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View Full Version : Vegas, MPEG-2 compression darkens video, what to do?



tomperson
08-06-2007, 07:11 AM
Hi all,
I'm working in my first serious dvd project, It's a 5 minute videoart project. It contains lots of footage filmed with a canon hv20 PAL camera. 2/3 of the video is filmed in daylight, the rest is done mostly at dusk to get that "night" feeling but with more controlled exposure, and there's a little really filmed at night. Everything is outdoors.

My intention was to get a look that resembles a bit that LOMO photography look (contrast, saturation). I preview the video in vegas, and it looks quite good, with a reasonable amount of detail in the midtones (just a bit darker than usual, mostly due to the high contrast). However, when i create the MPEG-2 file (mainconcept DVD architect video stream preset, tweaked for double pass VBR and audio), i lose *a lot* of the midtones details, ending up with quite a dark and dull video, as i get big zones of shadows where nothing can be seen.

What do you suggest? My next bet is to go down on contrast and get a bit more "washy" video before compression, and see if it improves at all...Nevertheless i feel quite frustrated, since i'm probably going to lose the kind of image I was looking for...

Mark Seibert
08-06-2007, 08:54 AM
Are you seeing this result on your PC monitor, or on the TV...or both?

Just as an experiment, you might try rendering the most troublesome section with a little boost to the brightness, and an little increase to the contrast. I've also found that playing with saturation levels sometimes helps a little.

producer
08-07-2007, 09:04 AM
That's the general defect of MainConcept MPEG codec to make a video darker and worse. If there is a way to use other MPEG codec in Vegas for making mpeg dvd video, I would like to know the way!!!