Rendering 60i Properly
 

Whenever I render out of Vegas it likes to take my 60i footage and change it to Standard NTSC 29.970. I set the project settings' frame rate to 59.940, which is the closest to 60i but still renders the same.

I think I know where the problem lies, though. I went to the video properties of the actual clip instead and there is a frame rate option but it's grayed out like it's unchangeable, now I guess my question is why? Or how I could render it out to look like smooth 60i as I intended...

60i video is actually 29.97 fps. Although your camera is capturing 60 fps, it is taking half of those frames and "interlacing" them together to make one frame. Interlace video usually resembles the "video look", and the hole purpose of the Xl2's 30p and 24p modes is to go after that "film look." I'm not familiar with vegas, but when filming in 60i with the xl2, you will want some sort of NTSC time line.

If I completely misunderstood your question, and you wanted to know how to get 60fps from 60i (in other words 60p), then I can't help you with Vegas, sorry.

Hi Chris. Your 60i footage *is* standard NTSC as far as frame rate is concerned. As Wes says, each frame of the 29.97fps video actually consists of 2 fields, although it is the TV monitor that interlaces the fields into frames, not the camera.

So, Vegas is doing it right. If your video is not playing smoothly it could just be that you are watching it on a computer monitor which is progressive and handles motion a bit differently from a TV. Or it could be due to the Vegas preview settings or something else. I suggest you go to the Vegas forum on this site and post more details of what it is that you are not liking, and what your settings are. I don't think this can be an XL2 specific issue.

Richard

Another thing you might want to pay close attention to is the shutter speed when you're shooting. In order to get a smooth look with 60i, it is ideal to shoot at a shutter speed of 60. Anything slower would cause the final output to be choppy and distorted.

Hi Ryan. I find slower shutter speeds will be smoother, but at the expense of more motion blur. Its faster shutter speeds that tend to be choppy.

Richard

Thanks for the suggestion Richard. I'll have to play around with that some more.

Hi Ryan. I wouldn't normally go below 1/30s for NTSC shooting. Of course if you set the shutter v-e-r-y slow, like 1/15s or slower, you get more "artistic" effects that work well in some cases but are not really for everyday shooting. A great thing about video is that you can play around with allsorts of settings for free and then see right away (almost) what the results are.

Richard