"Works perfectly correctly in all regards for me and judging by a considerable number of posts from other users works just fine, period."

I'm guessing you and those other users are not trying to preview interlaced footage, only 23.98 footage, which since it's progressive, it displays fine, because the Vegas secondary display module can only display progressive footage. When it displays interlaced, it ends up being a horrible mess of fields that aren't like anything any other program displays, with the exception of Premiere, which displays the same mess.

It is not my TV set, since my previous Sony and now my current Samsung display the same horrible preview from Vegas, while both display perfect interlaced footage through my GrassValley HD Spark card, although of course the TV sets perform a perfect BOB deinterlacing first because like you say, LCD monitors or TV sets are incapable of just displaying interlaced content correctly, but it doesn't matter as long as the BOB deinterlacing is properly done, then you have the illusion of seeing 60 frames per second.

And it's not my graphics card, since I tested three different cards and Vegas does the same in all three. Added to that, if I play the footage through Windows Media Player on my TV set, it displays properly, simply because it routes the video properly to the video card, unlike Vegas, which obviously does not.

I don't know what are you seeing or what considerable number of posts are you talking about, but I did enough testing with this to know what I'm talking about and you are free to come over to my house any day if you want to see it for yourself.

As for levels, the color calibration was removed from Vegas 11, except for an option to change video levels to computer levels, which makes it more faithful to the original, but still, any professional editing studio will tell you that it's never a good idea to use the computer graphics card to preview the timeline, especially for doing color correction, and that you need a dedicated preview card. The specifics escape me now, it's something about the correct timings and other highly technical stuff. But one thing is certain, and that is that it's always better to have a dedicated preview card. If that wasn't true, then all editors would just work with their graphics card as preview.

"I'm guessing you and those other users are not trying to preview interlaced footage, only 23.98 footage, which since it's progressive, it displays fine, because the Vegas secondary display module can only display progressive footage. When it displays interlaced, it ends up being a horrible mess of fields that aren't like anything any other program displays, with the exception of Premiere, which displays the same mess"

No, I display 50i pretty much all the time. If you're working with 24PsF60 maybe you will have issues as that requires more complex pulldown removal and that would account for the messed up fields. I do wonder though if that's the case why you don't let Vegas do the pulldown removal and work with native 23.976p.

"As for levels, the color calibration was removed from Vegas 11, except for an option to change video levels to computer levels, which makes it more faithful to the original, but still, any professional editing studio will tell you that it's never a good idea to use the computer graphics card to preview the timeline, especially for doing color correction, and that you need a dedicated preview card. The specifics escape me now, it's something about the correct timings and other highly technical stuff. But one thing is certain, and that is that it's always better to have a dedicated preview card. If that wasn't true, then all editors would just work with their graphics card as preview."

Well yes, V11 does remove the ICM profiles and that's probably a good thing as the video card drivers also allow for them to be added. That caused me some degree of confusion as I was appling the transform twice. I also notice though that V11 adds a "wait for vertical sync" option which should address the problem I get from time to time between my monitor's 60Hz refresh rate and the video's 25fps.

For sure as I hinted at previously a dedicated card with HD-SDI ouput connected to a HD-SDI monitor is very desirable because you can measure levels with a dedicated set of 'scopes. HDMI is only consummer rubbish. The problemo here is cost. Suitable monitors with HD-SDI start at around $7K and go up at a staggering rate.
The objection to using computer monitors WAS valid. Now that IPS panels with 3D LUTs in them are readily available at affordable prices that's pretty much old news.

Bob.

"I do wonder though if that's the case why you don't let Vegas do the pulldown removal and work with native 23.976p."

I never said I was doing any pulldown. I shoot and edit 1080-60i footage. In the few instances I shoot 23.98 footage I edit in a project of the same frame rate, and that's what the HD Spark sends to the TV set.

"HDMI is only consummer rubbish."

HDMI is great technology, consumer or not. It looks great to me. Which begs the question, you say you edit previewing the Vegas timeline through the graphics card, and you think that's not consumer rubbish? I know HDMI may not be the most professional type of connection, but a dedicated card that sends the timeline through HDMI is always better than the graphics card. Even the crappy Blackmagic Intensity Pro is far better at displaying the Vegas' timeline than the secondary preview.

You can calibrate the picture all you want and get a very good picture quality, however interlaced footage is going to be displayed poorly using Vegas' secondary display preview. That's just a fact. If they wanted to make it better they would, but for some reason they don't. Maybe it's some arrangement with the companies that make those preview cards because if the Vegas secondary monitor preview would display interlaced video correctly, nobody would need to buy even the $190 Intensity Pro.

"and you think that's not consumer rubbish? "

I didn't say it wasn't, I don't make enough out of this business to spend $50K+ on a grading suite. For the one and only job I've had on my system in a decade where the client wanted a "professional" grading job it's obviously been way better to just send it to someone with the gear and the expertise to do it correctly.

If for some reason I really wanted to I can grab a Decklink Extreme card we have lying around and hook up a variety of monitors via HD-SDI, including a Class B Sony CRT monitor.

"Even the crappy Blackmagic Intensity Pro is far better at displaying the Vegas' timeline than the secondary preview. "

Again I'm trying to understand how you've reached that conclusion, there's precious little difference between HDMI, DVI and Displayport. HDMI does offer some advantages in that quite a few monitors allow for daisy chaining the signal and at least one that we have does HDMI in to HD-SDI out which is handy at times.

With the Asus ProArt monitor hooked up as the secondary display I can get a pretty decetly calibrated monitor to see what the heck I am doing. I've yet to see any HDTV that comes close at anything remotely like the price of that monitor.
Sure it does not correctly display interlaced video, most HDTVs don't either, you're still at the mercy of whatever their de-interlacing hardware is doing. There are production monitors that do display interlaced video correctly from Panasonic but they're kind of expensive.

All of this aside if you're really wanting to connect a monitor via HDMI to your Vegas system why not just use a DVI to HDMI adaptor or buy a graphics card with a HDMI output?
I just cannot see SCS getting involved with making hardware, way more important things for them to stay focussed on. Getting rid of the reliance on the decade obsolete VFW and going to DirectShow would probably solve a lot of issues including your problem with the Intesity card not working in V11. I do realise that you were probably thinking that Sony should be making this card however SCS and the Sony that make hardware such as that are an ocean apart in every way.

Bob.

"Even the crappy Blackmagic Intensity Pro is far better at displaying the Vegas' timeline than the secondary preview. "

It seems that we are talking about different things here. I don't care about the difference between those connectors. I don't even know what Displayport is. I'm talking about the interlaced signal that Vegas sends to the preview device. When it sends an interlaced signal through the secondary display option, it does so in a way that's completely screwed up and looks like crap. If you search my posts far behind you'll probably see some screenshots I posted in mid 2010 about it.

However, when using the Intensity Pro card, the interlaced material looks correct, the motion looks as good as when connecting the camcorder straight to the TV set through an HDMI cable. Which means, the TV set receives a proper 1080-60i signal that it deinterlaces and shows correctly, giving the illusion that you're seeing 60 frames per second, or 50 in the PAL countries. Vegas secondary display option simply does not send a proper interlaced signal, it doesn't matter if you use a card with HDMI, with DVI or whatever, it just doesn't leave the program correctly.

All of this aside if you're really wanting to connect a monitor via HDMI to your Vegas system why not just use a DVI to HDMI adaptor or buy a graphics card with a HDMI output?

I do have a simple cable that is DVI on one end and HDMI on the other, being connected to the TV set as my second monitor. The same cable that carries a proper interlaced signal when footage is played through several media players such as Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, VLC, GOM, Splash, etc, all of them playing interlaced content perfectly fine. Vegas just doesn't, period. Which was one big reason for me to switch to Edius, because staying in Vegas meant spending over a thousand dollars in a preview card, since the Intensity Pro displays correctly but crashes all the time.

I just display my preview window at 360x270. Preview/Half. I've got the scopes just below that.

The way I look at it is this way: if I needed to worry so much about it being perfect I wouldn't be working in my basement with lots of used equipment hodgepodged together. I'd be at some studio's basement with them paying me a lot of $$ to worry about it. :)

I've never had interlace trouble though. My HDV/DV is interlaced, as long as I don't mix progressive or footage interlaced the other way with it I've never had an issue when played back on my DVD player hooked up to a production monitor (again, an old, OLD NEC c25-900a) or on my BD player hooked up via HDMI to my HDTV.

I throw non-interlaced graphics over it all the time w/o issues.

"When it sends an interlaced signal through the secondary display option, it does so in a way that's completely screwed up and looks like crap. If you search my posts far behind you'll probably see some screenshots I posted in mid 2010 about it."

I did search your posts and found the thread you started about this. I also spent some time looking at the problem again including running a test with simulated HD 60i footage created in Vegas.

I could find nothing wrong with what Vegas is doing as it sends the interlaced footage to the secondary monitor. With the de-interlace box unchecked in the control box I can clearly see two pristine fields. With it checked I see some form of adaptive de-interlacing having an effect. My tests are far from conclusive and I cannot make any claim as to exactly what form of de-interlacing is being used.

One thing I am pretty certain of is this is being done in the GPU so whatever issues there maybe with it it is outside of the direct control of the SCS programmers.

Also I looked pretty carefully at your screen grabs and there I do now see a huge problem. As you said the camera was bumped and there was a lot of movement between the two fields. The issue that now leaps out at me there seems to be no motion blur. I tried dropping the image into PS to separate the fields but that didn't work because that was a picture of the screen, duh!
So I'm having to rely on eyeballing both fields at once. I could be wrong but I'm reasonably confident in saying there really is something badly wrong with what's going on in the camera. If you're shooting 60i the shutter speed should be 1/60 Sec i.e. the same time as one field and I can (sort of) make out two quite distinct image with almost no blur, one from each field, and that should not be the case. To me those images indicate a shutter speed significantly faster than 1/100 sec and that is going to cause issues with how motion looks, even with 60i.

If I'm right it would explain pretty well everything you were complaining about 18 months ago. It would explain why I and others are not seeing your problem. My EX1 shooting 50i has its shutter locked at 1/50 Sec (actually the shutter is Off and set to 180 deg due to a quirk in the EX1).

I need to do a bit more testing and research because I can probably recreate your problem although I don't shoot much under conditions that would cause a camera to do what yours is doing except for a shoot last week that was outdoors. From memory the Z5 50i footage looks fine motion wise, the HC5 50i footage not so good because those consummer cameras increase shutter speed to control light as they have no ND filters.

Now I know what you're thinking. But, but, but, how come it looks fine played back on the HDTV directly and not on Vegas's secondary display. That's an interesting question but before we go delving into that we need to be certain what we're really looking for.

Bob.

Update!
I just got back to my two camera outdoor shoot. As I said before we had a HC5 and a Z5.
Looking at frames where cherry blossoms were being waved by the dancers on the secondary display I found the folloing:

1) With the de-interlace check box unchecked both looked pretty similar with quite obvious interlace scan lines visible.

2) With the de-interlace check box unchecked I saw the Z5 footage showing a single branch of blossoms with quite a lot of blur. The HC5 footage showed two images of the branch with less blur. The effect was not as dramatic as your previously posted frame from the camera being kicked but the ladies dancing weren't waving the branches all that fast either.

At this stage I'm feeling fairly confident about my previous diagnosis.

Bob.

"Vegas' own Windows secondary monitor preview is useless, since it doesn't display interlaced footage correctly, and the levels are off. "

Vegas sends the preview where you tell it to -- it's up to that device & its drivers/settings from then on. Windows has an effect of course, possibly along with other stuff you have installed, if nothing else because of DRM with HDMI/DVI & HDCP. If you're going out component rather than HDMI/DVI, it has no color standards so mileage varies.

"... simple cable that is DVI on one end and HDMI on the other, being connected to the TV set as my second monitor... carries a proper interlaced signal when footage is played through several media players such as Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, VLC, GOM, Splash, etc... "

DVI vs. HDMI, your HDTV can have differences in the circuitry between DVI & HDMI plugs. Graphics cards can also function differently when/if you use DVI to HDMI converters/cables -- I remember a few years back ATI for example had an issue where the DVI -> HDMI adapters worked if you used the one that came with the card, but didn't always work properly if you used one from another brand/model of ATI card. I'm not saying that's what you've got -- only that it is possible for that conversion to have an effect.

As far as the several players you've mentioned, all are capable of using GPU assist to varying degrees, performance can vary depending on the other software you have installed (particularly Direct Show filters), & can depend on how those filters are set up, e.g. whether they're set to use GPU assist etc. When it comes to video playback in Windows, you really do need to consider the entire ecosystem so-to-speak.

Now when it comes to Vegas, it's divorced from a lot of that stuff compared to say Windows Media Player &/or MPC -- it still has an effect, but just not as much of one. For one thing, that's not Vegas' job, playing DVD/BD, AVC, & everything else you could possibly throw at it. For another, if they were allowed to have an effect many DS filters would throw off your color accuracy etc. Long story short, your video could play differently because of the DS filters etc. used with those players & not with Vegas, & it's just as possible one of those filters breaks the way your graphics card handles 1080i for example by default, as it is possible one or more are necessary for proper handling.

IMHO if you wanted to set about diagnosing your problem I'd start looking at the filter graph for playback of 1080i etc. in all those players plus Vegas, & take a look at what filters etc. were opened too, not just the ones used. If you've got the same card listed in your profile, GTX465, it's not a shabby card, but it's also at the level where the card & its drivers are involved in everything video -- not just displaying it. That makes things complicated enough you may only find a fix through perseverance & trail & error.

OK, I give up. If you all think Vegas' secondary monitor preview works great, by all means keep using it. I know it's crap, but if that works for you, then it's pointless to me to try to convince you of what thousands of editors know already, that you need a dedicated preview card to edit properly so what you see on the timeline looks just as the way it was shot.

"...If you all think Vegas' secondary monitor preview works great, by all means keep using it. I know it's crap... thousands of editors know already, that you need a dedicated preview card to edit properly..."

Purely FWIW...
If you want to use a dedicated preview card by all means do so. -- I mean Please, the economy needs people spending cash, & Lots of it. :-)

Likewise whether your opinion is Vegas Pro is great or trash, you're certainly entitled to it -- the same goes for wishing Sony would get into the market, developing/selling a "good preview card".

OTOH media handling on a Windows PC is a can of worms. Your profile doesn't list what version you're running, so can't get really specific. Google/Bing, hit up any of the video-related forums etc. & you'll find more than enough confirmation of that. If you want to bother with that sort of stuff & perhaps get things working for you or not is your decision & yours alone. If the majority of users don't have a problem than odds are something's broke on your rig -- if as posted you swapped out 3 graphics cards & didn't clean Windows after each swap I'd certainly bet on something being screwed up from that alone.

At any rate, I don't think anyone's arguing whether you have a problem or not, Sebaz, but trying to help guide you to a possible fix. If you don't want to bother that's fine. I don't believe you'll have any success however trying to convince people that what they have is broken too, at least not when the existence of that problem is easily confirmed by observation.

[I]At any rate, I don't think anyone's arguing whether you have a problem or not, Sebaz, but trying to help guide you to a possible fix.[/I]

That's the part you don't get, it's not something that can be fixed unless SCS decides to fix it in their code. I've been using Vegas since 8 all the way to now 11, first on one computer, then on a newer computer, using Windows XP to 7, and two different TV sets and I tried four different graphics cards. So I can say without a doubt that Vegas' secondary preview for interlaced video is absolute crap, unlike when it's sent out by a dedicated preview card like the Intensity Pro, which would be a great solution if it didn't make Vegas crash so much (at least that was the case a year ago, maybe now they fixed their drivers). In all versions of Vegas, with my two computers, with my different graphics cards, with all my footage from different cameras, it always looks the same.

So I didn't start this thread looking for help to "fix" anything, because I already have tried that and I concluded the problem is in Vegas, not in my footage, not in my computer, graphics card, TV sets, etc. The fact is, Vegas can't send interlaced footage correctly through the secondary preview, only progressive footage. I tried native 23.98 and 60p footage and the motion looks good through the secondary preview, interlaced motion looks like crap. Anyone who wants to come over to my place to show you this, you are more than welcome.

My point was that SCS could make Vegas more attractive to professional editors by offering a bundle such as the ones Grass Valley offers with Edius, for a little less money than buying both separately. Currently Vegas users can buy a cheap card, the Intensity Pro, that unless they fixed their drivers it crashes Vegas all the time, or they have to jump to cards that are over $1000. Or, at least they could work with Matrox to get support for Vegas in their Matrox Mini card, which is about $400.

"Anyone who wants to come over to my place to show you this, you are more than welcome."

I might take you up on that offer. I've driven a few hundred miles to work on a Vegas problem, I should be in the USA next year and want to take some time to see more of the country. Be warned, you may regret the offer you just made, us Australians are worse than the Poms at turning up on doorsteps unannounced and not leaving :)

A much easier way to diagnose your problem is at hand, I can capture exactly what is being sent out the DVI and HDMI ports of a video card using the Edirol VC-300.


@MPM

The reasons wierd things can happen with DVI and cables is the DVI interface provides both RGB and Y'CbCr via different pins on the one connector. There's three types of cables available. A thick one that carries both the analog and digitial signals and two different thinner ones that carry either the analog or digital signals only.

HDMI carries both RGB and Y'CbCr. It seems not all devices send the RGB signal, one camera (Sony's FS100) lists sending RGB over HDMI as a feature.

Bob.

I might take you up on that offer. I've driven a few hundred miles to work on a Vegas problem, I should be in the USA next year and want to take some time to see more of the country. Be warned, you may regret the offer you just made, us Australians are worse than the Poms at turning up on doorsteps unannounced and not leaving :)

Hey it's no problem, I'd be happy to show you exactly what I'm talking about. If you are in Raleigh, NC, just shoot me a private message and let me know when you're coming.