Converting 60p or 30p to 60i, in Sony Vegas, any ideas?

[crapshoot]

Hi,

I have a graphic animation in progressive format. I have it both in 60p and 30p .avi files. I want to use it in a 60i timeline. Deinterlacing all my 60i footage is not an option. Simply dropping the progressive footage on the timeline and rendering it interlaced along with the rest does not yield satisfactory results. When playing back on a media player with deinterlacing enabled, the progressive footage looks like crap. But when rendered on it's own as progressive, it looks great.

So, long story short, does anybody know how I can turn 60p, or 30p, whichever is preferred, to 60i? I have tried with Virtualdub's interlace filter but it converted the 60p file to 30p and had no visible effect on the 30p file.

I have Sony Vegas to work with along with BCC8 series of plugins and effects for Vegas as well as Virtualdub.

Thank you for your assistance.

[drapeama]

Progressive exported as interlaced shouldn't be a problem at all. There's probably something wrong with your encoding then.
In fact, progressive video [native progressive = scanned progressively] would simply take the progressive frame and make it upper/lower when exporting as interlaced, so there shouldn't be any issue with that.

[Video Frank]

Drop your 60p and 30p clips onto your 60i Vegas timeline. Right click and disable smart resampling. If you render out 60p and 30p to 60i for Bluray then it'll look great. If you view it on a mediaplayer on your computer - not so much. What is your delivery device? If it's for a computer or web you should be de-interlacing. Interlaced footage is only good for DVD's or Blurays. I render 30p and 60p Cinema 4D animations and 60p footage to Blurays all the time and they look great on a TV.

[crapshoot]

Thanks for a lot for replying guys. Yes you are right drapeama, There was something wrong with my encoding. I noticed that the rendered clip only showed interlacing halfway through. So I decided to start from the beginning. My animation is flash at 60 fps. I initially exported it as an image sequence, no problems there. I then dropped it in my Vegas timeline. My first mistake was that I didn't change the frame duration in the editing preferences. Instead of setting it to 0.015 sec (which equals 1 fps at 60fps), I left it at 0.03 sec (which equals 2 fps at 60 fps). This clearly caused some issues. After correcting and re-rendering, the animation is interlaced through out and is as smooth as 60i should be. What remains is some compression artifacting around moving objects that I'll have to live with I guess. It appears that 16 000 kbps, the highest AVCHD setting Vegas offers is not high enough for this animation. If I render it as a Main Concept mp4 at 50 000 kbps, looks much better. Unfortunately that bitrate is not Blu-ray compliant and DVD Architect has to recompress. I find the same kind of artifacting around text superimposed on interlaced footage and then rendered interlaced. When rendered progressive, it looks fine.

Frank, the reason I'm not deinterlacing my 60i footage, first, I've got way too much of it. Second, I have yet to be satisfied with the output quality of the deinterlaced material when panning shots are involved. I have tried with Vegas's options (Blend and Interpolate Fields), as well as 3rd party plugins such as BCC's deinterlace, Yadif and Smart Deinterlace. And to answer your question, my delivery device is Blu-ray disks but I also like to have a version on file for playback on a pc. And yes I always disable resampling unless I alter the speed of a clip.


Thanks again guys.

[drapeama]

If I render it as a Main Concept mp4 at 50 000 kbps, looks much better. [...] and to answer your question, my delivery device is Blu-ray disks but I also like to have a version on file for playback on a pc.

1) Well, I'd avoid rendering using MainConcept: it's the worst encoder available. I'd (instead, if HDD space isn't an issue) render in an intermediate codec, with high bitrate (anything between 50mbps and 150mbps) and then use another program to recompress to h.264. MeGui is a good one, but it uses Avisynth. If you can use it, then it's the best tool available (to me).
2) Then you should just leave everything as 60i, export as 60i and from your final delivery (using intermediate codec) go with MeGui and encode another version using a deinterlace method from there. That's what I'd do.

[crapshoot]

What would that alternative codec be specifically, that Vegas supports? Yes, space could become an issue but if it's worth it, I could figure something out. And can DVD Architect Pro accept H.264 without recompressing? I must admit that Avisynth is out of my comfort zone but again, I'd be willing to put in the effort to learn how to use it if my output will be significantly better.

The one thing that puzzles me it in Vegas is that even when rendering in an interlaced format, you still have to choose a deinterlace method in the project property if you use track motion, overlaid text or other types of effects, certain transitions. I don't get that.

[Video Frank]

If I'm rendering from Vegas Pro to DVD Arch for Bluray I use the Sony AVC template at about 20 Mbps for the video. This is accepted into DVD Arch w/o re-compressing. Some members here use other tools to render and author. To each his own.

Project property settings typically only affect how your project is displayed in the preview window. In most cases is does not affect the final rendered output.

[crapshoot]

If I'm rendering from Vegas Pro to DVD Arch for Bluray I use the Sony AVC template at about 20 Mbps for the video. This is accepted into DVD Arch w/o re-compressing. Some members here use other tools to render and author. To each his own.

That's what I use as well. Live action avchd footage looks good but my graphic animation has artifacts around moving objects and text. Text objects laid over video footage also has artifacts around the letters. Something that doesn't occur if used in a progressive timeline and rendered in progressive format.

Project property settings typically only affect how your project is displayed in the preview window. In most cases it does not affect the final rendered output.

In most cases you say. Those cases that I listed above do require either Blend Fields or Interpolate to render properly. Track motion where you zoom in or move the image around, or if you use a velocity envelope to slow down a clip. Without it, the rendered footage comes out with fat diagonal squiggly lines across the whole image. With it the footage comes out normal. Again, this only occurs with interlaced footage. I hate using those deinterlace settings because they affect the output quality and across the whole project. So what I end up doing is splitting the portion where, for instance I used track motion, render it separately in a lossless format with Interpolate or Blend Fields enabled. Then I import that rendered footage back into the timeline where it belongs and disable deinterlace and render the project.

[Video Frank]

When you say that your footage has artifacts do you mean when you've dropped graphic animation (30p or 60p) onto a 60i timeline, rendered out as 60i and viewed on a TV as Bluray or DVD? Or have you rendered out at 60i and are viewing it on your computer? I ask because I've done hours of footage from an HV30 at 60i and mixed in my own animations from After Effects or C4D at both 60p and 30p and it looks incredible when viewed on a TV via 60i Bluray. It looks like crap on a computer.

I also do my own web delivery for my videos. My method (and, again, others here will do it differently) is to render out from Vegas to a 60p intermediate and use that intermediate in Handbrake. Handbrake will convert my 1920 x 1080 60p intermediate (which can contain 60i from my HV30, 60p from my Panny TM900 and 60p or 30p from AE or C4D) to 1280 x 720 30p. It does a beautiful job of resizing and de-interlacing. I've used this method for a couple of years now and my customers are pretty happy with the product.

[crapshoot]

When you say that your footage has artifacts do you mean when you've dropped graphic animation (30p or 60p) onto a 60i timeline, rendered out as 60i and viewed on a TV as Bluray or DVD? Or have you rendered out at 60i and are viewing it on your computer? I ask because I've done hours of footage from an HV30 at 60i and mixed in my own animations from After Effects or C4D at both 60p and 30p and it looks incredible when viewed on a TV via 60i Bluray. It looks like crap on a computer.

When I render the image sequence (the 60p flash animation exported as an image sequence and then imported into Sony Vegas) as a 60i uncompressed AVI, from Vegas, it looks perfect. As soon as I render that file to 60i AVC at 20 000 mbps, again from Vegas, I get what I can only describe as compression artifacts around the moving objects and text (The animation is a detailed world map with country and major city names with a single color plane icon that flies a route over the map. So I get artifacts around the plane and all the words on the map.)

I get the same result if I skip the AVI rendering and render the image sequence straight to 60i AVC. If on the other hand, I render it in progressive, the compression artifacts are no more. Of course I then loose the motion smoothness of 60i, unless I render it in 60p but then I'm back to square one. I've wrestled with this for some time now.

These compression artifacts are visible both when viewed on a computer or on Blu-ray viewed on a TV. I get the same kind of artifacts if I use text objects on video footage, in this case 1080i AVCHD from a camcorder and render out, from Vegas, in 1080@60i. If I render the same footage with the same text in 1080@30p, the artifacts are gone. Am I really the only one getting these artifacts? Then surely I must be missing some obscure setting somewhere.

I also do my own web delivery for my videos. My method (and, again, others here will do it differently) is to render out from Vegas to a 60p intermediate and use that intermediate in Handbrake. Handbrake will convert my 1920 x 1080 60p intermediate (which can contain 60i from my HV30, 60p from my Panny TM900 and 60p or 30p from AE or C4D) to 1280 x 720 30p. It does a beautiful job of resizing and de-interlacing. I've used this method for a couple of years now and my customers are pretty happy with the product.

So if I read you correctly, and you do this for web delivery, you render out from Vegas to 60p using an intermediate codec. This can contain anything from 60i to 60p and everything in between. What may I ask is this intermediate that you speak of?
You then bring in that 60p file into Handbrake and convert it to 1280x720@30p and deinterlace with it. But why would you deinterlace it if your 60p file is progressive already? I assume that you do this because you are not satisfied with Vegas's attempt at the same output?

Also, when you do your animations in After Effects, what do you render them out as before importing them into Vegas?

Thanks

[crapshoot]

Hmmm, I posted a reply yesterday only to find out today that it has not posted. Bummer. Let's try it again. To answer your question, yes artifacts (what I can only describe as compression artifacts) in animation around moving object and text once rendered in AVC to Blu-ray to watch on TV. Artifacts also visible around text objects laid over camcorder footage. But these so called artifacts are only visible when rendered interlaced, not progressive.

Can you tell me which 60p intermeditate do you use in Vegas prior to importing to Handbrake. Also, if you're taking a 60p file to Handbrake, why do you need to deinterlace it in Handbrake? Isn't it already deinterlaced since it's 60p. Or did you mean when you import interlaced files to handbrake?

I gave Handbrake a whirl after reading your reply. I imported my interlaced animation file to it and rendered it in MP4. I don't want to speak prematurely but the compression artifacts seem to be gone when I render at an avg bit rate of 10 000 kbps. I can't tell for sure because I have another problem. Although the resulting file seem to come out interlaced, as intended, VLC or PowerDVD is unable to deinterlace it. Am I missing something here?

Also, MP4 files are not compliant in DVD Architect.

[Video Frank]

I export from Vegas Pro 10 to a 1920 x 1090 60p Cineform intermediate file**. I don't use my HV30 any more, just my TM900, which is 60p. For handbrake, I'd use the Sony mxf render format.

The files I sent to Handbrake were 1920 x 1080 60i mxf files from Vegas with footage from my HV30 and AE or C4D straight - alpha'd over top. I'd take the mp4 files from Handbrake for Web use only. If I wanted to create a Bluray I'd use my intermediate files on a Vegas timeline and export the lot of them as Sony avc. These are compliant for DVD Architect 5.2.

Are you sure you're using straight alpha to apply overlays onto your footage? Try to upload some problem footage somewhere for us to take a look at - otherwise, I'm stumped.

** I don't use Cineform much anymore due to the mysterious "black dropouts". See the Sony Vegas forum for more info.

[crapshoot]

I'd always been using the default alpha settings for text objects which is premultiplied. You had me excited there for a minute as I rushed to change it to straight and render a test clip. At first it seemed like the artifacts were much less noticeable than before. So I rendered the same test but switched back to premultiplied and I can't see a difference. Perhaps I'm being too critical. I did use a different font for the test and gave it a black outline. I'd have to do some more tests with the original footage but I could definitely live with that amount of artifacts, if we can even call it that. It just means that I'd have to change the font across the whole project. I can still see a difference between progressive and interlaced though.

The one thing I'm definitely not willing to live with is the artifacts in my animation and I'd love to be able to share the footage with you so you can see what I mean and perhaps see if you have better luck with it. The uncompressed AVI file however is almost 3Gigs in size, for 16 seconds worth. Can you recommend a site? I'm not used to sending such large files.

Thanks

[Video Frank]

How about a screen shot for starters?

[crapshoot]

Ok, here are some interlace and progressive screenshots. It's not as obvious as seeing it on TV. But you can clearly see the difference between progressive and interlaced. On TV, the interlaced shots are crisper which make the artifacts even more visible.

interlacedscreenshot1
interlacedscreenshot2
interlacedscreenshot3
interlacedscreenshot4

progressivescreenshot1
progressivescreenshot2
progressivescreenshot3
progressivescreenshot4

Thank you.

[Video Frank]

That text is quite small. You will run into problems with artifacts without question. Out of curiosity, how did you get the maps into Vegas? Are they still images? Are you panning with them? I know you'd mentioned track motion before. Also, how large & what format are the maps? Large pngs are better than smaller jpgs (and by large I mean greater than 1920 x 1080 to avoid having to zoom before tracking).

These types of images are hard to encode cleanly which is why you'll rarely see something like this on broadcast TV.

[crapshoot]

Hi Frank,

The original map is 6203x1841. The panning was done in Flash itself and not in Vegas. I exported the animation from Flash as a PNG image series and imported it into Vegas as such. The snapshots were taken from the AVC renders. Are you able to see the difference between the progressive and interlaced? The progressive is nice and crisp while the interlaced ones look heavily compressed, with artifacts around the planes and text.

By now it's obvious that I went about the wrong way to achieve this type of animation. I've seen a few demos on Youtube of map route animations done in AE. Unfortunately I don't have AE at this time and having to redo them all (I have forthy) would simply be too time consuming.

I just don't understand why I can't get the interlaced render to look as good as the progressive render.

[Video Frank]

Yes, there is a definite difference between the interlaced and progressive screen shots. Interlaced video was the reason I ditched the HV30 and went with a 60p camera. Slow motion work is trivial and it's much easier to export to the web. Even though Bluray is 60i it looks better after feeding it 60p. I'm done working with 60i on a timeline.

I'm not sure what the answer is for your problem. I guess you either redo all forty or you live with the artifacts.

As far as AE goes, if you have kids or are a teacher (or know a teacher) you can pick up AE and other software on the cheap from Studica. I picked up AE and C4D for about $300 each. It is the full version of each but with academic (non-commercial) licenses.

Good luck.

[crapshoot]

Alright, thanks for your input.