Vegas Pro 11 released - Page 4

Hello,

thanks Wolfgang for the tip of converting 50i to 24p.
I have test some panning video from TD10E with vegas.
- direct 3DBR from vegas --> too jerky and blur
- slowdown with 4% and vegas deinterlacer -> too blurry !
- slowdown and Yadif --> very good ! one or two jitter in a 50s video (as Don said, it's perhaps caused by AV and other background programs). But the rendering is long.
- have tested also with Mike Crash smart deinterlacing plugin (x64) but have some artefacts.

With my twin cam recorded at 60p, I have not noticed these issues when converting to 3D BR (24p).

Was that 60p at 720 x 1280?

The FH1 sanyo record at 1920x1080 at 60p @ 24Mbits. But they don't have a good stabilisation. But with a tripod and with enough light, they perform very well.

I thought I read somewhere that Sony fixed/improved the deinterlace issue in Vegas 11? After further testing with build 425, the deinterlacer is broken, not (just) 60i to 24p. For example, when converting 60i to 30p, stuttered motion is also present (highest quality option "interpolate frames"): looks like 12-15fps (actually a useful effect sometimes, but not in this case). Vegas 11b425 ran smoothly (real-time-ish) on 12 2.93GHz Core GTX285 (2010 MacPro)- no crashes (very little CPU utilization (both editing & rendering)- less cores with higher clock should run faster).

While authoring 24p for Bluray requires a more complex solution (I round-trip to PPro/AE using Sony YUV or Cineform, etc.), youtube's ffmpeg (libavformat+libavcodec) does a great job deinterlacing AVCHD 2.0 60i 16Mbps footage: no interlace artifacts and smooth motion: http://youtu.be/uG2d30p9eYA?hd=1 (select 1080p for best quality).

Also, when using Win7's "Play To" feature, the AVCHD 2.0 60i 16Mbps footage looks fantastic on the Samsung D8000: does a great job cleaning up compression artifacts and the motion is incredibly smooth.

This looks very good. Is there any way to have a plugin for vegas using ffmpeg deinterlacing ?
Yadif is too long rendering, and at this time it is way better than built-in ones. and it's seems that it produces some video noise.

Thanks. ffmpeg is command line only. The libraries that make up ffmpeg could be used to build something custom, but the code only compiles with MINGW/Cygwin on Windows (probably easier to install Linux in a virtual machine, cross compile custom libraries for Windows, then add to a Windows project).

If doing SBS, you could render out to a very large, lightly compressed format, then run ffmpeg from the command line: ffmpeg and x264 are very, very fast. When (if) ffmpeg supports MVC, you should be able to input L+R interlaced files and get an MVC compliant 24p output at the max bitrate (~38Mbps), which would be optimal for 3D BD. You might ask Peter Wimmer at http://3dtv.at/Index_en.aspx if they finished adding MVC support to ffmpeg and how to use it (saw some posts on doom9 about this around a year ago).

You could also use ffmpeg to deinterlace L+R to lightly compressed files to 24p, then bring back into an editor to finish (would take a lot of disk space, but should be reasonably fast).

Sorry, John, you are still having trouble with your computer and smooth rendering. I, too had the results you described but all is well now after spending time tweaking my system for dedicated rendering, burning. The key final steps were to completely eliminate my antivirus scanner and pull the ethernet cable to prevent any web activity in the background. I shut down as many background operations as possible. This was the key to creating a commercial like smooth motion video on Blu Ray with 1080 24p.

Of course Vegas 11 425 helped as well as the latest build of Power Director 10. Your computer is more powerful than mine so it is quite likely you just have way too much going on in the background that is stealing CPU cycles.

There were some other tweaks I made to the hard drives for better buffering too but I'll need to access the video editing computer to let you know what changes I made there. Those changes were deep OS changes suggested by CL when I asked them what to do about the stuttering.

I need to check out that mode on my TD10. I have not yet tried it yet but supposedly, it is the "PS" setting for 1080 60p x 1920 ( 2D only) The bit rate listed is 28 Mbs. Should be interesting in Twin camera 3D system.

Hey Don, real-time editing, including transitions is possible with Vegas 11b425 on TD10 MVC footage on my machine. It's likely that a 4- or 6-core box running at >3GHz with a GTX 570 or higher will be faster than my machine when running Vegas (does not use much of the 12 cores- very low CPU utilization at all times- real-time as well as rendering).

The only system issue with Vegas is I must not run AE at the same time- there appears to be a GPU resource issue. Otherwise, Vegas 11 runs OK. CPU utilization when not running any apps is 0%: this is my development box as well as audio/video production box. My own CPU/GPU image processing code runs without any issues.

Vegas 11 b425 (and earlier) have a broken deinterlacer/resampler. I guessed based on experience ~15fps was being output when 24 or 30 was requested:


This is a bug that has been there since Vegas 10. It's why many folks look for workarounds to 'jerky motion', 'stuttering', etc. The output file is broken: it's not a playback/resource issue. You can check it yourself using VLC.

John- You are not choosing the proper render frame rate. You have your Vegas rendering set to half frame rate. The 14.98 number is exactly half the drop frame rate for 30 fps ( 29.97)

I suggest the only bug you have is the way you are using Vegas.



Also, you should know that when you are not running any apps your CPU is not at 0%. I don't know how you determined that but there are a large number of OS processes operational in additional to your AV program that will access your CPU. While you can't eliminate all of them, the basic OS cpu access is quite small compared to an AV file scanner. If you know how to use system resource monitor you should see this in real time. You should observe that with no apps running, that the AV is likely to be the most active background process that can be shut down without harming the OS as long as you avoid internet access. I just pull the plug to be sure. Once you do that your CPU will still not be at 0% but you will know your CPU is dedicated to one app, the burning of your Blu Ray.

BTW- My trouble came when my 3D BD renders were working at top bit rates and resolution, not when rendering for 720 60p 1280 25kbs Only had trouble with 1080 24p x 1920 at VBR 14kbs to 50kbs plus DTS audio at CBR The stutter was at random places on the disk. These most likely were happening when the system was taking a break from burning and doing some AV process. That is why shutting off AV finally eliminated my trouble during the 3DBD burn.

But, at this point your trouble seems to be you just don't have the right settings to create your initial render.

One more thing- My CPU is an i7-950 which is only 4 cores but dual threads so it looks like 8 cores. When I render, I am running all 8 threads at near maximum and the ram is at 6Gb ( I have 12Gb ) The scratch raid 0 drive ( 2 2Tb 7200 RPM 6 GB/s)is running at 80% of maximum throughput to record the file. I'm still using the C drive as the temp storage ( 1- 1 Tb 7200 RPM 3 Gb/s) so that is slower and I want to experiment some day with using a faster drive for the temp files during rendering.

What CPU are you running that has 12 cores? Is it some server mother board that has 2 or 3 CPU's? I had heard that server systems with multiple CPU's socketed is not fully supported by Vegas but my source for that info is dubious. I find it odd that you are not getting full utilization of your system. You may not have the OS set right to give Vegas full access during rendering. Just thinking out loud.

Here's how to repro the frame rate bug:

1. Load any TD10 MVC 3D clip into Vegas.
2. Select a short region (say 10-15s, any length will work, for testing short regions save time).
3. Render As, MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4), Internet 1080p, Customize, Select 23.976 for frame rate, render.
4. On Windows 7, right click on file, select Properties Tab, check frame rate. It will be 14 (can also use VLC or drag the clip back into Vegas and check frame rate. Playback won't be smooth- the file info is correct).

Keep in mind Vegas will either gray-out invalid selections, or report an error if the option is invalid.

The stuttering 24p Bluray issue (where stuttering occurs in the BD player) is likely the same bug (14.98 output instead of 23.976).

I've also repro'd the bug using 38Mbps MP4 output with 29.97 selected (resulting in a 14.98 file).

In general, if the output render isn't smooth- check the file's frame rate.

Regarding CPU utilization- hit CTRL-SHIFT-ESC to bring up Task Manager. When it shows 0%, many processes are running, but using so few cycles Windows reports 0% (system is idle). When there is a run-away process, or during heavy processing, you can monitor CPU load. Vegas only hits 14% when rendering (with or without GPU). PPro & AE run 50% or higher (GPU off).

John- been pretty busy today as I became a grandfather for the second time. 9 lbs but grandson has some problems at birth with pneumothorax and fortunately is recovering fine. My daughter is doing fine but Daddy is a nervous wreck.

Anyway, I believe you may be using an internet rendering template. I don't know why but yes this template series will produce half NTSC frame rate which in the "old days" was called internet video frame rate. In early versions of MP4 rendering, the default was to half the frame rate for internet bandwidth speed. In the 'old days" when the pioneers were first doing video clips for internet distribution, the SOP was to render at this reduced rate of 15 fps (nominal). You may not be a newbie to video but I believe you may not have worked in the early days of the mid 90's when we were developing ways to do video and 15fps was a common practice regardless of what codec we used.

Anyway, you should not be using this collection of codecs unless you are trying to render for slow internet connect speeds or other low bandwidth applications. Frankly I don't know why Vegas is still including this template format ion the 21st century. It is not a bug. It is a legacy antique render format. If it makes you feel any better, I will confirm that every render template I tested in this collection will automatically half the frame rate. On the last tab for project please select Top Bottom FULL and use Best as render quality. You can turn on the audio track too if you need to use it for program or just for syncing to a PCM 5.1 track. More to follow...

What I was concerned with was I thought you were complaining that the proper render templates for blue ray or MVC were not able to render at full frame rate selected.

Here is a template I use for transport of the video in Full HD to PD10 for generating 1080 24p x 1920 3D Blu Ray with menus. This produces very smooth 24p equal to that I get with commercial disks. No, it is not as smooth on high motion as 720 60P but for the best overall quality, I don't think I can ask for more than equal to commercial quality.

...cont'd

I'm not saying that Vegas' latest build is without bugs in the rendering. You may wonder why I don't use SBS full with this process. I had a render bug that showed up as white streaks in the left side image and no matter what I tried it was present. I even tested this with several videos with and without effects added, both MVC and paired AVC clips on two different computers and this defect always showed up, switching to TB Full was the quick fix and both import fine in PD10.

For upload to You Tube I've been using the HD of 720 60P x 1280 render SBS Half with the WMV codec.

Vegas has a template for MP4 for ipad and it works fine. Just used it today to render a short video for my father to see his new Greatgrandson. 2D of course but shot with my Bloggie 3D in 2D mode.

Anybody tested the 290 beta driver yet?

Congrats & sorry to hear about your grandson. I had a pneumothorax when lifting and rotating a heavy box high over head (rib opened lung which collapsed)- was very painful and hard to breath, but good news most people 100% recover.

re: Vegas- when the user selects 24 or 30 frames per second and the application outputs 15- that's a bug in my book . Lots of workarounds; good to know the cause of jerky/stuttered motion videos...

Thanks and grandson is doing fine. Off Oxygen and only needs to stay for a few more days for the IV antibiotics. The only remaining difficulty is nursing inconvenience for my daughter who is being shuttled to the hospital for a few days. Daughter is obviously depressed over the temporary situation. Never had pneumothorax but I treated and saved many as a combat medic, from chest wounds.


Yes, we all have our own definition of a bug but I try to use what developers use. Been on many beta teams and a couple alpha test teams and had to get on board early as to what the difference is. In this case I would say it is a design flaw but once we know the right and wrong way it's 99% of the battle. I hope my postings get you some better renderings. I have always been concerned about your computer being so robust yet performance seems to be lacking by the number of your complaints. I have two computers here that are performing quite satisfactorily. The last major trouble I had was getting my Vizio to display 3D as a secondary monitor on PD10 but that issue is now resolved using a peculiar work around that I happened upon but don't understand why it works. I'm in constant discussion with CL on it and they have been little help because they don't have a monitor to test. Because I have it working, I have asked them to close the case now but they are still having me do testing. I don't think they understand why I have it working either.

Don:

This has got to be a very stressful situation for the family. There is nothing worse than seeing a newborn hooked up to tubes.

It gave me a great feeling to read your latest update on your grandson.

When he comes home from the hospital, it will be the absolute best holiday present for all of you.

Best wishes,

Marty Rahn

Thanks Marty. They took him off everything except the IV for antibiotics yesterday which is now just a precaution. He had one positive and 3 negative blood tests so it looks like he might get released today. They told my daughter to bring in the car seat today so that is a good sign, I hope. The final test is to put him in the car seat for awhile to see how he reacts to it before making the trip home.

On the video side of all this, I took some video of him the next day in icu. My daughter wanted me in with her for the first feeding and consult with the doctor. We all made Daddy go to work as he was the most hyper one there. Light was low and I had the Bloggie so I shot in 2D. Grandmothers were envious I got to go in but having the video to show them made up for it. There are times when a tiny camera can get away with sneaking into where a big camera would not be allowed.

Congrates Don .Best Wishes to you and the family.

Don:

My business partner's daughter in law gave birth to a 1 1/4 pound grandson in her 24th week. Despite the grim predictions, he is now a thriving 2 year old who is the joy of all the family. Your family will look back on this experience and say how wonderful it is to have him there.

On another string, you gave me some encoragement about building my own computer. My only experience for the past 50 years has been in marine insurance. I have owned numerous computers and built them all with a credit card or check. I do not have the knowledge or ability to build my own.

If I were to try, my wife would move out or throw me out.

Marty

I remember when I first asked my cousin (a tech guru of sorts) what tools I'd need to build a computer. He asked if I had a Phillips head screwdriver.

The building part is about as easy as it gets, as long as you take precautions against static damage and you don't forget the motherboard standoffs (which my brother-in-law did when he tried to build his first one). It's the software part that can get confusing and cause problems. That's where I almost always run into issues. OTOH, a pre-configured computer is loaded with so much crapware that it's probably going to bog down when you throw heavy duty editing chores at it. You might want to look at a "Microsoft Signature PC." Google it. They're available in MS stores, and they don't have the boatload of vendor "trials and value added software" (more like trials and tribulations) that accompany a big box PC.

Hey Congratulations Don to you and your family, thoughts and prayers on the way.

Sincerely,
Dan

Thanks for all the kind thoughts. Grandson went home yesterday and looks quite content. Whole family is relieved all worked out so well.

Hey Dan- Have a question for you: Thursday I picked up another bargain computer. Went in to buy a new hard drive and win7 pro to upgrade my business applications computer and found a whole box for just a bit more money. It's an i3-2120 with 8Gb ram, win7 64 bit Pro and 500Gb hard drive. The asus MB has on board Intel graphics, i.e. no card plugged in. It looks like my spare Radeon HD6850 will plug in physically.

Observation is that sometimes my virtual XP mode is sluggish. I reserved 2Gb of ram for the win XP Virtual PC. I need that to work several legacy 16 bit apps that doesn't run in win 7. I go to move a window and it hesitates. pure win7 work is fast and normal. Do you think it is worth a try to test the Radeon Graphics card for speed? Or is this just a cpu that is taxed by robust OS? I think I could buy an i7 2600k for this box but wanted to see what spare stuff I already own would work first.

Yes, I have to be able to shoot at 24p. I don't want to have to deal with 60i to 24p conversion issues any more, even if the results are getting better. The conversion is working OK for me now, because the movement in my current video is so minimal, but for some projects it would be a nightmare. That's why I'm really looking forward to your Panny Z10k review. I'm especially interested in hearing what you think about the resolution problem W.Mayer has reported.

Great on the Grandson Don, he'll get a kick out of the 3d vids he'll see in 30 years, by then maybe they'll be able to convert sbs to holograms!

On the Virtual XP mode, honestly, I have zero knowledge on that. Googling "virtual PC mode xp sluggish" did give me a couple things right off the top to look at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir...t/default.aspx

click the tabs and review.

Then this link was interesting:

http://www.sevenforums.com/virtualiz...y-improve.html

and actually gave me a clue, which I didn't know about xp mode, well, up to now didn't know anything... I see this link references the fact that xp mode uses remote desktop connection - RDC. Since I do use RDC for connecting various PC's and Servers, the default setting for RDC is for slow connections - which causes real jerky motions.

So, on that PC, click the "start" button or "windows button" on the lower left of your screen, and where it says "search programs and files" type "remote desktop connection".

You will get a popup that looks like the attached --- rdc-first.

click on the Options down arrow on the left, and you will get the screen attached ---rdc-second. Click on the "Experience" tab and look at your connection speed to optimize performance. Hopefully, your setting is the lowest setting for connection speed, modem, but in any case, there are some settings here. Try increasing the connection speed to say, WAN.

When you are done tweaking things, go back to the "General" tab and click Save. I just hit "Save" instead of "Save as" something.

I'm pretty sure it's not a processor thing.

Video card? You may have to disable the onboard video in your bios when/if you insert your card. I don't think that a faster cpu or vid card will help this issue after what I read, since it is xp based programs (used on slow processors).

Anyway, there's a couple things to look at, and a couple more clues...

Oh, even at high speeds connections, using RDC still have a little bit of jerkiness, that's the way it is.

EDIT - Oops "RDP" remote desktop protocol, not "RDC", but do see the term interchangeable. Also, looks like you need to make sure the support Hardware assisted virtualization is enabled in the bios? Interesting. And of course, head to that motherboard forum in ASUS, if there is one, and Google "sluggish xp mode solutions".

You'll get there!

Best regards,
Dan

Joe- Just to repeat:

Using twin cams in 2D mode to create a left and right eye 1080 24p x 1920 and then pair, correct in Vegas- output to my work flow TB Full then generate a Blu Ray disk at 1080 24p in PD10 as test 1

Test 2 was shoot with TD10 in normal 60i MVC mode and render same work flow as test 1 to make a BD-RE in PD10

I could not say there were ANY detectible motion artifacts in either test when viewed on my Sony VPL VW90ES projector ( 240Hz ).

On my Vizio (60Hz), both tests suffered the same level of less smooth motion.

I'm not talking stuttering or hesitation as there was none of that throughout. I'm talking about constant less smooth look.

Not sure I posted this but since, I viewed a commercially made Blu Ray in the player and viewed on the Vizio and it had the same degree of not so smooth motion as my PD10 made BD-RE tests.

My conclusion was that the latest workflows and software versions produce a product that is equal in quality to commercially made 1080 24p 3DBD with respect to motion. I agree that technically, not having to do a conversion from 1080 60i to 24p is better, but I don't think it results in obvious improvement visually. Maybe this would be a different story with the JVC MVC format but it doesn't matter with the TD10.

I'd like someone else to do the test to compare but I think only Frank here has the capability to set up a pair of JVC's in 1080 24p twin cam mode. Plus, his JVC's suffered a defect as I recall. If someone has a Pro version that shoots in 24p we could also do it that way. But, I would only trust the results if it was done in double blind testing.

Yes, did that as it is off by default. Otherwise it is really slow as it uses software as a substitute.

The way this works is you have a window that looks exactly like a windows XP desktop. It uses your C drive for OS and installed apps and dynamically resizes the section of your drive based on needs. When you install it it reserves half Gb of your ram but I have mine upped to 2 Gb. It shares all the peripheral hardware and I/O with win 7 but you can make these exclusive to win XP if you want. e.g. I installed an internal USB port and put in a thumb drive just to dedicate a backup storage for accounting software backups.

I'll test out the spare HD6850 and let you know how that turned out. I thought I would need to just plug in the card and the Bios would switch to it automatically but if you think I need to switch off internal graphics, I'll look to see where that is done first.

BTW- because you weren't familiar with it, XPMode is only allowed on win 7 Professional + and it has to be downloaded from MS web site. It's sole purpose is to have compatibility with legacy applications.

There are a bunch of video editing apps that don't run on win 7 and I will be using this mode on my other win 7 editing system. Serius Magic Ultra is one, and another I use is Elastic Reality. Anything you create in these apps in win xp mode you can save to the drives as all are shared.