
As for linear gamma, you just !! would not be using that on 8bit sources - industry recommends that you leave that issue for 16bpc or 32bpc sources. And that is just not the common video scenario - in fact something more akin to editing still photos or shooting HDR images. Check out the SMLuminance plug-in. It receives 8-bit values from Vegas, internally performs calculations at 32-bit float (or an approximation of it???), and you can see the difference.
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Videoon 9/27/2014
V13 Stability vs V12 32/Full Mode
In 8bit here are some of the workarounds: Color curves: http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/color-correction/tutorial.htm Linear light (you can it linear gamma) transitions: http://www.scomo.co.uk/ In an ideal world, Vegas would handle all the levels conversions for you. Then you can edit and do a first pass of all your effects in 8-bit mode with fast performance. Then switch to 32-bit and render if you have any problems with banding or bit depth.
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Videoon 9/6/2014
Vegas to mac for Prores and back issues
There are two potential issues: 1- Computer RGB versus studio RGB / levels issues. 2- The Quicktime gamma problem. The way I used to solve #2 was... try lots of different codec combinations and see what works. I never figured out the right way to solve the problem. But try using *only* DNxHD, or only Prores, or only Quicktime Animation, or only DVCPRO50. To solve #1: Apply the studio RGB to computer RGB preset in the Levels FX. Apply no Levels FX. Apply the computer RGB to studio RGB preset in the Levels FX. If one of these is identical, then uh... there you go. I suspect the problem is not #1.
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Videoon 9/6/2014
Are all US projectors & TVs RGB 16-235?
But, I also believe playback components detect video files (perhaps with a flag similar to widescreen DVD) as 16-235. I suggest this but can't say it's so but it would seem likely as Adobe mp4 & wmv files DO playback as 0-255. Why else would one mp4 file be crushed & Adobe mp4 do not? Adobe Premiere (like most NLEs) automatically handles the levels conversions between different formats. Vegas doesn't. What you're seeing is the improper conversion of a JPEG into MPEG4. --- Anyways, it looks like you've figured out something that works so congratulations!
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Videoon 9/6/2014
Are all US projectors & TVs RGB 16-235?
PC's seem to like 0-255. I think you've drawn the wrong conclusion? Computer monitors, TVs, and projectors all like video signals that follow the relevant standards. As a Vegas user, all you need to do was to render a file with proper levels. You've figured out how to do that for your projector. Take that same file and play it back in Windows Media Player, Quicktime, etc. Or upload it to Youtube. You will see that the levels will be correct when played backed elsewhere. -It's Vegas that plays back files in a weird unintuitive way. MPEG2/4 can play back differently in Vegas depending on whether it came in as a properly-encoded AVI or properly-encoded Quicktime. -Arguably, Vegas doesn't follow standards. This is why it is unintuitive. I think this is why so much confusion exists.
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Videoon 9/6/2014
Are all US projectors & TVs RGB 16-235?
To muddy the waters a bit, I have one TV that will show the entire 0 to 255 range and another one that will not. If you have a miscalibrated CRT TV then things might appear that way. In general: Some display devices can show illegal values. Some(/most) can't. Some playback devices will clip illegal values, most won't. For consistency in product, you can get rid of all illegal values in your output file. This way your audience won't see different things. It makes your video more "one size fits all".
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Videoon 9/6/2014
Are all US projectors & TVs RGB 16-235?
"If you assume that TVs are 16-235 RGB, you would erroneously assume that making everything 16-235 RGB will give you the correct levels. Which it won't." Sorry I wasn't clear: sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't. If you encode to a codec that expects 16-235 RGB levels, then your output will have proper video levels. If you encode to a codec that expects 0-255 RGB levels, then the output will be incorrect. The 'one size fits all' solution is to render a file with proper video levels. Some people render Quicktime files (or use other editing applications) so this distinction is relevant to them. What works for you may not necessarily work for other situations. You're probably doing things correctly.... it's just that Vegas is sometimes situational. Anyways this discussion is going around in circles.
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Videoon 9/5/2014
What is resolution of stabilized video clip?
You could apply fancy mathematics or simple mathematics to try to measure the loss in resolution. In practice, I don't think that it would be useful to do that.
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Videoon 9/5/2014
What is resolution of stabilized video clip?
Assume that the image is rescaled. The new resolution depends on: A- How you want to measure resolution. B- What algorithm was used to rescale the image. When you rescale the image, you will run into the following problems: 1- Loss of resolution. 2- Aliasing. 3- "Ringing" artifacts. You can see pictures of that here: http://www.glennchan.info/broadcast-monitors/scaling-artifacts/scaling-artifacts.htm If you optimize for one of those problems, you will suffer somewhere else. Some algorithms do a good job at keeping resolution, but there's always a drawback. Usually ringing artifacts are the least awful. --- In practice, learn how to spot the artifacts: blurriness / new image doesn't appear sharp aliasing on fine lines, certain fabrics, etc. ringing artifacts - halos around edges. Usually you can rescale without having problematic artifacts. But if you run into artifacts, there are some tweaks you can do to get rid of them (or to reduce them).
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Videoon 9/5/2014
Are all US projectors & TVs RGB 16-235?
What most people want to know is how to make their final product appear correctly. If somebody believes that "all US projectors and TVs are RGB 16-235", then that person can dig themselves a hole. Clearly, if you change everything in your editing program to 16-235 RGB, you won't always get a desired result. The display device is irrelevant to a discussion about codecs and codecs are irrelevant to a discussion about display devices. What I was trying to point out is that misconceptions about how TVs/projectors work (and also some misconceptions about how cameras work) stem from misconceptions about how Vegas works. Yes, assuming the display device can play Sony DV and WMV files then the video levels fed to the encoder by whoever created those files have to match what the encoder / decoder expects or the video will end up displayed incorrectly That's exactly the point. If you assume that TVs are 16-235 RGB, you would erroneously assume that making everything 16-235 RGB will give you the correct levels. Which it won't. It's true that most though not all digital formats are standardized around 16-235 Y'CbCr (if the format is 8-bit). But so many people on this forum leave out the Y'CbCr part, which leads to some people erroneously assuming that these formats are standardized around 16-235 RGB. That's not the case. The distinction is important. In Vegas, sometimes 16-235 Y'CbCr will convert to 16-235 RGB and sometimes it will convert to 0-255 RGB. Some/many DSLRs record 0-255 Y'CbCr. Sometimes this will convert to 16-235 RGB and sometimes this will convert to 0-255 RGB. Knowing the Y'CbCr will not help you reliably predict what the resulting levels in Vegas will be. With Vegas, You want to know two things: A- What video codec is being used. B- Whether or not the camera records illegal values above white (superwhites).
GlennChan
Offline, Member since 2/4/2004