Terrible looking playback in Vegas???
 

Not sure if this is a PC, Monitor, or Vegas issue so I will start here. I am noticing that my HD Video captures and timeline projects play back in Vegas Preview looking like crap even when I set playback to Best-Full. They render, playback and look killer on the same PC and on DVD's I render but look like crap with Vegas playback preview. It almost seems impossible to edit with any quality with what I am seeing during playback preview. Am I missing something here again perhaps? When I watch a HD or BluRay video on my PC it looks incredible so I am in need of some help and advice. My gear is listed below. I have often heard about a second or editing monitor but could use some input as to why my footage looks so bad in Vegas and if I do need a second monitor to edit or what?

I am using the following:
Dell xps 420 with Intel core 2 quad cpu 6700@2.66 ghz running Windows Vista 32 bit
4 GB ram
NVida Gforce 8800 GTX Grapics card
22 LCD monitor calibrated using Spyder Express 2 ( I am a still photographer)
I have Vegas set up to capture and display to match footage which is 1080i

As I mentioned. videos play back with amazing clarity and quality. Juts my work in Vegas looks like crap. Help?????
Thanks in advance,
Tim

When was the last time you defragged your hard drive? Is this Vegas Pro 8 or another version? Do you have a lot of programs running in the background eating up RAM? Does this happen with raw playback too or only after adding several plugins? I typically use the "Best->auto" display option and find it quite satisfactory for editing.

I can't imagine why it looks so bad for you. For me the playback can be a tad choppy with HD footage, but otherwise looks fine.

I personally use Preview/auto mode for use in Vegas and it looks terrific.

Sorry I couldn't be of help, but wanted to let you know that Vegas can preview HD footage fine. Hope you can nail down the issue.

I use preview-full, if i use best-full then my playback is choppy too.

Paul.

Hi Tim, there was a discussion over on the sony vegas forum about this last year but for the life of me I cant find it just now.
I had a similar issue for a while, try right clicking on the preview window and making sure the 'scale video' option is selected.
You can also go into , options, preferences, display and play with the video settings.
I keep mine on good , full and select scale video to preview window.
Hope this helps.
cheers john

Yes, it happens during raw playback too. I defragged and do so often so that is not it. I also tried different preview window options and have it scaled to fit window but that is not it either. I see the choppiness, kind of jerky and jumpy at times but was told that is normal? My gripe is I see less image quality during playback preview in Vegas. The best way to describe it is it a lack of sharpness and the color seems a lot less saturated. When I capture and edit I have use the playback image from my camera's LCD rather than the preview in Vegas, is this what everybody else does too? Anybody?

Tim , my system isnt much different to yours except im running vista 64bit and using an apple cinema 23 display @1920x 1200
I get good preview performance on raw footage (cineform avi) set to good full. Ive just looked and window is set to 779x438 and im getting 25fps with 25p media.
My only suggestion would be to check which drive you have the media on, mine is all stored on its own drive and again go over the preferences to see if you have missed something as my preview is now pin sharp.
hope you get it sorted.
As for capture i use HD link so im used to not previewing during capture except on the cameras lcd
cheers john

Hey John, My captures are stored on an external hard drive but even when I was storing them on my C drive they looked the same. I guess my real question here is should the footage look on Vegas's preview just as good as on my camera LCD or as good as when I watch a DVD or Blu Ray on my pc's monitor? I definitly am not getting the same quality through Vegas preview, not even close.

What is the connection for your external drive? 1394a, 1394b, eSATA, USB? You might be getting a bottle neck there...I do not use the "scale video to fit preview window" option but i do use the "simulate device aspect ratio." I also use the Auto setting under the best drop down option and playback on my system is smooth, but if i change it to Best ->full it gets quite choppy. On preview->full it is smooth but not as defined as on best->auto. Good luck!

My connection is a firewire to the hard drive. I tried USB and even when my captures were on my C drive they were still pretty awful looking during preview/playback thru Vegas. If I drag the preview window out of the docking station and enlarge it pretty big it gets better so I am thinking I will just have to do that. I hope you all don't tell me that is the way you do it anyway? Why am I getting the feeling it is? It is a noticeable improvement I can live with I guess. Is that what everybody does?
Thanks for the help everyone, I appreciate it.

Tim,

I suppose maybe you should clarify that when you say you are getting poor quality, do you mean in terms of the visual image or choppy playback? I interpreted your problem to be more along the lines of just video that doesn't look "HD" in quality rather than choppy playback.

For the record, I too have hit and misss quality inside Vegas Preview. Some of my footage looks razor sharp full with rich detail in sharpness and color, other stuff looks as though it's pixelated and highly compressed with poor color quality. Note this is not necessarily indicative of my captured footage.

Jon

Tim - I spent some time on the Sony Creative Software support board and found this thread discussing preview window issues. I hope this isn't poor etiquette but here is the link to the SONY board that may have some helpful insight.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=595536

Jon also has a good point, we all might be interpreting your description through our own rose colored glasses, so if you could give some specifics of what you are seeing both on a qualitative and quantitative level we might be more helpful. Thanks!

I am sure my terminology is a huge part of my problem. Okay, when I see my footage on the HD TV or even the video camera's little lcd it looks sharp, bright, and has great colors. When I play it back in Vegas preview it looks like someone took my HD footage and turned it into poor SD footage, no color, softness, and hard to accurately judge it's quality. I know the monitor and pc play back DVD's and BluRay movies with tack sharp images and killer colors so it is something in Vegas, or so I assume. I hope that describes it better. I went through the Vegas settings again so I am at a loss. I will check that link you sent and see if I can come up with anything there. Thanks Bryan and the rest of you I will keep you posted once I get back from that link to see if it may tell me something.

Sorry for the back to back post everyone. My issue Bryan is not Best vs good or Preview. During capture preview and playback of already captured files it is the same poor quality. I do see a difference in the Good, Best, and Preview settings and have tried all even auto full and half all that but I am not getting anything close to what I get from the Camera LCD or what my monitor plays videos at. I guess I am expecting a better representation of what my footage actually looks like than what Vegas is giving me perhaps? Do you all preview in Vegas in the small docked window or drag it out bigger?

hmmm...I view my HDV/Hd previews docked and my SD projects on external broadcast monitor output via firewire through my DSR11 deck. i would imagine that you will not see full HD quality in the preview window whether it is docked or not (unless you could drag it large enough to be exactly 1080.) To get that quality, you will probably need to use an external full HD monitor (not 720p or other variation) so you can see pixel for pixel what you are working with, otherwise the image is scaled and cannot be truly recreated until output. I am theorizing this though based on my experience with SD monitoring so it may be completely off the mark. So far I think I have scored 0 for 3 posts so hopefully this one is more on track....