Video quality poor

[Libby]

Okay, I just wanted to ask if it was because of me...or the camera.

First, its a cheap camera...one of those under a hundred dollar things...but says its hd anyway.

When I view each clip in windows media they look pretty decent (not great but decent). However when I play them on Sony Vegas they look crappy and sort of skipping...or perhaps a better word would be slow motion.

Is this because its a cheap camera and transfering it to the editing system causes it to lose quality?
Or
Is it because of something I am not doing correctly and there is something I can do to make it come out a little better and smoother?

Thanks again.

 

[Uranium City]

I would *guess* that the problem is with your computer not being fast enough to render the HD images as they play, so they skip. This is a minor problem, and it happens with A LOT of computers.

HD footage on those cameras is created using I-frames, where the first frame of a group of frames is complete, and the subsequent frames in the group are encoded based on what's different about them from the original I-frame. I've not explained that adequately, but the point is that the computer has to THINK REAL HARD to play native HD footage back...it's not just playing frames back but it's creating the frames in real time as it plays them back.

Usually the cure is to convert your original footage to ALL I-frames using Cineform's Neoscene converter.

Now if I'm right, there is nothing wrong with your footage. It is fine. If you can manage to edit in Vegas amidst all the skipping/slow motion and render something, it'll be in full HD glory. If you want smooth images while you edit, get the Neoscene converter and your problems will be solved.

 

[Ernest Worthing]

I would *guess* that the problem is with your computer not being fast enough to render the HD images as they play, so they skip. This is a minor problem, and it happens with A LOT of computers.

HD footage on those cameras is created using I-frames, where the first frame of a group of frames is complete, and the subsequent frames in the group are encoded based on what's different about them from the original I-frame. I've not explained that adequately, but the point is that the computer has to THINK REAL HARD to play native HD footage back...it's not just playing frames back but it's creating the frames in real time as it plays them back.

Usually the cure is to convert your original footage to ALL I-frames using Cineform's Neoscene converter.

Now if I'm right, there is nothing wrong with your footage. It is fine. If you can manage to edit in Vegas amidst all the skipping/slow motion and render something, it'll be in full HD glory. If you want smooth images while you edit, get the Neoscene converter and your problems will be solved.

hey uranium, i dont know much about the technical aspects of editing,

but what if you rendered the footage first. and then loaded the rendered file back into premiere or watever and sliced it back up into ur individual scenes and then edited that. would that work? any loss of quality?

 

[Uranium City]

but what if you rendered the footage first. and then loaded the rendered file back into premiere or watever and sliced it back up into ur individual scenes and then edited that.

Yes, that would also work, and the only loss of quality would depend on what format you rendered and how compressed you rendered it. But you're absolutely right, you could just render all your raw footage as .avi or what not and then import that into your project.

 

[Ernest Worthing]

cool, thanks!

 

[Libby]

Thanks.

I am okay right now with editing images that are skippy. Mainly because I am the one that filmed them, I know what they are suppose to be and so on.

For future, what sort of computor would I be looking for when it comes to something that can handle this sort of thing?

(btw, how is it the frames come out fairly decent in windows media but not on sony if I am using the same computor?)

 

[L.I.F.E.]

You want at least 1 tb of memory and probably a large external hard drive. Your also going to want about 6-12 gigs of RAM. The more ram the easier it is to process stuff.

 

[Libby]

So in the future...I could purchase an external hard drive from Staples or Best Buy that has at least 1tb and 6-12 gigs of Ram? and this I can just hook up to what I already have?

 

[Zensteve]

So in the future...I could purchase an external hard drive from Staples or Best Buy that has at least 1tb and 6-12 gigs of Ram? and this I can just hook up to what I already have?

If you're doing a few shorts, then maybe one external drive.

Anything else, it's best to get a new drive for every project. That way, if the drive blows up (it's happened to me), you won't lose everything for the past few years.

Yup, it will connect either with USB2 or FireWire, depending on which type of drive you select.

The 6-12 gigs RAM is for inside your computer, btw, not the harddrive.

 

[Libby]

I have windows vista...I could go to Staples and purchase something and hook it up...and it would give me a better picture quality? Right now the best word I can make up that would describe how the picture looks is ruddy.

I assume that with what I have right now...if I were to make a disc - it would come out poor because it is poor quality when I view it?

 

[L.I.F.E.]

Well no it would not make the quality of the picture quality better, but it could help free up some space on your computers hard drive to make everything run more fluidly. An external hard drive is a small box shaped thing that you plug into your computer and gives you more storage space. I would suggest shopping around on someplace like newegg.com for one as they will be WAY cheaper than at staples.

Ram is something that goes inside your computer that helps run software and the like "Random Access Memory, or volatile memory, is used by the system to store data for processing by a computer's central processing unit (CPU), also known as the processor. RAM stores the data in memory cells that are arranged in grids much like the cells are arranged in a spreadsheet, from which data, in the binary form of 1's and 0's, can be accessed and transferred at random to the processor for processing by the system's software." Its also not very expensive, the hard park for you would be putting it into your computer. You could probably buy it and have one of your friends do it for you, or you could look online and DIY there are 100's of places that will tell you step by step exactly how to do it.

Now that would have nothing to do with the quality of how it looks on your monitor, both of those solutions will just help free up space on your computer to make everything more fluid. So you can play your footage and they should not skip. Now if its resolution and quality you want you're going to want to look at video cards and or new monitors.

 

[Uranium City]

I assume that with what I have right now...if I were to make a disc - it would come out poor because it is poor quality when I view it?

Most likely, NO. If you rendered a disc it would be fine. The trouble you are having when viewing the footage in Vegas is that your computer can't decode the HD footage fast enough to play it back nicely. You can fix this by converting your footage with Cineform's Neoscene. You don't necessarily need a new computer.

There is mostly likely nothing wrong with your footage. Most computers have a hard time playing back native HD footage. Render a trial disc and see if I'm right. Shoot, just render a high quality .avi or .mov or .mp2 or .wmv and watch it with media player.

 

[Libby]

Thanks.
I have a lot of useless junk on this computor now that have nothing to do with anything filming related. I am going to get rid of most of it. I don't think I have that much footage in hd that I would need to invest in an ehd...not yet anyway.

 

[L.I.F.E.]

Thanks.
I have a lot of useless junk on this computor now that have nothing to do with anything filming related. I am going to get rid of most of it. I don't think I have that much footage in hd that I would need to invest in an ehd...not yet anyway.

Its just a good thing to invest in when you have the extra money because Hard Drives crash ALLL the time, and its a stupid amount of money to pay to get the information off of it recovered.

 

[Libby]

Oh I am sure I will invest in that in the near future. Right now I don't have anything that would cause me stress if I lost. I can go out and refilm what I have already done. Pita yes but not impossible.
It's not like I spent hours and hours and hours on footage...not yet. Right now I am just fooling around with the whole editing thing.

So I am going to invest in that because sooner or later I wont want to take my chances.