Does the editing process degrade quality ?

[SophistiKat]

I am very new to video cameras in general and especially HD.
I have been trying to read as much as possible and it seems the more you manipulate a video file such as rendering, adding effects, etc., the more the quality is degraded. If this is true how does one know how much is too much?
I seem to remember the more times you open and save a .jpeg photo the more degraded it becomes. Is it the same concept with video?
What steps in the editing process cause problems?

eg: I shot a video of a very fast motorboat...after I increased (just slightly) saturation and modified the hue, I saw some major banding/posterization, especially in the sky ! This was when previewing the video in the preview window, I haven't finished editing it, so don't how the final result will look like...obviously, banding will ruin it entirely !

[Grazie]

You've asked the most pertinent question in trying to get our heads around understanding this process and workflow, good for you!

Ok, we are very fortunate in using Vegas, it is a non destructive to any of the media that is used on the Timeline. What you and I see on the Timeline are merely pointers or signposts to where the media resides. What we do is everything outside of the Original Media. This is at the core of Vegas and now most non linear editing suites. So, and up to rendering, there is no quality loss - period! You can edit and edit and edit there will be no quality loss to the original footage. However as soon as you render, and to what format you render to and from what original Media you started with will determine by how much quality will "suffer". Having said that, I'd challenge anybody, without the aid of scientific analysis software, to determine just how much quality was being lost after one or even three render iterations going from Media Profile A to the nearest rendition of Profile A. And of course you can also render to an uncompressed format which retains the highest level of the original footage quality.*

You've asked a good question. Keep using that question as your lodestone, for sure. But here's the thing, please do NOT get hung up on it. Film and edit is what it is all about and the creativity that is employed in arriving at a good or even excellent piece of work.

To answer your question more critically? I'd be hard pressed to see/register 8x *iterations of my normal workflow and under certain circumstances I could make that 10x. Once you start format changing and adding FXs, colour correction, colour grading, all bets are off. But this would be an accumulative effect through further render iterations. Design a workflow that works for you and apply and work it to death to ascertain jus what you can get away with. I use the Vegas scopes to identify format breakup and noise creation plus a well calibrated array of monitors.

If you start off with good footage, using a tried and tested and bolted-down format, you should be good for at least 5x a render iteration, but as I say, even more under the right conditions. You start with an iffy, low res format you will only be able to dobsonmuch before the wheels fall off. You want to employ graphic manipulation to a still and retain as much ad possible? You need a high res picture. The same holds true for video.

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[SophistiKat]

You've asked the most pertinent question in trying to get our heads around understanding this process and workflow, good for you!

Hey Grazie and thanks for your reply !

My original videos are recorded in MPEG-4/H.264, at 1440x1080 !

[sonia_pooh]

hey ,

i am a beginner using sony vegas pro - 10
i want to know what would be the settings to make the video size less and retain the quality...

The thing is :

i was having a movie in two halfs and i made an attempt to combine them
using vegas pro and then make a single video out of that ....
but i ended up with a single video with very good quality and 30 GB space occupied
it is way tooo much for my system to handle videos if they occupy sooo much space :(
please give me a solution to reduce the video size and retain the quality ....

[ earlier the video was in mp4 format , i changed it to avi ]

[xiami]

Short answer, no.
Long answer, editing video, especially HD video, is a computer crusher. It can lay waste to average setups.
If you use HD video, and then throw all sorts of fixes, PIP's, special FX, it's like a drag parachute on your hot-rod.
More trickery= bigger parachute.
Your actual video stays the same, it's your system struggling.

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