Hi guys. I have a question. I am hot and heavily involved in wedding videography (to support my equipment habit) and have shot weddings with my Sony DCR TRV 20 camcorder (megapixel but only 1 ccd and no "frame" or progressive mode) and my XL1s. The Sony is so comfortable to use easy to maneuver and I get GREAT shots. The Canon is lens heavy and my back ached one hour into the shoot but I shoot in frame mode and get excellent freeze frames on Vegas 4.0 for special effects shots.

Can somebody walk me through the correct method of deinterlacing my Sony footage on Vegas 4.0 so I can use that camera and still be able to freeze frame shots for special efects?

The Canon is breakng my back (and also, one drunk guest grabbed and shook the XL1s lens during one of my shots. I am afraid of the wear and tear it might cost. I could have killed him).

Oh and by the way, will deinterlacing footage in Vegas reduce picture quality?

De-interlacing will almost always reduce your quality/resolution.
If it is a still why not do it in Photoshop if you have that? I heard
that PS does excellent de-interlacing.

2 fields make up one frame. An interlaced camera captures a field every 1/60th of a second and a progressive camera (the Canon in frame mode is kind of like a progressive camera) will capture 2 fields every 1/30th of a second (1/29.97 to be precise).

Photoshop discards one field and makes up the other field either by duplication or interpolation (averaging). Pretty basic from what I see. revisionfx.com sells a de-interlacing filter that does a better job than photoshop I believe (not sure). They don't sell filters for Vegas, but they do for After Effects. You won't really need it though.

Is this for still captures or do you want to deinterlace the whole video? For stills, just capture the frame in Vegas, save it as a PNG, take it into Photoshohp doctor it and then deinterlace it and bring it back into Vegas.

If your goal is to deinterlace footage shot in 1/60 then you would probably do well using a program like dvfilmaker---very reasonably priced and does a good job.

To deinterlace your footage in Vegas, simply change the project video properties' field-order to None (Progressive). For the Deinterlace Method, you have two choices Blend Fields and Interpolate Fields. Interpolate Fields gives a sharper result, but may result in unwanted artifacts. Blend Fields is softer but may look better.

Try both with your preview window set to at least Good quality and see which looks the best to you.

To Render to progressive mode, make sure that the field order in the template you select is set to None (progressive).

Randall

Thank you all for the advice but what might suit me best is Randall's idea. So then it's as simple as that? Setting the field order properties to NONE (progressive) just automatically de-interlaces? No other bells and whistles? I worried about doing that because I thought setting to NONE was only if I was capturing and editing 30p. I will give it a try. Just seems oversimplified since companies make complicated programs to de-interlace and Vegas doesn't even mention it's ability to de-interlace. I will give it a try.

You could shoot in frame mode on the Canon if you wanted to. Advantages would be that you don't have to de-interlace in post (stills from video will not flicker or have motion artifacts) and you will get increase vertical resolution. The downside is that the motion looks worse. It would look more like film though, but not exactly like film. Some people like film look motion, others don't. It's a subjective thing.

Hugh,

In Vegas, also set deinterlace mode to "blend fields" in addition to setting your field order to none (progressive). I deinterlaced some 60i footage from a Sony PD150 to 30p for rotoscoping and the results were just fine.

The way interpolate fields works is that it simply combines the two fields, and when there's motion, the parts that are moving look blocky. Blend fields makes motion look slightly blurry, but that better mimics the appearance of true 30p since fast motion is more blurry as your framerate decreases, so all things considered blend fields is usually the way to go.

But yes, that's all there is to it. Much easier than any other program!

Hugh,

As Peter said, it is just that simple. That is one of the great things about Vegas, it can do a lot fairly simply once you know how to do it.

As Peter said, Blend Fields will make the video a bit softer since basically it takes the lines from two fields and mixes them 50/50. As I mentioned you can also try Interpolate Fields which may or may not look better.

I used to shoot on a PD150 and would often deinterlace via Vegas. I now shoot with a DVX-100 in 24p, so this is no longer an issue for me.

Good luck,

Randall

Now, on another post, a fellow filmmaker described the "field order" setting as something you MATCH to the captured video. For example, the way I understood it, if you capture 60i footage, then you MUST set the field order to lower or upper whether or not you want to deinterlace when rendering. And, as always when wanting to deinterlace, deinterlace method is always set to BLEND or interpolate.

So, may I get a clarification on this? With interlaced video, do I always need to insure the field order is set to lower or upper?

Hey Edward:

Can you clarify my last question? I can't seem to get a definitive answer.

I shoot DV on a Canon XL1 in standard mode. I capture in a standard method. Everything I have is lower field first (labeled as such after capture automatically and I start all now projects that way).

I've never had a need to do anything but lower field first which is what your TV expects anyway.

lower field first is the NTSC standard.
upper field first is the PAL standard.
confusing the two will produce horrible results.
i always shoot my XL1s in frame mode. the de-interlaced results never show motion artifacts and the rez is a push with de-interlacing normal motion. it looks very much like film.
Donald Graft(the plugin filter author for VirtualDub) offers a pretty nice(and simple) still image de-interlacer for free. look in www.neuron2.net

Thanks for your replies, but... I must be having a senior moment. Maybe I phrased my question incorrectly. Here goes:

1) I capture interlaced footage.
2) I want to edit my movie then deinterlace it.
3) In project properties, do I set the field order to "lower" because my original captured footage is interlaced -OR- do I change the field order to "progressive" because my GOAL is to later deinterlace during render?

In other words, if I read Mr. Troxel's message correctly, Vegas automatically reads the footage and sets the field order to lower which leads me to believe that changing the field order at this stage has nothing to do with deinterlacing my footage for later?

Did I get that right? PLease don't shoot me.

The reason I ask this question so many times is because some colleagues instruct me to change the field order to NONE in project properties while another colleague tells me to leave it at LOWER FIELD FIRST because at this stage the program only wants to know what I've captured. Here is his excerpt:

<<60i to 30 progressive ..
there are different ways to get progressive ..
1) you can set up your project (VEG) properties as Progressive ( field order NONE) .. and then choose BLEND as deinterlace method... when you render double check the field order ( none)

2) your project properties is interlace ... then when you render you change field order to NONE .. but it will not tell you which deinterlace method you choose .. so before you render - check project properties to make sure it is BLEND.

3) you can also Print to tape from Time line - again you can go into custom and choose progressive etc . Vegas will have to render every frame from interlace to progressive ...>>


Here's another excerpt:

<<All footage is 30 frames (or 25 if you are in PAL land) per second
for an editor. Any. However, they can INTERPRET the footage
as being 60i, 50i, 30p or 25p (or 24p if you have such a camera).

It is ALL about INTERPRETING the footage. All CURRENT streams
are ALWAYS saved as 30 or 25 FRAMES a second in a DV stream
(even for 24p footage).

That being said, you must tell the application what to do with
your footage. Some people already gave some excellent advice
when you want to convert your footage from interlaced to
progressive.

MAKE SURE that all your settings are CORRECT and the SAME.
This means: the project settings, the footage settings AND
the OUTPUT settings!! (which a lot of people seem to forget
about).

I always shoot in frame mode and thus have the Vegas project
set to 25p (I'm in PAL land). My clips are automatically imported
as 25p so I don't need to change anything here. HOWEVER,
my export defaults to 50i which I need to change to 25p.

If you want to edit interlaced make sure everything is set
to 60i or 50i (PAL).

I hope this explained it a bit more.>>

So you see why I am a bit confused.

I beleive you can select either <none(progressive scan)> or <lower field first> if you want to de-interlace. However, you MUST select the de-interlace method as either <blend> or <interpolate>.

If you want to EDIT in interlaced, then leave your captured video alone. Unless you have done something abnormal, it will come into Vegas as lower field first. Just leave it like that and edit away.

If you want to DEINTERLACE your entire project on the timelime then edit, go to Properties and set field order to None (Progressive). Vegas will deinterlace THE ENTIRE PROJECT based on the deinterlace method (Blend fields is default).

If you want to edit in interlaced, then deinterlace as you render, set your output field order to None (Progressive).

Thanks Guy! You answered my question. By the way, in reference to your last sentence:

<If you want to edit in interlaced, then deinterlace as you render, set your output field order to None (Progressive).>>

does that mean when I am all finished and am ready to render, go to custom templates and select NONE - Progressive Scan?

Yes.

Over the weekend, I made some tests and here are my findings:

1) When I capture interlaced footage and want to deinterlace, I set the field order project properties to NONE - PROGRESSIVE SCAN and deinterlace method to BLEND FIELDS. When it comes time to render, I choose the custom template NONE - PROGRESSIVE SCAN and my finished product comes out beautifully rendered each and every time. Even footage captured with a 1 CCD prosumer cam looks great deinterlaced.

What I've found is that if you set up the properties any other way, the footage WILL NOT deinterlace. Period. Maybe there's something wrong with my program. All I know is that when I left the timeline project properties at interlace and set the render template to progressive, the final product still ended up as interlaced DESPITE THE FACT THAT I RENDERED IT PROGRESSIVE. I have to set the project properies to deinterlace in conjunction with the render custom template to progressive scan. Ya just can't do one without the other.

May I get some sleep now?

I've always been confused by the difference in Vegas, between project properties and render options. what you're saying is that they are inter-dependent, in some ways. This seems counter-indicated, and, if true, is probably a program bug.

Hugh,
After you get some rest, look on page 243 of the Vegas manual, second paragraph under Creating Custom Render Settings for AVI Files. Second sentence says "Final render settings override Project Properties settings." If this isn't working for you, something is screwy or like Bill says, there's a bug.

I haven't had the time to go over this thread in its entirety, but I recently posted a brief "tutorial" on de-interlacing video in Vegas using DSE's composite upper/lower-fields-first method. As far as I know, it's the best method for preserving detail, and eliminating staircasing.

Here's the tutorial (http://ideaspora.net/progressive).

Once you've done these steps, you can mix it up with a very mild gaussian blur and convolution kernel set to 'sharpen' to get different looks. Play with convolution kernel matrix and you'll find some interesting effects.


- jim

I will attempt to render to progressive one more time and see what's what. Time to test that out that manual blurb. I will let you know.

If you want to DEINTERLACE your entire project on the timelime then edit, go to Properties and set field order to None (Progressive). Vegas will deinterlace THE ENTIRE PROJECT based on the deinterlace method (Blend fields is default).

If you want to edit in interlaced, then deinterlace as you render, set your output field order to None (Progressive).

This isn't entirely true. Project Properties dictate what you see in your preview window -- they've got nothing to do with rendering and output. So, if you drop interlaced media onto the timeline, but have the project set to "Field order: none" the footage takes on the appearance of being de-interlaced.

When you're rendering out media, whatever you set in the render properties tabs and settings determine the final appearance of the footage.

- jim

I thought I was going crazy!

- So then, if I leave my timeline footage as interlaced but render to progressive, then my final project will be progressive?

project properties have nothing to do with final output?

Hugh,
Your final product is determined by what you do at render. If you leave the project as interlaced and select progressive from the render settings...you will get progressive in the output file. If you want to see how it looks on the timeline and to get a better idea of the effects/menus, set project properties to the desired output format. You can switch back and forth between interlaced and progressive on the timeline by changing project properties. Vegas is a nondestructive editor. What you do on the timeline does not affect the source file.

...because when I play my movie on the timeline but send out the image via fire wire to an NTSC monitor, it still looks interlaced even though I have the timeline settings at progressive through project properties. AND, again, when I set the project properties to interlace but rendered out progressive, it rendered interlaced. I'd HATE to think somethign is wrong with my software because in every other aspect it works great.

Guy's correct.

If you set it to render progressive properly then there's no way it could be rendered out as intelaced media. No way. You probably selected the wrong template or changed a custom setting in the video tab (i.e. chose the progressive template and then manually changed the field-order to lower field first...which negates the template's settings.)

Progressive footage looks interlaced on an NTSC monitor because the monitor is incapable of displaying it otherwise -- it's an NTSC monitor, they're not switchable to progressive-scan. Check for inerlaced artifacts on your computer monitor (which is progressive) if you think the material's progressive.

- jim