Very poor rendering quality for HD files in VS X4

[aljimenez]

I am not sure there is a fix per se. What you describe about banding on the sky is what happens in compression with non-professional 8 bit color depth compression. Smooth gradients on skies are well known challenges for any video codecs. Same with fast panning. Fast panning with digital cameras is an issue usually refereed to as judder, jello, and other terms used to describe it. You are going to have to do lots of experiments to reduce these artifacts and no consumer codec with default settings will likely be satisfying. There are filters to remove some of these panning artifacts usually called rolling shutter leaning fences. There are many tutorial videos from companies to reduce these effects; I watched one recently suggesting it is best to do panning from right to left, and to reduce the amount of background to reduce the effects. The banding on skies will likely require future 10 or 12 bit color depths... Al

[Doug2006]

I rewached the car driving vids 40 to 50 times and I can not see any difference in anything. The sky looks perfect in each one and I doubt that I am really seeing anything in the rocks. I downloaded the files you suggested and opened the project in the time line. There were two clips there and I rendered the project out using two different methods. One was optimizer and one was done with first clip. Both look the same and I can not see anything wrong. I watch them on vlc player with the repeat or loop thing on. Doug

[Peter100]

When speaking of fix I was mainly referring to flickering issue. I agree that fast moving object can present challenges to the codec, but as mentioned I see the similar lost of quality on completely static clips as well. The color banding is one think (which probably is a limitation of a 8 bit color coding) but the lost of details is another one. For the record my camera is recording in x.v. color so there is more than enough color information there in the source file. The jello effect is totally different to what I am referring to and is typically related to panning with CMOS sensors which my camera does not have.

One last note to all of you that do not see the effect that I am referring to.

1. When compare files, always play the original source clip (i.e file with .MTS extension) preferably on external not VS related player, and compare it to the rendered by VS second part of a file (where changer requiring rendering is applied.)

2. When using Mpeg Optimizer make sure that smart rendering is enable in saving options. If this is not checked, both unmodified and modified portion will be force rendered, and you will not see any difference between them.

3. Rendering to different that original interlaced format will mask the issue. Using progressive scan frame rates such as 24p, 30p is significantly different. You do not get the same amount of “screen updates” per second that you get with 60i. This is affecting the smoothness of movements. So if you are use to work with 24p or 30p type of files, the flickering I am referring to might appear normal. You should see however the difference in smoothness of movements when it is compared to original interlaced clip.

4. If you have a chance play and compare the files on your HDTV rather then PC. This way we are eliminating entire operating systems, drivers, codecs, processors, monitors conversions etc.


Peter

[Ken Berry]

I might just add here that the only effect I can see is the flickering rocks. No banding of sky colours. And that is on all of the various outputs I made and listed above. Also no difference on my 46 inch Samsung full HD (1080p) TV.

[Peter100]

For those of you that do not see a difference between original clip and rendered file...
Would it be possible for you to post a link to a rendered by you file(s) ?
Also if you can let me know what version of VS X4 you use for rendering.
I am just trying to see if I am missing something.

Thanks,
Peter

[aljimenez]

Every video in my youtube channel has been rendered with X4 using ffdshow codec
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhee
However, I am not be as demanding of quality for youtube. My videos are family stories that include photos and clips. I render higher quality for my home media player with over 30mbps, but still use ffdshow to render... Al

[Doug2006]

Do you mean a video rendered by my setup? Like any video? You could look at the you tube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/KPEarlyEdition?feature=mhee All of those were rendered with x4 and at first I had problems related to a jitter at the first second of playback but that was when I was using optimzer. Now I just started using same as first clip and it seems to have gone away.

But I think it would be much better to download your clips that I have rendered and see if the play better on your setup. I have drop box and could put them in a folder there but I don't know how to make them available to everyone on the forum. If you have any suggestions just post it and I can upload them to something. They are 23 megs.

[lata]

Hi Peter

Can I go back a bit to the Compare 1 Jpeg.
This shows the white line down the road, can you compare it with the image I took
“Lata from Peters Rendered 05 20.BMP”

I have added both images + video to 4share.

http://www.4shared.com/folder/1vImAVx0/_online.html

If you zoom in to the line you will see the quality difference.

Can you confirm that your image is the best you can create?

Indecently the screen shot was taken from your “Rendered.mpg”
----------------------------------------------------

Videos first test……….
I have a problem with the filter as it does not show on the Test.VSP, I think it is because of Windows 7 and XP saving the filters to a different location.
I have created my own project adding the Brightness and Contract -- custom setting to zero.

Project Properties to NTSC, quality slider to 100% quality. (not sure if this made a difference) Using Pal as project properties reduced the quality.
I used Make Movie Manager to create templates and set the quality slider to 100%
One template for H264 and another using Mpeg2.

I am using the original X4, but as far as i know there is no difference in the actual program to Ultimate. Ultimate provides additional software.

[Peter100]

Sorry for not being specific…

I would like to make apple to apple compare, so I am looking for a file that is rendered by your setup using my original clip posted here:
http://www.4shared.com/video/eH9DSrPj/Original.html

Here is what I would like you to do:

1.Start new project (NTSC, 16:9, 5.1)
2.Check project properties --> Performance --> Disable all hardware acceleration
3.Place provided clip on the time line twice back to back.
4.Select second clip and change its brightness from 0 to +2
5.Select Share to the file --> Mpeg Optimizer.
At this point you should see screen that looks like this: http://www.4shared.com/photo/D-zkxxuK/Test.html
This will confirms that you have done above steps correct. (i.e. you need to see that first half of a movie is green and second half is read)
6.Accept the settings.
7.Under saving options select “perform smart rendering” and “perform non square pixels rendering”
8.Upload rendered file to the site that does not alter or convert the content such as http://www.4share.com and post a link to it.

Regards,
Peter,

p.s
I was writing this from my memory so there might be slight descrepencies in names/selections.
Peter

[Doug2006]

Okay, I took your original file and put it back to back in the time line and raised the brightness on the second clip. I disabled hardware acceleration in the main properties of option window. I don't know why I have never done that before. I made left the non square and the use optimizer settings alone as they were what you wanted. I rendered it out half the clip was green the other half red. It all looks the same as before and here is the url they gave me a 4share, http://www.4shared.com/video/QZ9Im6Kq/d ... furl=d1url

[Doug2006]

I just noticed that if you play the video on the 4share site it looks pretty lousy. So I am assuming their preview is degraded or something? Doug

[lata]

Hi

and my donation is here
http://www.4shared.com/video/lUTMV0v5/M ... mizer.html

Just downloading your version Doug, will have a gander.

[Peter100]

I downloaded and compared your files and now I am even more surprised. I was expecting files with smooth moving, good color, lots of details in rendered portions, but this is not the case. Both provided by you files are playing equally bad as mine. Travor’s file has exactly the same properties as mine while Doug’s one has slight difference in bit rate, file length and size. This could be because of transition that he used between clips.

The part that is puzzling is that how come I can clearly see the flickering, reduced color graduation and details on both my PC and TV, and you cannot tell a single difference from the same file. This would suggest that there is something to do with my PC setup, but as mentioned my Sony Blu-ray player + TV produces the same results. To make things more bizarre when I render the same files using the same PC hardware but with VS X5, the flickering is gone and I have smooth movements but color and details are degraded. Go figure…..

p.s.
Travor I could not download your earlier folder with jpg + movie

Here are the properites of all 3 files.

[lata]

Hi Peter

Try these links.
I was hoping you could compare the image with the ones you created, (compare1.bmp) zooming into the white line shows a huge difference in quality.

http://www.4shared.com/file/RN8zewJo/pe ... _H264.html

http://www.4shared.com/photo/QxtLYXgk/L ... _05_2.html

[aljimenez]

I notice that from your Mediainfo details that your files are all Interlaced. Do you mean to make Interlaced videos? I stay away from Interlaced video, and perhaps this is your problem? I do nothing but Progressive video any more... Al