Sony Vegas renders my recorded videos badly.

[Daikun]

Here's a problem that I demonstrated in a video I made a few weeks back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSOAlSvw_s

Whenever I import recorded video footage using any recording software into Windows Movie Maker, it comes out the way it should, albeit with an obvious loss in video quality.

When I import that same footage into Sony Vegas, though, it turns out like crap in the preview window and in the final output. Has anyone else had this problem?

[minidv2dvd]

demonstrated what? where? wasn't here as this is listed as your first post.

is this some sort of game to get you more youtube views? not sure anyone's going to watch a youtube video from a first time poster here. you might try a couple screenshot stills if you need visual assistance with your problem. a more complete description of the problem would be a good idea also.

[Daikun]

The type of video I import is an AVI, and I've tried two codecs: x264 and FFDShow. I've tried several different types of recording software (CamStudio, Camtasia, FRAPS, the works) and it gets me the same results every time.

When I import them into Windows Movie Maker, they look fine. When I import them into Sony Vegas, they look like crap (as shown in the video, since there's really no other way to show it). I don't know why this happens and I'm trying to find a fix.

Look at the moving character in the game. In the WMM example, it's normal. In the Vegas example, it gets some weird transparent color-blur.

It doesn't just happen on games, either. It also happens on websites and even my mouse and Desktop.

If it helps, I'm using Windows XP and Sony Vegas Pro 9.

[minidv2dvd]

ok start with copying and pasting a printout of the source file specs. get mediainfo, it's free. start it and set it to text mode. open a source file and post the results.

next. what are the project properties you are using in vegas. upper left, file/properties.

next what are the render to settings you are choosing to export your video?

and what is the output video intended to be viewed on?

[Daikun]

ok start with copying and pasting a printout of the source file specs. get mediainfo, it's free. start it and set it to text mode. open a source file and post the results.

I'm not sure whether I clicked on the right file.

These are the results I got:

General
Complete name : C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Pro 9.0\vegas90.exe
Format : MZ
Format profile : Executable / Intel i386
File size : 12.3 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2009-04-16 23:54:15

I hope that's the correct one. If it's not, let me know which file you want me to use.

next. what are the project properties you are using in vegas. upper left, file/properties.

I never touched the other two tabs.

next what are the render to settings you are choosing to export your video?

MainConcept AVC/AAC (.mp4) with my own custom settings.

and what is the output video intended to be viewed on?

A standard Flash video networking site. (YouTube, Viddler, Blip.tv, etc.)

[minidv2dvd]

the mediainfo i was asking for was for a source video file, not the vegas .exe

i watched the video, what is the "looks like crap" part. there were 2 different looking parts one taller the other sharper looking. what was i supposed to notice?

a couple thing to try. in file/properties put final rendering quality to best. also the sony avc encoder option gives me better quality than the m.c. one.


i'm out for tonight. back tomorrow.

[lordsmurf]

I don't see anything that "looks like crap". I have no idea what you're trying to do, or what you're referring to.

[Daikun]

the mediainfo i was asking for was for a source video file, not the vegas .exe

Oh, okay. Here's a sample:

General
Complete name : C:\Documents and Settings\Graham Finch\Desktop\test.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 6.90 MiB
Duration : 35s 400ms
Overall bit rate : 1 636 Kbps

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 35s 400ms
Bit rate : 165 Kbps
Width : 600 pixels
Height : 288 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.083
Frame rate : 15.000 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.064
Stream size : 713 KiB (10%)

Audio
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Unsigned
Codec ID : 1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 35s 255ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 411.2 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 5.93 MiB (86%)
Interleave, duration : 251 ms (3.77 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration : 500 ms

i watched the video, what is the "looks like crap" part. there were 2 different looking parts one taller the other sharper looking. what was i supposed to notice?

The sharper looking part is the "looks like crap" part. You may notice the walking creature "disappearing" like a phantom. That's not supposed to happen.

a couple thing to try. in file/properties put final rendering quality to best. also the sony avc encoder option gives me better quality than the m.c. one.

Okay, I'll give it a shot.

[lordsmurf]

Sony Vegas is only doing what you told it. The first video segment is all wrong for aspect ratio. The second is apparently correct AR, but something else was wrong in your settings. It looks like you're just selecting templates that are not correct for your project.

[poisondeathray]

Smurf and Mini are right. Also your framerate doesnt match (15fps input vs. 30fps in vegas). Vegas will interploate more frames by blending past and previous. So it will become a mess, and this may be contributing to the disappearing objects.

I would capture with something better than xvid at 165kbps. Your audio is uncompressed and is 8x the size of the video... When you re-encode with a lossy export format the video will lose quality at each stage. Garbage in = worse Garbage out

Your export settings are low quality too. You are reducing the resolution by 1/2, and using one of the lower quality export profiles: "baseline".