About Pixel Format

jkerry wrote on 2/9/2011, 1:46 PM

What is the best format to use for videos which will be burned to a DVD.

8 bit
32 bit floating point
or
32 bit floating point full range

Never looked into it before and was wondering what should be used.

Thanks,
Jeff

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 2/9/2011, 2:02 PM

DVD video is all 8 bit.
Likely so is your source.
So no need to confuse Vegas.

btw, your question is about bit depth, not pixel format.

GlennChan wrote on 2/9/2011, 9:27 PM

DVD video is 8-bit Y'CbCr.
Vegas is either 8-bit computer RGB or 8-bit studio RGB.
In theory, you get rounding error whenever you convert between computer RGB, studio RGB, and Y'CbCr. This can create banding artifacts.

32-bit processing in Vegas may or may not get rid of them. 32-bit floating point processing can also introduce artifacts if the coding is not done right (because floating point math on computer processors is weird.. you may not want to know).

In practice:
On a LCD, it will be very hard to spot banding artifacts because your monitor already generates them (on ideal sources). Yes, even 8-bit LCDs. Plasmas will have banding/dithering problems in dark areas.

Most cameras have noise. This dithers your image and hides problems. If you work with noisefree sources like computer-generated material then you can run into banding issues.

Recap:
1- 32-bit processing may or may not get rid of banding artifacts.
2- If you want to perform linear light processing for nice glows and interesting cross dissolves, then sometimes you need to use a 32-bit project. See
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/linlight/linlight.htm

Hogwild wrote on 2/18/2011, 3:02 PM

I'd like to learn more about this subject as I was about to ask a similar question and found this thread so I'll ask here...

In the project properties window, the is a place to choose "Pixel Format" with drop down box choice of:

8-bit
32-bit floating point (full video levels)
32-bit floating point

Mine seems to always be set to 8-bit. Not sure if this defaults because of the project template choice or if the media/clip properties defines this or neither. So when would it be appropriate to choose or change one of the above, if ever?

UPDATE
While writing this, I just noticed your website link at the bottom of your post & decided I will go grab a cup of coffee and read through your articles.

Thanks!