If you're interested in uprezzing video to use in a Vegas project, probably the best way is to use Cineform Neo HD (rather than the cheaper Neo Scene). The reason is that Neo HD and above have a scaling algorithm built in that is not included in Neo Scene and does quite a good job of rescaling video as you convert it to Cineform avi intermediate. This is really cool if you are for instance working on a 1440x1080 project and want to use some 720p video in it, or are working in a 1920x1080 video and want to use some 1440x1080 footage and maintain the highest possible resolution.

Once a project is edited however, I would agree that Handbrake is a terrific way to change the resolution for delivery.

Hi,

Thank you for answers. I have BCC7 UpRez and it gives decent result. Hope, that all procedure can be conducted in Vegas. I don't have any intermediate codec, will render to uncompressed.

Proper sequence of steps is the most interesting for me.

Best regards,

I would love to be able to up-convert some older footage shot on Hi8 tape. This is some precious vacation video shot in China that just looks like ka-ka on my HD TV.
Any ideas ?

> "Proper sequence of steps is the most interesting for me."

I would perform those steps in this order:

1) stabilize with Mercalli V2.
2) deinterlace to 25p with BCC7 or Yadif
3) denoise with Neat Video (with sharpen option)
4) upscale with BCC7 UpRez or VReveal superresolution to 1280x720
5) remap in time with OpticalFlow to 50p (twice in size with 50% velocity, then render as 50p)
6) white balance correction
7) colour and contrast correction (computer level)

Stabilization should be first because it needs the original footage to do proper motion compensation (50i has more temporal information than 25p would). Then you can deinterlace it before feeding it to Neat Video because Neat Video likes deinterlaced footage better (you don't want to uprez noise so clean it first). Then you can uprez the clean stable footage and re-time it. Color corrections always come last.

I'm sure others will have their favorite order but that one's mine and I'm sticking to it. lol. ;-)

~jr

Hi John,

Thank you, it sounds very justified, I will use your procedure. Only one hesitation is connected with Mercalli - I'm not sure whether there is mistake in your text "50i to 25p" - I have "25i to 25p".

My expectations are reasonably limited. Customer has given to me some old footages and we would like to use them in mix with quite new (and radically sharp HD movies). I'm going to use some context trick fx like 'reported stuff'' or 'old movie'.

Subject 'odl movie to HD' sounds familiar, but acctually tools connected with deinterlacing, optical flow, superresolution, stabilization are rather new for Vegas. Hope this topic meybe interesting not only for me.

Another interesting subject is in topic by MegaBit : auto white balance or (from my experiences) auto flicker remover (luma flicker, have some stuff when lecktor is keeping in his hand small boss recorder (which has very reflective surface) and it has influence in flickering luma on entire picture). Suppose it would be corected automatically. Plugins like this are present in AviSynth but not in Vegas. It's strange. Especially that flicker can appear as result of slowdown in optical flow (maybe corrected with motion blur on video bus, but it means loosing something).

Best regards,

> I'm not sure whether there is mistake in your text "50i to 25p" - I have "25i to 25p".

There is no 25i. If you have 25fps interlaced footage, that is expressed as 50i because there are 50 interlaced fields than make up the 25 frames. Likewise 60i denotes 59.940 interlaced fields that make up 29.970 frames per second video. So it's just a terminology thing. ;-)

~jr

Hi John,

Files are from camera Panasonic VDR D160 (small, old one, recording to small dvd discs). I'm loading file to Vegas, picking up project proprties from the same file and choosing DEINTERLACE METHOD : NONE.

File is recognized by Vegas as 25fps, UpperFieldFirst, MPEG-2.

When I'm moving head on TL, acctually can see only 25 frames per second and each frame is INTERLACED. Am I doing something wrong ?

Wouldn't like to use deinterlace method : interpolate or blend (have red on this forum that those algoritms are not the best one and specialized deinterlacers can give me better results).

I have been thinking that have to deinterlace from 25i to 25p, render to 25p, then reopen in 50p project and remap time with Optical Flow to 50p.
On all stages will keep deinterlaced method : none.

Is this correct ?

Best regards,

RRA, you need to set Field Order to "None (progressive scan)", as well as your deinterlace method.

> "Files are from camera Panasonic VDR D160 (small, old one, recording to small dvd discs). I'm loading file to Vegas, picking up project proprties from the same file and choosing DEINTERLACE METHOD : NONE."

This assumes that you will be handling deinterlacing manually in some other way which I see is what you are trying to do. Don't forget to deinterlace every piece of interlaced footage or else you will see some strange combing artifacts.

> "File is recognized by Vegas as 25fps, UpperFieldFirst, MPEG-2."

That's commonly called 50i because it's interlaced 25fps footage.

> "When I'm moving head on TL, acctually can see only 25 frames per second and each frame is INTERLACED. Am I doing something wrong ?"

No, you are not doing anything wrong. Your footage is interlaced (UpperFieldFirst) and you specifically told Vegas not to deinterlace it by setting the deinterlace method to none.. Why would you expect to see anything different than interlaced video? Was this after you applied BCC Deinterlace to the event?

> "Wouldn't like to use deinterlace method : interpolate or blend (have red on this forum that those algoritms are not the best one and specialized deinterlacers can give me better results)."

Why? Have you experienced problems with the Sony deinterlace methods? I have never used anything but the built-in Sony deinterlace and I have never had any quality problems. There is always something that is better than something else. Where do you draw the line? Why do all of this extra work to solve a problem that you don't have? Personally, I would never stray from the Sony defaults unless they didn't work.

> "I have been thinking that have to deinterlace from 25i to 25p, render to 25p, then reopen in 50p project and remap time with Optical Flow to 50p. On all stages will keep deinterlaced method : none."

Once again, your footage is 50i so you are going from 50i to 25p. I'm not sure why you want 50p in the end or how you plan to deliver this. PAL TV's expect 25fps so there is no delivery vehicle for 50p. I never asked because it's none of my business. You asked what order you should perform those steps and so I told you without judging what you were trying to do... but I don't understand why.

> "Is this correct ?"

I don't know... What are you trying to accomplish? Why are you creating fake 50p footage from your real 25fps footage? What is your delivery vehicle and does it support 50p? I understand stabilizing, and cleaning, and deinterlacing, and uprezing but I don't get the 50p part. What is driving the 50p requirement?

~jr

[i]>Why? Have you experienced problems with the Sony deinterlace methods? I have never used anything but the built-in Sony deinterlace and I have never had any quality problems. There is always something that is better than something else. Where do you draw the line? Why do all of this extra work to solve a problem that you don't have? Personally, I would never stray from the Sony defaults unless they didn't work.[/i}

To my eyes there is simply no comparison between the built in Sony deinterlacers and an external smart deinterlacer. There is an absolutely HUGE quality difference! Even on a laptop screen it just jumps out at you. On a bigger screen it's even worse. The only reason I even use interlaced video at all is because the external deinterlacers make it passable.

Quick question: Can I create a DVD (PAL) containing 25p (mpeg2) video?

Jøran

Hi,

I agree with Laurence that deinterlacers can produce different results. These files will be in contrast with HD, so I would like to save everything possible in terms of quality.

These issues are quite new for me, bacause I always work on my own footages (1280x720x50p) and I produce movies, which are designed especially to be presented ONLY on salesman laptop (big and glossy screen, small distance between viewers and screen). We have tested workflow with 50p, with uncompressed avi on all stages and with 50p MOV JPEG as final format. It gives decent result, is not 'heavy' and is possible to play smoothly on standard company laptopts.

50p is absolutely minimal, bacause in most cases there are present 3D models with movement (rendered outside of Vegas with alpha, then inserted to prepared scene and composed) - in order to achieve smooth movement of models I have to use 50p.

John, comming back for 50i, thank you for explanation, I understand all with one exception : there is only 25 frames per second (each consists only one field) in Vegas and this is misleading for me. I have been always thinking, that 50i can be 'colapsed' to 25p.

Best regards,