degradation of HD quality ...

[Ron P.]

Has anyone out there compared VSX4's encoding output to Premier Pro or Final Cut?

That's like comparing apples to oranges. Would you think a comparison between a Rolls Royce and a Ford would be fair? VS even though it has "Pro" in it's name, is not a professional grade application.

[erdna]

joneisele, if your original footage is 60 p and you let VS X3/4 process it (which can be done), it wil no longer be 60p, even not a standard 60i !. It wil render with a temporal resolution of 30p. If you put your original and the rendered files on a USB stick, and compare, it is normal that you get judder in the rendered file. I think I posted about this issue some time ago

[joneisele]

Erda: the video I am testing is 60i. Now you have thinking though. For the sake of argument, let's say you had Adobe Premier Pro would you set your camera on 60P?

Others: I downloaded a trial copy of Sony Vegas Studio HD Platinum 11 last night and re-encoded a couple of my AVCHD clips that I have been using through this analysis. Quite frankly I'm struggling to tell if the re-encoded Sony output is worse than the original. I think it might be a tad worse, but it is really hard to tell. I will report back after a buddy of mine has time to try Final Cut.

Anyway, compare this Sony result to VSX4. Those same clips simply re-rendered with VSX4 to AVCHD/H.264 look crappy. I had my 8 year old daughter watch and point out the differences from the native to renderred.

The bottom line is that VSX4 has poor quality rendering. Like a lot - like unacceptable. I've been using this product since 2000 and the UI and workflow are great. Now I feel trapped. What's the point of using an easy to use video editor if the output quality is terrible? I don't see anwyay out other than going to a new product. I will call support, but let's face it, it will likely be a long time before these issues are fixed.

What is mind boggling is that surely Corel must be aware of these issues. I just don't get it.

What is everyone else doing here? At this juncture given that I'm going to have to go with a new product, I will probably take the plunge and go with Adobe Premier Pro, although part me thinks buy a powerful Mac, Final Cut, and just have dedicated machine with good software. That's a lot of money, but after debugging VSX4 for hours on end this last week or so, I would have rather spent the money and had my time back.

[erdna]

Jonisele, I have been using VS for quite some time for FullHD (AVCHD and BD) edits and I am not unhappy with the results. As a retired video engineer I did several tests using FullHD testpatterns and FullHD display equipment (50" Samsung plasma...). I always use smart render (accept the MPEG optimizer), and can garantee that at least on still images the resulting file is bit by bit equal to the original. In order to proceed, can you publich a MediaInfo overview of one of your problem files?
On the 60p issue: I know for shure that Vegas 10 Pro can create perfect 60p content (10 times as expensive as VS in my country...). I am still not shure about CS5 and FCP (no proof). Edius 6.0 cannot create AVC H264 60p video

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

You do seem to be having problems with HD and X4

I have yet to take the leap into the HD world.
However you mentioned sharing your original video files
I have a few sample videos from the Panasonic 700 but they are to small to see any quality changes.
Can you make your video files available for download, the only free option I know of doing this is using Windows Messenger to transfer files.

I don’t suppose I would find any other options that would improve the quality, but I am willing to try.
I do not have a Bluray burner so would have to produce the hybrid disc/folder

By the way when you select Share Create Video File - Same as First Clip, does X4 actually use the correct properties, that is your video files properties??

[bstuartb]

Joneseile,

If you set a customised mpg setting in VXPro4x disk maker so that it matches your camera clip bitrate etc exactly , then it will not re-render, so the quality will be retained. But then the avchd disk will give problems on the Bluray player, I suspect.

Let us know how you get on

Bill

[bstuartb]

Jon
When allowed to re-render VSPro4X does indeed make playable AVCHD disks on DVD that do not fall over .

But if you set the mpg output properties to match your project clips correctly (custom setting) and tick the 'do not re-render compliant etc' box it will duly avoid re-rendering, work much faster, but then the authored disk is liable to hang up in all the Bluray players, especially when fast forwarding, chapter seeking etc.

That is the problem. It doesn't help that the disk maker in VSPro4 doesn't give any hint about how much re-rendering it is going to do. The 'File' making option is much more friendly, and seems to make files that can be played (as unauthored AVCHD mpg files) in many Bluray machines.

My camera is Panasonic sd700, taking 1080x1920i, 16800kbps. The 16800 had to be set as a 'custom' value in the VSPro4X disk maker. I'd be interested to hear other people's experience with AVCHD Disk.

Regards

Bill

[bstuartb]

Jon

Like you I'm not shelling out for a Bluray burner while they still cannot sort out AVCHD on DVD

You made a disk , but DID YOU prevent re-rendering??? You probably have to tinker with the options for the burner module, to make sure the mpg output matches the clips......

You can only tell by the time it takes and the image quality as to whether it is successful

Please let us know your experience, blow by blow

Bill

[joneisele]

Bill S-B: you are correct, when I made an AVCHD disc it re-rendered the whole thing. I have not tried the experiment you suggested where you match bit rates to avoid the re-render and then subsequent testing of the disc. I probably won't at this point - it is painfully clear that if VS renders HD, the result is problematic.

Regarding a BD burner, I don't really need one as I intend to either stream, copy to my PS3 hard disk drive, or use a USB flash drive for my productions. However, buring DVD's is still of interest as I do have a set of relatives who like our home movies. And eventually will send them Blu-Ray discs.

That said, there is still a big issue. If you are using titles, effects, etc. the video gets rerendered. I can even see the degradation at the beginning and end of transitions in some cases. My video style is to take a lot of shorter clips, trim, etc. so there are tons of transitions. And as noted 60p doesn't work, although I haven't yet decided if that is what I will shoot on the camcorder for most clips.

I suppose I could wait like you and hope that Corel fixes their encoding issues. I don't want to hold my breadth and now I've lost my faith in the program. At this point I'm planning on going with a new product after a decade of use. If my current PC can adequately handle Premiere Pro, I will probably go that route. If my machine won't cut it, then I have a bigger dilemna regarding new PC/Premiere or going new Mac/Final Cut. I've spent way too much time lately debugging and dealing with issues and just want something that works even if I have to pay for it.