Just a couple of new guy questions

KSC

KSC

Active member
Probably the same questions the last new guy asked...

I just took a few randon clips and jammed them altogether. Keep in mind I have never shot on video or used an NLE in my life up until last week. Please excuse the content as well, I pulled no punches when
it came to applying a heavy assortment of cheesy filters and after effects. Figured I'd get all the cliche crap out of my system now. I just wanted to post this, not because I was in any way proud of it, but simply to have a few visual example in order to ask a few general questions about this editing format.

http://www.vimeo.com/1308488


As you can see, they look like total crap. I've made most of the same mistakes everyone does in the beginning I suppose. The quality looks terrible when uploaded, interlacing, all that good stuff. When you watch it as an avi, it looks great.

If anyone has the time, maybe they can answer some questions for me?

-I shot in 24pa and edited on a 24fps timeline, but when I was advancing through the frames one at a time I noticed there were indeed 30 frames per second? Also I'm seeing some interlacing on those last few frames after the filters drop off. I thought that 24p wouldn't give me that if I removed the 3-2 pulldown. Was I supposed to do 2-3-3-2 pulldown instead? I don't see any interlacing when I watch it as an .avi?


-Why did I lose the Letterbox effect? I shot in letterbox and rendered in letterbox, but as you can it's really not. The raw footage when played back on my PC is though.

-What are the .sfl .sfk files that show up in my Documents folder after capturing and rendering? I can delete those, right?

-Is there anyway to save a rendered file
at a smaller size. 100mbs for a 26 second clip is insane. I looked throughout the Vegas menus, but didn't see any way to compress.

-Lastly, for some reason embedded audio works just fine, but when I pull a track from a cd, it either won't appear on the final rendered project or it has skips. Everything sounds clear as a bell in the preview window, but not in the end result.

Thanks!
 
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1) Make sure your timeline ruler is also set to 23.976.

2) The interlacing on the last few frames may have been from your export settings. What were they?

3) What I'm seeing on your Vimeo link is letterboxed, but it looks like you rendered as Widescreen, giving you a windowbox effect. If you want to render as Widescreen, you need to crop the footage TO Widescreen.

4) The .sfl and .sfk files are extra data associated with the clips, like the graphic audio waveforms you see on the timeline. You can delete them, but they'll just be recreated every time you open the project.

5) Your file size is entirely dependent on the codec and settings you use.

6) The audio problems may again be due to your render settings.
 
Thanks for the reply, David. Damn, I guess I have a lot to learn. Most of this is probably right in the manual too. I should have double checked there before bothering all of you guys. Anyway, let's see...

1- Ah, I never even thought to check that. I figured it would be already set to 24p being that the project was started that way.

2- Not sure what you mean exactly, but I simply clicked on "render as", picked .avi from the dropdown list, then okay. I wasn't really sure what to do beyond that. I did try rendering 24p Widescreen AND 24p regular, but I still got that windowbox effect you mentioned. Also I rendered it 4 more times "removing 3-2", "inserting 3-2", and the other choices that had to do with 24p. They all left me with some interlacing.

3-Just before I left for work this morning I tried to render again, but this time I selected the box that read, "fill to screen, do NOT Letterbox" just to see what would happen, sure enough it worked and the clip was letterboxed? Go figure. Was that the right way, or do you mean the footage has to be cropped in the timeline itself before rendering?

4-Gotcha, thanks.

5- I wasn't sure how to change those. I did read the entire Vegas manual over the weekend. Maybe by the time that section came up I was too overwhelmed with info to retain any more. I'll check it out again.

6-Yeah, I didn't even mess with any audio settings other than levels on the task bar. Again I figured if it was playing fine in the preview window, it would render the same. My mistake.

I appreciate your help. When I get back home I can double check what my export settings were exactly, but like I said, I didn't really change much. I guess I let Vegas mostly render in whatever defaulted on the window when I opened it. That's probably the root of my problem, relying on a program to do the work for me, then expecting perfection.
 
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Well, one thing you have to remember is that the black bars are part of the video. Vegas sees the video as 4:3, because that's what it is -- only with all the pixels in the upper and lower eighths being black. So, if you stretch the video to fit the frame, you're not getting rid of the bars; you're just stretching them with the video.

I never shoot letterbox, because I find it useless. It's confusing for new shooters, and 99% of the time, you're going to get rid of the black bars for one reason or another anyway (whether by cropping them out or replacing them with an overly), so if I'm using a 4:3 camera like the HVX, I just shoot full frame. To me, letterbox is just a giant waste of pixels. (Yes, there's a theoretical advantage to the compression scheme with it, but any practical benefit is negligible at best.)
 
That does make a lot of sense, actually. I guess my excuse is the same as anyone elses who chooses to shoot that way, staying true to "film". I guess in this day and age that's just being stuborn.

I've only ever shot on film and edited real to reel. There was no cropping or fixing a shot in post. What you shot is what you got. I guess I was tryng to stay true to that philosophy. I realize that hardmatting eliminates the "choice" of repositioning, but my mind frames shots that way already, it's a hard habit to kick, ya know? I dunno, I guess I could shoot 4:3 and tape up the top and bottom of the viewfinder?

This is all new to me. If you knew me, you'd be amazed that I even picked up a video camera, much less purchased one. ;)
 
Well, I'm ab-so-lute-ly a proponent of doing as much as you can in-camera -- I just find letterbox a waste, because once you start to do anything with the footage, you're going to find those black bars getting in your way all the time (color-correction, picture-in-picture, any motion transitions, etc.) -- and if you want to make a widescreen DVD, you're going to have to crop them anyway.

If you have a DVX100A or B, or an XL2, I'd strongly suggest shooting squeeze instead of letterbox.
 
Jeeze, I never put 2 and 2 together when you mentioned that shooting "letterbox" was just adding in black pixels to the image. Before I put that "newsprint" filter over the vid I posted I had tried out the "tv" one and messed with the v-sync. I was wondering why the layer I applied that filter to was going through the black bars. It never occured to me that the bars were part of the image. I dunno what I was thinking. Come to think of it there is red glow from one of the effects I applied in that video bleeding onto the black. I feel kinda stupid now.

Squeeze it is then. I do have the 100b. I put the cam into Squeeze mode when I first got it, but the image in the viewfinder freaked me out and I just pushed it out of my mind altogether. I don't own a 16:9 tv so I just figured I wouldn't bother with it.

One more quick question if you don't mind. When I render a project shot in squeeze mode, do I select Widescreen or 4:3 from the menu?
 
Awesome, I'll try it out tonight. Thank you, I appreciate all your help.

By the way, I was just checking out this thread. Indirectly your posts there will most likely answer all the impending questions I would have had tomorrow. I just saved us both some work. ;)

Thanks again.
 
I think that was the ticket. One issue though that confuses me.

I shot this is 24pa squeeze. I opened a new 23.976fps project, timeline, ruler, and rendered in in 23.976fps. 1.21 PAR. Everything came out fine and the file size was ridiculously smaller as a .wmv.

http://www.vimeo.com/1320975

Other than bad lighting and a $50 tripod, it looks fine. No interlacing that I can see. However, I took a small piece of that very same shot here and rendered it as an uncompressed .avi.

http://www.vimeo.com/1320976

As you can see there is crazy interlacing going on and it fills the screen even though both are 720X480. The full clip also plays with black bars on top even on my 16:9 monitor, while the 5 second clip fills up the entire screen as well??

And I'm still confused about what the 4 choices mean that you are given:

NTSC DV 24P (2-3 pulldown)*default*
NTSC DV 24P (2-3 inserting pulldown)
NTSC DV 24P (2-3-3-2 pulldown)
NTSC DV 24P (2-3-3-2 inserting pulldown)

After reading many threads I understand you are NOT supposed to ADD pulldown, but if adding pulldown is "inserting" what does it mean when it just says (2-3 pulldown). Am I to assume that's removing it?
 
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Any NTSC template will involve pulldown and interlacing, because NTSC is always 60i. If you want to render as NTSC DV, you have to insert pulldown.

You'll see that they actually say:

NTSC DV Widescreen 24P (2-3 pulldown)
NTSC DV 24P (2-3 inserting pulldown)
NTSC DV Widescreen 24P (2-3-3-2 pulldown)
NTSC DV 24P (2-3-3-2 inserting pulldown)

I'm guessing that the Widescreen templates don't say "inserting" because then the whole thing wouldn't fit within the width of the drop-down menu.

The file format/codec to which you render is entirely dependent on what you want to do with the footage. If you're delivering to the web, there's no reason to render to DV.
 
Ah, that makes sense. The lack of the word "inserting" just threw me. So those NTSC DV options are mainly for delivering to dvd then?

Right. You're rendering a 60i file. It's 24p with pulldown inserted in order to make it conform to 60i. So, you have some fields inserted which make up "frames" which are mixed from different moments in time, hence the interlace artifacts.

When you see people's work online, you're most often watching WMVs or QTs which are inherent progressive and do not have the pulldown, only the native 24p frames.

Render as something else -- like a 23.976 progressive MPEG-2, or as WMV, or an uncompressed AVI (don't change any of the default settings), and you won't see the interlacing.
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That's your quote from a previous thread. I don't see any other option that would fit the project when looking at the dropdown menu while rendering in any of the formats you mentioned there. In otherwords, what other choice other than those 4 (2 for Widescreen) would you use for web viewing? The "NTSC DV Widescreen 24P (2-3 pulldown)" was the default setting. Again, I thought that was optimized because of the above quote.
 
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KSC said:
Ah, that makes sense. The lack of the word "inserting" just threw me. So those NTSC DV options are mainly for delivering to dvd then?
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No, DVDs are MPEG-2. You'd most often use DV when delivering to others for editing or other work -- either by delivering the .avi file, or for printing back to tape.

Or, for doing a mixdown with intent to do further work on it.



That's your quote from a previous thread. I don't see any other option that would fit the project when looking at the dropdown menu while rendering in any of the formats you mentioned there. In otherwords, what other choice other than those 4 (2 for Widescreen) would you use for web viewing? The "NTSC DV Widescreen 24P (2-3 pulldown)" was the default setting. Again, I thought that was optimized because of the above quote.
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You wouldn't normally use any of the codecs under .avi for the web. You'd be using WMV or AVC or possibly something under Quicktime.
 
Gotcha. I was gonna render as a QT file, but I didn't have internet access at home and Vegas prompted me that I needed to update my QT in order to proceed.

One last question, I promise! Putting dropdown, interlacing, and quality issues aside, a friend of mine burned both of the clips I posted and played them on his 16:9 television. He said that the first clip ("belt") was true 16:9, but that the second clip ("small belt"), while close, looked akin to something resembling 3-2. I realize that's all irrelevant when redering as MPEG-2 for dvd, but I was just curious why the wmv version he played filled his screen and the avi did not? The "small" vid is just a snipet from the same exact project, just rendered differently. I wouldn't think the aspect ratio would change.

The only thing I can think of is something happened while rendering that never did before. When the rendering began the preview window didn't show the clip progressing as normal, but showed a black screen with white words reading "Recompression Required" or something like that?
 
I'm not what your friend means.

What did he "burn" them to? What did he play them on?

DVDs are 16:9 or 4:3 -- any other aspect ratio will either have black bars or be stretched out of proportion.

If the preview screen was black, it most likely said "No Recompression Required," which means you were rendering back to the same format as the original footage and you added no effects, or did nothing to change the footage at all.
 
He burned them to dvd and played them back on a dvd player and 16:9 tv. He said the wmv completely filled his screen like it should, but the avi didn't. It wasn't drastic, he just said it didn't quite look like true 16:9 as the wmv did. I was just curious why that would be when it was the same exact shot.

You can see the difference even in Vimeo.

belt.jpg


The bottom screencap (avi) looks stretched. They are both 720x480.

If the preview screen was black, it most likely said "No Recompression Required," which means you were rendering back to the same format as the original footage and you added no effects, or did nothing to change the footage at all.
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Oh okay, I thought it was a warning of some kind. So basically I just took a chunk of raw footage and duplicated it. Nothing really changed except it's length.
 
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Looks like the WMV has the black bars in the image, while the .avi doesn't. Again, this is probably due to your render settings.

If you got the No Recompression Necessary flag, then the .avi is pretty much exactly what you shot and what was on your tape.

The results on the DVD will also have to do with what he used to make it and what his settings were.
 
Alright, cool. when the time comes to actually start putting things on dvd I'll be rendering in MPEG-2 anyway. For now I'll stick with wmv and QT for the web.

You've been really helpful. It's a lot to take in all at once and I appreciate you taking the time to explain things.
 
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