Vegas Issue still no resolution?
 

Hi,

I have major issues with Vegas. Vegas is giving me me
"Ghoisting" issues. I've had the same problem for about 2-3
years now and I've written here before, I didn't get the problems
resolved then and if I can't get the problem resolved this time I
have to find another NLE.

I have tried every setting possible and have yet to find a workaround.
Pan/crop makes it worse. Rendering to anything else then DVPAL makes
the artifatcs appear. To not get any artifacts I have to choose the
right format in properties (in my case DV PAL) and no deinterlace.
If I apply any form of slowmotion/pan/crop or colorcorrection I get issues.
I have to render to DVPAL interlaced or the ghosting issues appear.

This is how they look:
www.atamashi.com/dvinfo/vegasinterlaceprob.jpg

I know people have the same problem as me, are you just igonring the fact
that you get major ghosting issues? Or you never apply pan/crop - slomo or
colorcorrection? Always render to the same format as the input format?

One again, I've tried all the simple work-arounds. With or without deinterlace on, flicker, feild order, progressive settings... Without any results.

A WMV file with the problem:
www.atamashi.com/dvinfo/3wmvbest.wmv
This file have PALDV in properties - it has deinterlace BLEND on (because I want to publish it without all the stripes on the internet) Lowerfeild first.
In clip properties I have DVPAL - Lowerfeild first.

I try to render as WMV - No pan/crop/speed or CC. WMV settings are 3Mbit - PAL size (720*576) quality: best


I know I'm not alone... please help!

/Andreas

Looks to me like you're changing framerate from the original framerate.
Make SURE your project framerate and output framerate match the framerate at which you shot your footage.

Have you tried using "deinterlace - interpolate" instead of "blend"?

From a post by David Jimerson on another forum:
***************************
Blending fields saves vertical resolution in non- or slow-moving objects, because every scan line of the picture is represented. But moving objects will often have ghost-like auras around them.

For moving footage, if you're going to deinterlace, best to use "interpolate." What this does is take a field and create a whole frame out of it, thus using only one moment in time. No artifacting needing to be blurred, but it's a whole picture made out of only half the information -- only half the scan lines -- so the vertical resolution is considerably less than progressive footage would be, theoretically half. But you won't have the ghosting. The motion will be much better.

So, use "blend fields" if you don't have much motion, if any. Use "interpolate fields" if you have motion.
***************************

Mike

DSE:
Nope, (I'm from PAL land) so I've set the FPS to 25 in: Properties, fileproperties (Default) and when I try to render, still an issue.

Mike:
How good is an NLE if you have to sacrifice half the resolution?
It acually worked in some cases choosing interpolate, but when I try to put PAN/CROP or slowmotion on it, it get's just the same.

One again, if I want to go out to tape (DVPAL) and choose PAN/CROP - CC or Slowmotion I get this issue.

The funny thing if it was consistant I would just think it didn't work or it was user error.
But in some cases I can do slowmotion without errors and sometimes I can't.
(this can be in one and the same file just not at the same time)

Are you guys not getting problems like this with motion?
Can you apply pan/crop to any clip or even slowmotion without getting
the same effects as I?

Kind regards..

I work in both PAL and NTSC, almost in identical quantity these days. :-)
No, I don't see this sort of field issue. Interlaced vs progressive is a big issue if not managed right, but the ghosting you've displayed looks pretty bad overall.
The NLE isn't the issue. If you can find an NLE that will process the same footage you just posted stills of, with any better result, then I'd use it. The issue is the camera, framerate, and delivery. If you're putting slo-mo to it, if you're shifting framerate, whatever, you'll see this with low-framerates like PAL proscribes.
There ARE better de-interlacers than what Vegas offers, at significantly higher prices. Mike gave you great advice, and you might want to play with that. Also try the Mike Crash deinterlacer, it's free.

I know you are a Vegas guru DSE. You are telling me I'm "overworking" Vegas?
Because the way I see it, Vegas has the features. But it can't handle the things
I throw at it and the way I combine functions.. Why have the functions/properties
if I can't use them the way I like?

My framerate is always set to i25 or 25P if I'm going for the web.

I love Vegas to death and hope that they could make a 'fix' for my issues.

Have you heard anything about Vegas 7? The things I've heard are most
certanly rumors but my judgement about those rumors is that Vegas is going
to take the road to more "consumer" with features like "make your own
music" programs integrated into Vegas. If this is the case. I have to think
twice about my NLE. I feel they shoud go more professional and concentrate
on making the program work with all it's features.

Kind regards and much respect.

Because the "way you like" has challenged broadcasters since the beginning of progressive. Again, if you can find an NLE that can process to deinterlaced better than Vegas, then buy and use it. You won't find one. Many can't do it at all.

If great deinterlacing is important, bear in mind that with PAL it's already a tough proposition because of the lost temporal resolution. Add to that the fact that you might be throwing in pan/crop to offset fields, add to that the fact that you might be throwing other things in there that make it even more difficult, and you've got a recipe for a mess.
It's not a Vegas issue. It's an issue of understanding the basics of video, interlacing, progressive scan, how fields work, and why. There are several deinterlacing applications out there. The good ones cost far more than Vegas. If you want progressive output, and can't deal with tossing 30% of your resolution, then buy a progressive camera. Or, spend a fair amount of time understanding how interlacing works on acquisition, and learn to work with that.

Andreas, that is the nature of the interlacing beast.

It's really hard to convert interlacing to progressive with good resolution. If you are familiar with Yves Faroudja (he designed some >$10k boxes that convert interlaced to progressive), and his opinion is:
“I am amazed that anybody would consider launching new services based on interlace. I have spent all of my life working on conversion from interlace to progressive. Now that I have sold my successful company, I can tell you the truth: interlace to progressive does not work!”.
http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/...editorial.html

The simple solution would be to do the following:
A- Set the encode resolution to 320X240, and set Vegas not to letterbox the footage.
In the render as dialog, set it to "Stretch video to fill output frame size (do not letterbox).
By lowering the resolution, your clips will download faster and you can rid of the ghosting.

For the de-interlace method, use interpolate fields (I think this would be under project properties).

B- The shutter speed will affect how much motion blur you get. Depending on how you're de-interlacing, shutter speed will affect how much ghosting you're getting.

C- If you want a higher-resolution web encode, you can try mike crash's de-interlace filter.

You need to set your project in a specific way.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52097

D- A slightly better quality de-interlace filter can be found in programs like Apple Shake I believe. I think Magic Bullet *Suite* and some of the Realviz products offer a high-quality de-interlace filter. Adobe After Effects may or may not have a high quality de-interlace filter too. Be warned: Some of them are very slow!

What the higher quality de-interlace filters is try to detect the motion in the image. The more sophisticated/accurate methods will typically be slower.
Motion estimation is a big problem in the video world (in format conversion, compression, etc.). And when it doesn't work, you end up with artifacts.

The simpler algorithms like blend fields or interpolate fields don't give you perfect resolution. Interpolate fields giving you half resolution, blend about 75%.

2- If you primarily do work for web and you want the higher resolution, then it's just easier to use progressive footage. There are progressive cameras on the market now. Some cameras have a frame mode, which gives progressive images but not the full resolution.

After putting in a few hours, I've actually got a workaround..
Not 100% but atleast I got rid of the ghost issue.

Thanks guys!

Andreas, what's your workaround? I'd be curious to see what you came up with and what you consider to be its deficiencies.

The severe ghosting in that WMV is without question the result of using "blend fields" instead of "interpolate fields." And yeah, the lower framerate of PAL doesn't help.

You might consider *disabling* the Smart Resample switch for an event if you are changing framerates.

I shot some footage at 1080i (60i) and used Vegas to resize to SD resolution, and change the framerate to 24fps. This first sample was shot using interpolation deinterlace, with smart resampling ON:

http://www.villamil.org/movies/istanbul-resample.mpg

Note how the bird's wings leave multiple images.

This second sample turned OFF resampling for the event, all other settings remain identical:

http://www.villamil.org/movies/istanbul-interpolate.mpg

Resampling attempts to introduce "motion blur" to smooth motion when changing framerate. Sometimes this works well, sometimes it does not.

* As Gian said, smart resample off on every clip.

* If you use pan crop. Look in the viewport (monitor) to see how the interlace affects the picture. Nudge up or down to correct it if it's gone bad.

* In some cases changeing to "upper feild order" in the clip properties worked too.

The downsides, if you use slomotion it dosen't have that smart resamle vegas sleek super fluid look. It get's choppy. Well I guess I could use some other softeware to do my slomowork.

I guess those are my workarounds. (Worked in 95% of my clips in a 4 minute video)

Ultimate guide to deinterlacing
 

Everything, and the details, at

http://www.100fps.com/

/magnus

You can use Smart Resample only the clips you're slowing down.

If you slow 50i to 50%, you'll match up one field per 25p frame. Use Smart Resample, and your slo-mo should be glass-smooth.

If you try to deinterlace first, and THEN slom-mo, you'll get choppy results every time, whatever type of resampling you use, because you'll have thrown away half your time samples -- and 25 samples per second isn't much to work with. Much better to have all 50.

As an afterthought, you could try converting your footage to 50p instead of 25p. That way, you'll make each 50i field into a full progressive frame. No ghosting; no interlace issues. There will be resolution loss, but that's unavoidable in any case.