VS 6 versus VS 7: Rendering speed and quality results

[flea099]

I upgraded to VS 7 (32 bit) this morning, and immediately ran some comparison tests.

My rig: i5 3570, 16 GB RAM, GTX 780 GPU, Windows 7.

I tested two projects at different resolutions. Project 1 was simply 5 minute-long segments (5 minutes total) of Titanfall PC footage (captured at 1920x1080 60fps) edited together. Project 2 was the same footage with transitions, text, overlaid graphics, various effects and extra audio clips.

Project 1: Saved in default 1920x1080 mp4 format ~13500kbps at 30fps. Settings more or less identical.
VS 6: Took 9:09 to render. File size: 485MB
VS 7: Took 5:41 to render. File size: 507MB
Verdict: VS 7 is much faster, but the quality is very noticeably inferior. I was very surprised. File size difference is negligible.

Project 1: Saved in 3840x2160 mp4 format ~43000kbps at 60fps. Settings as close to identical as possible.
VS 6 took 55:50 to render. File size: 1.58GB
VS 7 took 47:35 to render. File size: 1.49GB
Verdict: Again, VS 7 is faster. This time, there is no difference in quality as far as I can tell. File size is starting to make a difference at this resolution.

Project 2: Saved in default 1920x1080 mp4 format ~13500kbps at 30fps. Setting virtually identical.
VS 6: Took 10:40 to render. File size 500MB.
VS 7: Took 6:40 to render. File size: 517MB.
Verdict: VS 7 is clearly optimized for speed, but the quality is simply unacceptable. Check out the screenshot comparison.

**Overall quality of the uploaded screenshots is crappy due to the need to shrink it for upload, but you can very clearly see the differences between the two versions. You can see a full sized version here:
http://imgur.com/1H8NMD0

I even tried upping the bitrate to ~18000, and there was no noticeable improvement in quality.

I'll be downgrading to VS 6 unless someone can think of a solution/setting I may have overlooked.

[Ken Berry]

Thanks for all that -- though I find it a little strange that the X7 quality seems a good deal inferior to that of X6's. I do a lot of mp4 high def editing these days using the 50p (PAL) 29 Mbps 1920 x 1080 from my Go Pro Hero 3. And I cannot tell the difference in final output quality between either original unedited video or video which has been in some cases heavily edited.

But that raises the question of exactly how you produced your new videos... In Preferences > General, have you ticked the box beside 'Show message when first video clip is inserted'? That allows you to set the Project Properties -- in X7 at least -- to high def which is identical to those of the first clip. In turn, when finished editing (or with no editing) you can then choose Share > Create Video File > Same as Project Settings. You can also choose Same As First Clip -- as long as the first clip is one of your high def originals...

But can you describe in a little more detail the steps you took to produce your output results.

This also partially begs the question of the full properties of your original video: is it AVCHD/h.264 flavoured mpeg-4 or some other flavour of mpeg-4? Could you please right click within VS (either X6 or X7) on one of your original clips in the timeline or library window, and copy ALL the Properties here or take a screen grab of the Properties box and post it here?

[flea099]

Hey, Ken. Thanks for your help.

The original files are avc/h.264. I attached a screenshot. I do have the "show message" box checked, and the project properties are the same as the source material.

I can save the file "same as first clip," and the quality is indeed great , but I'd like to reduce the bit rate to avoid the huge file size (like I did with VS 6). When I save mp4's with the exact same settings as I did in VS 6 (1920 at 15000kbps), they look like crap (attached screen shot #2).

Also included is a side by side screenshot of the finished VS 6 file and the finished VS 7 file in GSpot (6 is on the left). As you can see, they're near identical -- in fact, the bit rate for VS 7 is actually a bit higher.

Thanks again.

[lata]

Hi

If the quality is good using Same as First Clip yet you wish to reduce the Data Rate then using Movie Profile Manager create a new template AVCHD using the Add function, that will create a template using the original materials properties. Now edit that template reducing the data rate.

The new template will be available from Share AVCHD
If your source material is MP4 then create an MP4 template

Reducing the Data Rate will reduce the file size but will also impact on quality.

I would think you are best using the original format and reduce the Data Rate rather converting to another type.

[flea099]

The highest data rate for an mp4 profile is 20000kbps. Is there a way around this?

It's not a big deal if I have to go back to VS 6. Just kind of disappointed that this was such a big step backwards.

[Mist001]

I mentioned this a while back when the trial was first released. Although I was using different settings from you, the quality of the video produced in X7 wasn't quite as good as X6. The ones from X7 have a sort of 'softness' about them. It's a pretty poor program just now, but I'll wait until the service pack is released to make my final judgement on it. At the moment, X6 is doing everything that I want.

Michael.

[Ken Berry]

The highest data rate for an mp4 profile is 20000kbps. Is there a way around this?

The only way that I'm aware of is to use AVCHD, which is of course already mpeg-4, only produced by a different codec (h.264). X7 allows you to output AVCHD 2.0 which has a maximum bitrate of 29 Mbps. If you are wanting to make a Custom template, then you choose MPEG Transport Stream (*.m2t) as the output format, and change it to AVCHD on the Compression tab. Then change the bitrate to whatever you want (up to 28 Mbps).

I also use GoPro .mp4 files with a 29 Mbps bitrate, and X7 allows me to set Project Properties to match that, and to output that by using either Share > Create Video File > Same as Project Properties or Same As First Clip. To get the Project Properties to match those of the video, you need to tick the box beside 'Show message when insert first video clip" in Preferences > General.