Expanding video

[north45co]

Hello,

I rendered a video in Vegas 6, set the frame rate to 23.9... and checked to make sure there was a 2-3-3-2 pulldown. After I rendered it as an AVI, I watched it and it looked fine, however, when I watch it in full screen it looks blocky and interlaced. I checked the properties tab of the video and it says it is at 29 fps. I am positive I selected 23.9 fps because I double checked it and rendered it multiple times. Whats the deal?

 

[David Jimerson]

If you rendered as DV with 2:3:3:2 pulldown, you rendered a 29.97 file which is interlaced (60i). Pulldown is inserted for the specific purpose of making that kind of file.

The 24p frames are split up into interlace fields, and some of the fields are repeated in order to make 24 frames fit into 60 fields.

Because you're watching on your computer screen, which is a progressive display, you're seeing interlace artifacts when you're seeing fields from two different frames on the screen at the same time.

If you want to watch your video on a computer screen and not see interlacing, then render a straight 24p file with no pulldown inserted. You can do this if you render it uncompressed, but not if you render it as DV. You can also render to WMV or Quicktime as straight 24p.

If you render it as DV and want to watch it, then render it with 2-3 pulldown, and not 2-3-3-2 pulldown. You should only insert 2-3-3-2 pulldown if you're planning to edit the file again. If you're not, use 2-3 pulldown because it's meant for the smoothest possible playback, where 2-3-3-2 pulldown isn't.

If you're watching it full screen, it will look blocky and pixelated because you're stretching an image at the resolution of 720x480 and blowing it up to 1024 x 768 or whatever higher resolution you have your computer monitor set to. You're just seeing the limitations of the DV resolution.

You won't see that on a TV, though, because no matter how big the screen is, it's still the same resolution as DV.