Best Rendering Setting for 24p (deinterlaced)??

[Davis Lee]

I was wondering what the best settings would be when rendering deinterlaced 24p (from 60i) to look film-like as much as possible without any 3rd party addons, but just what the Vegas can do. I see a lot of things that can be customized, but do not know most of them.

I use my optura Xi on 16:9

[John Rofrano]

If you are serious about obtaining a true 24p film-look, you should be doing this at the BEGINING of your project, not in the final render. The first thing you should do is convert your 60i footage to 24p BEFORE you do any other work. Then set the Vegas project properties to 24p so that all of your edits, transitions, titles, etc. are true 24p. Otherwise you will find that transitions get weird as 60i transitions are reverse telecined to get the 24p cadence. Also by having your project at 24p Vegas will create all generated media in 24p giving you the best possible look.

The procedure to do this is documented in this VASST tutorial Getting a film look with 24P in Vegas. This will give you all the details on what rendering settings to use.

Because there are several steps to achieve this, we created VASST Celluloid. It follows the same procedure in this tutorial and does all the hard work for you. It also has a few free film looks built in. Celluloid alone is now a FREE download from the VASST site. I would read the tutorial so you can understand the process, but then let Celluloid apply the 24p look for you.

If you just want to render as 24p then you can use our Freeware tool VASST DVD Prep to render your project to a DVD Architect compliant 24p MPEG2 file with AC3 audio all with one click.

~jr

[Bill Binder]

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought Vegas 6 changed the required workflow for 60i to 24p (your link talks about Vegas 4)? I thought you could now just open a 24p project, import 60i events into the timeline, do your transitions/effects, then render out to 24p or 24p with 3:2 pulldown? Maybe not, but I though v6 made the workflow different? Also, what about this link to a different "updated" version of the article you reference above? Although the page is completely screwed up and nearly impossible to read (I had to cut-paste into a different app to read it)...

http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/tu..._in_Vegas6.htm

[Phil Hamilton]

Yes I agree - I thought Vegas 6.0 simplified this but I am still a bit unclear as to whether I can go directly to 24p NTSC DVD Architect mpeg from SD DV or not. Can someone clarify this as it applies to titles and transitions and proper rendering?

Also, if someone is using Vegas 6.0 and has come up with a good workflow plus settings/filters to do this it would be appreciated and allow us to cut to the chase on this without hours of experimentation. I would just like to get to a basic filmic look and author to DVD using Architect.

Also, what is the advantage of DVDPrep really? Is it saving a step or two or does it render faster/better than Vegas 6.0c does? tks - this is a great forum.

[John Rofrano]

Originally Posted by Bill Binder

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought Vegas 6 changed the required workflow for 60i to 24p (your link talks about Vegas 4)? I thought you could now just open a 24p project, import 60i events into the timeline, do your transitions/effects, then render out to 24p or 24p with 3:2 pulldown?

Yes, Vegas 6 does a much better job at 24p and you can render your final project right from the timeline and it will look great. So this is not as necessary as it was in Vegas 5. BUT if you need to do frame accurate edits, understand that you will be editing accurately in 60i and then when 2:3 pulldown is inserted, your edit may end up on a non existing frame (this is basic math, going from 30fps to 24fps means 6 frames out of every second are not making it to the final output)

This is why I prefaced my statement with "If you are serious about obtaining a true 24p" with "true" being the operative word. i.e., to be as accurate as possible, work in 24p from the start. I did not mean to imply that this was the only way to achieve 24p. It is just the most accurate way. You might not need that level of accuracy.


~jr

[John Rofrano]

Originally Posted by Phil Hamilton

Yes I agree - I thought Vegas 6.0 simplified this but I am still a bit unclear as to whether I can go directly to 24p NTSC DVD Architect mpeg from SD DV or not. Can someone clarify this as it applies to titles and transitions and proper rendering?

Yes you can go directly to 24p NTSC DVD Architect mpeg from SD DV. Your 29.970 project will be converted to a 23.976 fps MPEG inserting 2:3 pulldown.

Originally Posted by Phil Hamilton

Also, if someone is using Vegas 6.0 and has come up with a good workflow plus settings/filters to do this it would be appreciated and allow us to cut to the chase on this without hours of experimentation. I would just like to get to a basic filmic look and author to DVD using Architect.

If you haven’t looked at VASST Celluloid as mentioned in my previous post then download it and take a look at the film looks. It doesn’t get any easier than pushing one button.

Originally Posted by Phil Hamilton

Also, what is the advantage of DVDPrep really? Is it saving a step or two or does it render faster/better than Vegas 6.0c does? tks - this is a great forum.

DVDPrep is saving steps and simplifying a process that for some is complex. It uses Vegas to render so there is nothing special going on. I wrote it for two kinds of people. The first is the people who post about once a month that they can’t make a good looking DVD. Then we find out they are using the Default MPEG2 template which is terrible. So it simplifies the process for them by selecting the correct template to use from 6 possible templates.

The second kind is for people who want a DVD Architect compliant MPEG2 file and AC3 audio but don’t want render twice or use the batch renderer because it has too many options. DVDPrep streamlines the process for them.

~jr

[Bill Binder]

Originally Posted by John Rofrano

Yes, Vegas 6 does a much better job at 24p and you can render your final project right from the timeline and it will look great. So this is not as necessary as it was in Vegas 5. BUT if you need to do frame accurate edits, understand that you will be editing accurately in 60i and then when 2:3 pulldown is inserted, your edit may end up on a non existing frame (this is basic math, going from 30fps to 24fps means 6 frames out of every second are not making it to the final output)

This is why I prefaced my statement with "If you are serious about obtaining a true 24p" with "true" being the operative word. i.e., to be as accurate as possible, work in 24p from the start. I did not mean to imply that this was the only way to achieve 24p. It is just the most accurate way. You might not need that level of accuracy.


~jr

I knew I must have been missing something, now I get it completely. So, would it be safe to say, that as long as I'm ok with losing or adding one frame on my edits, then it's not worth bothering to add the extra step to the workflow, where if one frame really might matter, then I should use the extra step in the workflow?

Also, quick question... When you say the default MPEG2 template sucks, are you talking about the default DVDA templates for rendering straight out of vegas itself, or the templates used in DVDA? I typically render out my AC3 and MPEG2 DVDA Widescreen NTSC right from Vegas. Are you saying I should be getting much better quality by doing something different than using those templates?

Thanks for your help...

[Phil Hamilton]

Thanks for the comment now one final question. If I want to work in TRUE 24p do I take the 60i 29.97 source and convert to 24p with 3:2 pulldown then use that in the timeline?

Or should I use some other template for 24p say 2:3:3:2 or something like that?? Reason: I see it mentioned both ways and something rings a bell that if you want to edit in 24p you have to uese the 2:3:3:2 pulldown for the initial convert prior to EDITing - THEN when you want to render to the DVDA version you use the 24p DVD A NTSC template that I believe puts the video into its final form at 2:3 pulldown for DVD. Correct??

[John Rofrano]

Originally Posted by Bill Binder

I knew I must have been missing something, now I get it completely. So, would it be safe to say, that as long as I'm ok with losing or adding one frame on my edits, then it's not worth bothering to add the extra step to the workflow, where if one frame really might matter, then I should use the extra step in the workflow?

Yup you got it.

Originally Posted by Bill Binder

Also, quick question... When you say the default MPEG2 template sucks, are you talking about the default DVDA templates for rendering straight out of vegas itself, or the templates used in DVDA? I typically render out my AC3 and MPEG2 DVDA Widescreen NTSC right from Vegas. Are you saying I should be getting much better quality by doing something different than using those templates?

No, those are the correct templates to use. I was pointing out that there is actually an MPEG2 template called "Default Template" and it is not really tweaked for any particular purpose but that's what you get if you don't select anything else. Beginners tend to leave this selected but this does not yield the best results when going to DVD. As long as you are selecting one of the other templates like DVD NTSC or DVD Architect NTSC video stream (or the PAL versions) you are OK.

~jr

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Bill Binder

Also, quick question... When you say the default MPEG2 template sucks, are you talking about the default DVDA templates for rendering straight out of vegas itself, or the templates used in DVDA?

The DVDA templates are fine. It's the straight "Default" template that is bad. For example, just click on Custom and you'll see the quality slider at 15 isntead of 31. Do the same for ANY of the other presets and it's at 31. Start with any of the DVDA templates and you'll be fine.

[John Rofrano]

Originally Posted by Phil Hamilton

Thanks for the comment now one final question. If I want to work in TRUE 24p do I take the 60i 29.97 source and convert to 24p with 3:2 pulldown then use that in the timeline?

Yes, you would render your 60i source using the NTSC DV 24p (inserting 2-3 pulldown) template (or the PAL version). This is what VASST Celluoid does for you.

Originally Posted by Phil Hamilton

Or should I use some other template for 24p say 2:3:3:2 or something like that?? Reason: I see it mentioned both ways and something rings a bell that if you want to edit in 24p you have to uese the 2:3:3:2 pulldown for the initial convert prior to EDITing - THEN when you want to render to the DVDA version you use the 24p DVD A NTSC template that I believe puts the video into its final form at 2:3 pulldown for DVD. Correct??

Well... that depends on your final format. If you are going from 60i to 24p to edit but then your final project will be rendered back to 60i (for broadcast on TV for example) you should use 2:3:3:2 pulldown. This is because you are inserting pulldown to go from 60i to 24p and then removing pulldown to go from 24p back to 60i. It is easier to remove 2:3:3:2 pulldown which is why it is recommended when editing 24p. (but only 24p that is going back to 60i)

If, however, your final format is a DVD Architect 24p MPEG2 file, then you should render using 2:3 pulldown because you are never going to remove it. Your Vegas project should be set to 24p and your final render will also be to 24p with 2-3 pulldown.

Does that make sense?

~jr

[Phil Hamilton]

John - Thanks. I am going to 24p DVD Arhcitect NTSC ultimately. I was just wondering if I really needed to convert the clips first to 24p BEFORE doing the editing or if I could just work in 60i - do all my edits - and then do the render to 24p using the DVDA template.

What I believe your are saying is YES go ahead and render the captured AVI and insert 2:3 pulldown. Set up the project using the 24p template - add the newly rendered 24p to the timeline - do your edits and render out to DVDA 24p NTSC template. Correct?

Now here is a wrinkle. If the source is 1080 60i HDV I guess I would still go to 24p AVI FIRST then add to the timeline and edit and then render to the DVDA 24p template.

The workflow is generally the same in going to 24p regardless of HDV or DV source?? I can down convert but prefer to capture as M2T HDV source because I have maximum quality and information to work with - do you know if this would be true too? tks - ph

[John Rofrano]

Yes you have the process correct. It is the same for HDV as DV. As some have pointed out, you can also work at 60i and convert to 24p as a last step as long as there are no critical frame accurate edits that might get messed up during the 2:3 pulldown process. For most work this is fine too.

You should try a test both ways and see if you can tell the difference. If you can’t, then use the easier method of converting at the end. Vegas 6 is a lot better at this than Vegas 5 or 4 were.

If you have a Sony Z1/FX1, you can also shoot CF24 and use CineForm ConnectHD to convert to 24p at capture time! The captured file will be at 23.976 fps and the results are really nice (better than CF24 alone).

~jr

[Phil Hamilton]

Originally Posted by John Rofrano

Yes you have the process correct. It is the same for HDV as DV. As some have pointed out, you can also work at 60i and convert to 24p as a last step as long as there are no critical frame accurate edits that might get messed up during the 2:3 pulldown process. For most work this is fine too.

If you have a Sony Z1/FX1, you can also shoot CF24 and use CineForm ConnectHD to convert to 24p at capture time! The captured file will be at 23.976 fps and the results are really nice (better than CF24 alone).

~jr

Yeah. It's the frame accurate edits I'm wondering about too. It's a lot of extra work to create 2:3:3:2 AVIs of the M2Ts PRIOR to editing and I would love it if this step is unnecessary. Anyone have situations where frame accurate editing issues come up - what not to do/avoid??

I have a Sony HDR-HC1 and love it so far. It has a cinematic mode that adds some judder to the film. I haven't experimented much with this but I'm thinking this would only be useful for HD productions printed back to tape. If I'm going to DVD ulitmately for a project then adding more effects at the time of filming may not be the way to go. Anyone have experience with this setting? ph

[DJ Kinney]

It's not just frame accuracy. It's things like fades. In, out, and cross. Those are effects that change in character depending on their framerate. A 60i title fading in and out looks like video. If the effect is generated in 24p, however, then it looks more fimic, and generally better in most cases.