Why does rendering to Mpeg4 look horrible?

S

Starticus

Member
Once a week I do audio for a local small town TV station. One of the things I do is offer to edit a segment of a show and give it to one of our guests.

Here’s the work flow:
Get dvd of show > load it into Vegas 8 Pro > edit > render.

The video looks fine while playing back in Vegas but if I render to Mpeg4 the video looses definition and, while it plays back smoothly, some objects in the video have a “jerky” quality. The jerky quality mainly pertains to stationary objects.

If I render to windows media file the video looks fine. The problem is that some guests want the video in Mpeg 4 format.

Any ideas or guidance is much appreciated.

BC
 
what render settings and project settings?

was the dvd interlaced , progressive or telecined?
 
I am going to guess that you DVD is already compressed. Than you edit and re-compress to MP4
and it looks horrible the second time around.
Just a guess.
 
Video compression is as much a "black art" as it is a science. There are people in Hollywood that make insanely decent money just because they're good at video compression. That said, video compression is generally about choosing the appropriate encoding bitrate given image dimensions, frame rate and program content. Video with a lot of noise, high motion or fine detail requires a higher bitrate than ultra clean, low motion video. What parameters did you use?
 
Hi guys, been busy. Thanks for your help.

OK, back to the problem..........

The project properties are:
Template: NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970FPS)
W 720 H 480
Field order: Lower field first
Pixel aspect ratio: 0.9091 (NTSC DV)
Output rotation: 0% (original)
Frame rate: 29.970 (NTSC)
Pixel format 8bit
Resolution:good
Blue type: Gaussian
Deinterlace: Blend fields

Please let me know if you need any additional info.

I also wanted to add, I shot a documentary with a DVX100B at 24p. I loaded it with the same settings and had the same poor results when I rendered to Mpeg4.

Again, the footage looks great when playing back in Vegas. And if I render to windows medai file it looks good too (although there is some lose).

Thanks again for any help!
 
Before you blame Vegas and your project settings, suggest to make sure that it is not your Windows Media player fault - I would install other players to test your rendered file in mpeg4. The most fresh version of Medial Player Classic for instance.
 
manh said:
Before you blame Vegas and your project settings, suggest to make sure that it is not your Windows Media player fault - I would install other players to test your rendered file in mpeg4. The most fresh version of Medial Player Classic for instance.
Click to expand...

I don't think the media player is the problem. If I render to Mpeg4 and burn to a DVD using DA I still see the wierd play back.
 
try converting and editing in DV, then export as a DV master files, then re encode from that.
 
Starticus said:
I don't think the media player is the problem. If I render to Mpeg4 and burn to a DVD using DA I still see the wierd play back.
Click to expand...

WTH are you doing?

You start with a DVD. Which is already a LOW bitrate Mpeg2 file.
You load it into Vegas, do a bad deinterlace, and render out to an even MORE compressed Mgeg4. Then you take that Mpeg4 into DVDA and proceed again to re-compress and burn another Mpeg2.

And you're surprised it doesn't look good?
 
PerroneFord said:
WTH are you doing?

You start with a DVD. Which is already a LOW bitrate Mpeg2 file.
You load it into Vegas, do a bad deinterlace, and render out to an even MORE compressed Mgeg4. Then you take that Mpeg4 into DVDA and proceed again to re-compress and burn another Mpeg2.

And you're surprised it doesn't look good?
Click to expand...

From my second post.

"I also wanted to add, I shot a documentary with a DVX100B at 24p. I loaded it with the same settings and had the same poor results when I rendered to Mpeg4.

Again, the footage looks great when playing back in Vegas. And if I render to windows media file it looks good too (although there is some lose)."
 
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