Ok, so I'm working on some small animation clips, but when I render them out and import them into Vegas to compress to MPG-2 for DVD assembly, they look "interlaced" when viewed on a tv.
The colors also look slightly flat, for lack of a better word.
Anyway, does anyone have some good guidelines for rendering out of AS with the intention of putting the final product into a DVD format.
anyone?
anyone?
rendered animation looks "interlace" when burned t
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Just some hobbyist guesses until someone with real experience adds their comments.
Is this the final DVD that looks interlaced, or direct preview monitoring from Vegas?
My guess about the interlacing:
See if you can find where to set your DVD output to use progressive mode rather than interlaced (which is probably the default, to correspond with a lot of consumer camcorders). I'm assuming your render is at DVD width and height to start with.
Failing that, try changing the field order - I think interlaced NTSC DVD is upper field first.
I don't know if either of these will change the preview appearance, but they might make some difference on a DVD.
My guess about the colours:
Compressing to MPEG-2 often results in some colour loss, as does reducing your palette to TV-compatible output (NTSC or PAL) - neither NTSC or PAL can handle the full range of colours that a computer screen can handle, and some colours will look fine on a computer but "smear" on a TV (bright red is often a culprit here). The type and adjustment of the TV/monitor can also play a part - LCD can seem to display more brilliant colours, and a TV that is tuned to show paler skin colours well may show subdued animation colour.
Short of adjusting your TV colour/brightness and making sure it matches your monitor type (e.g. both are LCD), I'm not sure there are any easy fixes for this one.
Is this the final DVD that looks interlaced, or direct preview monitoring from Vegas?
My guess about the interlacing:
See if you can find where to set your DVD output to use progressive mode rather than interlaced (which is probably the default, to correspond with a lot of consumer camcorders). I'm assuming your render is at DVD width and height to start with.
Failing that, try changing the field order - I think interlaced NTSC DVD is upper field first.
I don't know if either of these will change the preview appearance, but they might make some difference on a DVD.
My guess about the colours:
Compressing to MPEG-2 often results in some colour loss, as does reducing your palette to TV-compatible output (NTSC or PAL) - neither NTSC or PAL can handle the full range of colours that a computer screen can handle, and some colours will look fine on a computer but "smear" on a TV (bright red is often a culprit here). The type and adjustment of the TV/monitor can also play a part - LCD can seem to display more brilliant colours, and a TV that is tuned to show paler skin colours well may show subdued animation colour.
Short of adjusting your TV colour/brightness and making sure it matches your monitor type (e.g. both are LCD), I'm not sure there are any easy fixes for this one.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."
-- Groucho Marx
-- Groucho Marx
Thanks for the help:
It's the final DVD that looks that way.
Should I be changing the final NTSC dimensions? I've been using the preset template in AS for NTSC. I thought that would work.
I seem to recall setting the entire project to progressive.
I'm going to try to get some help on the Vegas forums to see if I missed anything in the rendering settings to make sure its all progressive.
It's the final DVD that looks that way.
Should I be changing the final NTSC dimensions? I've been using the preset template in AS for NTSC. I thought that would work.
I seem to recall setting the entire project to progressive.
I'm going to try to get some help on the Vegas forums to see if I missed anything in the rendering settings to make sure its all progressive.
Double-check that progressive setting in the DVD output, and also make sure the Vegas project is set to output to rectangular-pixel NTSC dimensions - if that's okay, it should automatically resize the rendered square pixel resolution to rectangular TV pixel resolution. If the Vegas project is set to use the resolution of the input media instead (and I'm not sure which is the default), that might be at least part of the problem.
Regards, Myles.
Regards, Myles.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."
-- Groucho Marx
-- Groucho Marx
Correct, as this was the freeware method. But the settings do make a difference. Such as exporting at double the resolution and then resizing it with a "Precise bilinear" filter for smoother lines. This will help the pixelation problem. And of course, a "Levels" and "Gamma" filter to correct the brightness and color. That's a start anyway. 
Here is the difference. First one is just exported with no editing after. The second is edited. Exported at double the resolution, resized with the precise bilinear filter, gamma set to 0.75, and levels adjusted (16-235). The pixelation is now slightly better and while it appears darker on the pc, when viewed on tv, all is fine.
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Last edited by J. Baker on Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Sounds like a video monitor needs to be added to the setup.
A lot of editing programs will output the canvas or viewer sources to an external video monitor. It's the only real way to tell how all the details will look on a television screen.
There's a lot of issues of screen matching, especially between LCD monitors and standard TV sets.
If you're really serious about getting all the contrast and color details the way you want them the first time, I'd think about getting a broadcast monitor.
Heck, when you're done with it, you can always use it as a TV again!
-Johnny
A lot of editing programs will output the canvas or viewer sources to an external video monitor. It's the only real way to tell how all the details will look on a television screen.
There's a lot of issues of screen matching, especially between LCD monitors and standard TV sets.
If you're really serious about getting all the contrast and color details the way you want them the first time, I'd think about getting a broadcast monitor.
Heck, when you're done with it, you can always use it as a TV again!
-Johnny
Is that the same thing Premiere does by default, with its "frame blending"? Took me forever to figure out why everything I was exporting was turning to garbage -- Looked like an interlacing problem, but of course the imported AS animation was not interlaced, and I was checking everywhere for "field options" and "progressive", etc., when the real culprit was "frame blending".jhbmw007 wrote:Hey- I didn't read everything here but a problem I always had in Vegas was interpolation. Vegas automatically interpolates everything- to turn it off you have to right click the video in the timeline, click "switches", and then disable resampling.
I've been doing more testing with dvd. I found that if you have a high frame rate, aliasing on a non-progressive tv is quite very noticable, as we know.
But if you take your 24fps animation and in a video editor, convert the fps down to 12 or 16. Then reconvert the fps back up to 24 or 23.976. And then use a 3:2pulldown when encoding to dvd. I know this seems strange to do but here's why...
Interlaced tv display fields every 1/60th of a second. So when you have a animation at a true 24fps (no duplicate frames), The rate of displaying a 1/60th field or 1/30th frame is quiet fast. Updating them so fast it causes a shift in vertical movement.
Now if we have a non-true 24fps animation which has duplicate frames, it slow down the interlacing rate by half. This helps the vertical shifting alot. It's still there but not as noticable. And of course this only happens with motion. You could have a 29.97fps with no motion and it would be fine, of course.
This is why some professional cartoons look good because they were probably animated at around 12fps, then upconverted. And some newer cartoons have jerky or quick arm movments and so forth which makes it not as noticable as well.
Other factors of using a line width of at least 1.5 or higher can help. And also, not using a very dark color as in outline. If you're using black, don't make it a true black.
But if you take your 24fps animation and in a video editor, convert the fps down to 12 or 16. Then reconvert the fps back up to 24 or 23.976. And then use a 3:2pulldown when encoding to dvd. I know this seems strange to do but here's why...
Interlaced tv display fields every 1/60th of a second. So when you have a animation at a true 24fps (no duplicate frames), The rate of displaying a 1/60th field or 1/30th frame is quiet fast. Updating them so fast it causes a shift in vertical movement.
Now if we have a non-true 24fps animation which has duplicate frames, it slow down the interlacing rate by half. This helps the vertical shifting alot. It's still there but not as noticable. And of course this only happens with motion. You could have a 29.97fps with no motion and it would be fine, of course.
This is why some professional cartoons look good because they were probably animated at around 12fps, then upconverted. And some newer cartoons have jerky or quick arm movments and so forth which makes it not as noticable as well.
Other factors of using a line width of at least 1.5 or higher can help. And also, not using a very dark color as in outline. If you're using black, don't make it a true black.
Hm, although the effects you describe are visible for me as well, I don't recommend the cure you suggest. It's something like "oh, we only have an old grammophone so we convert your vocal tracks to crappy telephone quality".
If the hardware isn't capable of displaying average content correctly, replace the hardware. I would never compromise the quality of my work. If my film is done in 24 fps, it shall be shown in 24 fps.
On the Mac there was (is?) a similar problem while displaying DVDs. Fast movements, especially animation, showed annoying black horizontal lines, like a fine comb. But never would I have reacted with "OK, from now on I only use blurry outlines and very slow movements".
But your suggestion about line width is correct, this is especially true for horizontal lines. European PAL TV chokes upon static 1 pixel horizontal lines so they should be avoided, otherwise they will flicker all the time.
If the hardware isn't capable of displaying average content correctly, replace the hardware. I would never compromise the quality of my work. If my film is done in 24 fps, it shall be shown in 24 fps.
On the Mac there was (is?) a similar problem while displaying DVDs. Fast movements, especially animation, showed annoying black horizontal lines, like a fine comb. But never would I have reacted with "OK, from now on I only use blurry outlines and very slow movements".
But your suggestion about line width is correct, this is especially true for horizontal lines. European PAL TV chokes upon static 1 pixel horizontal lines so they should be avoided, otherwise they will flicker all the time.
I understand your thoughts but I wouldn't call it crappy. Alot of professional 2D animations are made using low frame rates. I would also like to get a full 24 or 30 fps but I just don't see how. Unless it's using jerky movements like alot of the newer cartoons do. I prefer smooth animation myself.
I've even created software that converts a true 60fps to a interlaced 30fps but it's not worth the process as the results were not that much better. In the two years I've been studying frames of 2D animations and writing software for it, I'm left to write something that detects pixel movement and creates a motion blur of some sort. Just haven't done it yet as I don't want to waist much more time writing software. It's taking away from my animation time.
I'm fine with lowering the fps for interlaced tv's for now. But I'll always also create a full fps for progressive tv's as they have no effect on this. In a few more years we won't have to worry about this anymore.
I've even created software that converts a true 60fps to a interlaced 30fps but it's not worth the process as the results were not that much better. In the two years I've been studying frames of 2D animations and writing software for it, I'm left to write something that detects pixel movement and creates a motion blur of some sort. Just haven't done it yet as I don't want to waist much more time writing software. It's taking away from my animation time.
I'm fine with lowering the fps for interlaced tv's for now. But I'll always also create a full fps for progressive tv's as they have no effect on this. In a few more years we won't have to worry about this anymore.