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....

What you are saying Bryan makes sense to me as I have no clue. It just seems a bad way to view and edit when you can not see the image playback accurately. If anything comes up will you let me know? I appreciate all your help Bryan and the rest of you all too.

Yes, I'd opt for that last one, Bryan. I think Tim is maybe comparing the quality of what he sees on his computer screen with what he sees when he views his footage on the camera (or TV). It will never look the same (or as good). It's simply down to the technology differences between the way the two devices display video. It's one of the reasons why we have to make two versions of a project for those clients who want to use it on the web *and* show it on a TV screen.

Tim I undock my preview window and make it larger ie 779x438x32 and it looks very sharp.
I just went and checked what happens if I change my settings to good auto and the preview becomes more pixilated at that size.If I change back to good full, keeping the scale video checked, the window is very sharp, better than cameras lcd by far (if only the xh-a1 lcd was that good). this is with 50i footage converted to ciniform avi.
For your info i am using an intel q9300 overclocked to 2.9ghz and 4gb ddr.
graphics card is nvidia 8800gt (but vegas doesnt use graphics card for preview).
good luck sorry cant offer any more help.
john

Tim -
Silly question, are you trying to edit HDV or AVCHD? HDV is handled pretty well by Vegas, AVCHD is so-so, and you really pay a huge price in the preview window, it's doable, but it reminds me of the early days of HDV when it was a PITA to edit in Vegas...

I only asked because you mentioned Canon and "tiny little LCD", and there are quite a few Canon AVCHD 'corders out there... (I shoot small Sonys, and the AVCHD is still clunky, but doable)

I am editing HDV shot on my Canon XHA1. I gave up on AVCHD back when there was no support or editing sollutions. So I guess I have to get used to the way Vegas preview window is?

UPDATE: Thanks John and everybody else
 

Well, I managed to tweek things, that along with following John's preview window resizing advice finally gave me something I feel is as close as I will get to watching playback through Vegas as compared to what I see on my HDTV or the LCD screen of the camera. It is still not the quality playback I would assume is needed to propery edit but will have to make do for now.
I do have another quick question? When I drag the preview window down out of the docking location then finish with it, is there a quick one click way or shortcut key to return it back to it's docking location or does it have to be dragged back?
Thanks everybody for all the help on this......Tim

Like any other window that you undock, it has to be dragged back to the appropriate location.

Gotcha, Thanks Mike.

Tim,

What 'settings' did you do to get the playback quality 'acceptable' ?

Jon

You can set and save various screen layouts. So you could, for example, press Alt-D, 1 for your standard layout and then Alt-D, 2 for the layout where the preview window is moved to the other location. Look under View - Window Layouts.

Thank You Sir, I will do that now.

Tim,

I recommend you take a look at the manual....Not the paper one that came with the program but the pdf file....360+ page one. Look under advanced editing(if I remember correctly) I talks of ways for better viewing....I believe prerendering is involved......but if you want that "perfect" display, check it out.

Hope this helps,
Michael

Thanks Michael, My PDF manual is 428 pages, the info you referred to is in Chapter 19 titled Previewing and Analyzing Video. I have read that a few times prior to seeking help but I seem to have struggles with this particular issue. My experience in Video from shooting to delivering a finshed Video, and every step between, is limited as I am new to it all. I love challenges and this is surely a huge one with a steep learning curve for me but like all things, in time I will learn. Thanks for the heads up. Also, Thanks again to everybody for the help.

I use the prerendering option on rare occasion when I am keyframing complicated edits or critical edits especially when those edits occur over short periods of time(line). It is helpful to "preview" your edited piece in the timeline in case you need to adjust something, just make sure to clean up your prerenders regularly or they will eat a lot of HDD.

I agree ,the preview monitor in Vegas has not looked sharp for a cou[ple of releases now, same footage in other programs looks sharper than vegas. I dont believe this effects the rendered project, but kind of tuff to know what you really have. When you add the fx sharpness filter in vegas and have it set to zero , seems to bring the footage back to normal.

Okay, I wanted to give this one last try. How can you propery edit your clips if you can not see an accurate preview in the Vegas preview window of your captured footage? It seems foolish at best. Preview window settings do not make enough of a difference to see your clips as accurately as when you view them with an HD TV.
Is it possible to use an additional or stand alone monitor to preview from other than using your PC's monitor or am I still doing something wrong here?
Surely someone has a sollution??? Help???

Tim,

I too am having the same problem as you. I am upgraded to Vegas Pro 8.0C and thought this would fix it, but it did not. Here is what I do, I bring my video off of my Sony SR12 onto my computer, so it is in AVCHD format. I open up Vegas Pro 8 and select the video I want to edit and while watching it playback in the preview screen it chopping so bad, totally uneditable.

I am trying to convert to Cineform avi to see what the play back looks like after that. I am new to video editing, and this is my first hurdle I am trying to get over. I am trying several different things.

Tim I will keep you posted if I figure anything out, just wanted to let you know that you are not alone here buddy.

Denny

Well Tim if it makes you feel any better, when I am playing video back in AVCHD format, I am getting 2 frames per second. When I rendered it to Cineform Codec HD 2.8 avi, the playback was not choppy anymore at all, but the quality was horrible, it had jagged lines all over the video, any ideas here?

Also should I put my video into a different format once I bring onto my computer, if so which one?

Thanks
Denny

Seems to me there are three available solutions

1. Work with proxy files. If you have 16:9 footage, cut a 720x406 proxy file in Cineform, Sony DV, or other efficient codec. Then cut, grade, and do whatever else you need ot do. At the end of the editing process, do a media replacement with your original footage and the software will do everything to the original, it did to your proxy files. Leaving you with fully finished HD material.

2. Use Dynamic RAM rendering. While this will only allow you short sections to view at a time (depending on available RAM, you will get full speed playback after very short render times.

3. Selectively pre-render. This one gets a bit more tricky, but does allow you to render short portions of your file to easy to playback formats that give a reasonable approximation of the finished footage.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. By and large, Hollywood with their $50k editing machines are still cutting on proxies for the most part. Ironman broke new ground in being one of the first features to actually be cut at HD and screened in HD using Avid's DNxHD 36 codec. It's not very good for Vegas use (slow as molasses) but I master to it and it works great for that. Sometimes I cut with it, if I don't have much editing to do.

It baffles me why you guys fight these battles with 1080p AVCHD when people with million dollar editing budgets won't even bother. Cut proxies and save yourselves tons of headaches.

Lots of ideas, but a screen shot of your render settings would remove the guesswork.

Choppy I can handle, Choppy is not my problem and by the way I am not using AVCHD, I am using HD in 60i straight from the Canon XHA1, captured via my playback deck which is a Canon HV30.......
Once again fellas, when I view the clips directly from my time line it appears in the Vegas Preview Window, regardless of the window settings, as a low quality preview. The project does render out fine with the quality expected. My problem is the preview quality while editing and viewing the playback. How can you accurately edit and adjust the clips if you can not view it in playback as close to what it really is?

Go to Options > Preferences > Video and take a screenshot. Post it here.

We can't and we don't. My preview looks awesome, so let's see if we can't fix yours.

yes it is, you can purchase an AJA Xena card (HD-SDI) for PC or Black magic Intensity card (HDMI) and hook up your 1080 HDTV via HDMI or HD-SDI (if your HD monitor accepts HD-SDI) and this will give you preview as it will be seen on TV. However, if your system is not playing back good quality on the preview window it may not give got quality even on the external monitor. Of course many people just use the secondary window display to hook up via existing DVI/VGA/or s-video connection but that is not the same as connecting to an AJA card, intensity card, or Black magic HD decklink.

I don't use proxies and my playback is great using HDV, if memory serves Perrone is shooting XDCAM and getting the quality boost there so maybe proxies work better for him, but with my HDV workflow I have never needed proxies. i have used the selectively prerender for my more complicated edits or when i use more than one Magic bullet effects simultaneously to aid playback and I find it works well.
I agree with Perrone, if you could show us your settings and maybe a screenshot of what your preview window looks like (record 15 sec with your cam if it helps) and let us know what looks bad about it, we will do our best. It also would be helpful to know what vid card you are using as some effects like Magic Bullet can use GPU acceleration to aid playback.

Thanks you guys. I will get on that first thing tomorrow morning and supply what you ask. As is now I have a semi decent looking preview but nothing near as I imagine is needed for proper editing. Thanks again.

Just a note here. I don't need proxies for my XDCam footage on the timeline, but I master to DNxHD (145/175/220) and in 10 bit if I am going to do heavy color work on the footage. And for that, proxies are necessary.