Hi Tony,

I read your link and understood about 10% of it. Sorry I am not much help but I think we are close to the end of the format wars, or I bloody hope so. At least with video tape we only had Beta and VHS these days we have mp4, avi, mts. mts2, wmv, mov, etc etc etc

I will say though Super has some very good encoding and has played every format I have thrown at it. I just wish it had a better user interface. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Thanks Robert - well done mate - you beat me by about 5%! (and that's after multiple readings)

Cheers -

Tony
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OK, I understood all that but I'm not sure why you'd want to separate all the files and not just use Super to convert to mp4 AND why you needed to, just to edit it in PD.

With your camera you selected to record to a 720p format in the first instance that would help the situation.

OK the .bat file lists an instruction for a program to carry out actions within the directory to create specific media files from the source file. A text editor just alters the script.

FFmpeg is used quite a bit by the likes of vimeo, youtube and SeeMyWorldOnVideo to encode streamed footage to flash format.

Ok, I expect Tony now to send me the $900 for the trip to Aus.... please...

Dafydd

Hi Tony, don't despair you'll find a setting which will give you acceptable results.

I looked at your link and I agree that it is confusing. It would greatly help if the authors of such guides clearly explained what each piece of software did and why you need it. Back in March was was looking at the exact same things and ultimately decided to not mess with it since I didn't have the time to spend the 40 or so hours researching it.

In my case I just drop the mts file directly into the PD timeline and edit away. I have the camera set to 24 MB/s 1920x1080 at 60i (or 30p). If you want to reduce the CPU usage to make editing more manageable you could render that to HD MPEG2 (the blueray profile works well). However, even on my quad core that is a slow process and the file sizes increase by a factor of about 6 in my examples.

If you have a sample clip you want to test let me know. I'll take a look at it and try to render it into whatever format you want.

I have also played around with SUPER and that will also convert almost anything. Again, you have to know something about what is going on. Finding a simple guide to this would help greatly. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Hi again Tony and I had another look at your link. What is going on is that the video and audio files in the mts container are being separated into their respective files. Imagine opening a can containing five balls. PD can take that can and figure out what balls within that mts container are needed to display the video and decode the audio. What you are doing in this script is that you are separating the balls using the script you are asked to modify and the using Super for the video conversion.

Looking at the example screen shot there is no apparent reason for separating the files (balls) if what you are importing into Super is the raw mts file and not the separated video file. If you were to import only the video file into Super then it seems that you would lose the audio in the newly created 720p video. You would have to recombine the audio with PD by importing the audio file you originally separated and rendering while hoping that SVRT is used.

Dafydd, I think most of what I just typed is what you were getting at. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

James,
Yeah, but I enjoyed reading your's more

Also, does that mean I have to share the ticket with you 'cos I don't know if Tony will shell out for two tickets to Aus - he might, let's dream that he will.

What's the videoing topics like in Aus.... all sun, blue sky and more?

Drat, grumble.... burble....

OK, I have to admit, I had a fantastic weekend, videoing puffins with beautiful blue sky, a sea voyage a trip to an island..... yeah and more. Did I mention dolphins, seals... ummm how forgetful...

Dafydd

Gentlemen -

Thank you for trying to set me straight & explain the thing. With your combined wisdom, & clever use of analogy and misplaced apostrophe, I am a few steps closer to understanding.

The part I understood VERY clearly was "ultimately decided to not mess with it". I fink I'm probably too fick anyway.

Quote: With your camera you selected to record to a 720p format in the first instance that would help the situation.

Dafydd - could you tell me more about that? I guess you mean that the format in which you record can either lead to a happy outcome - or give you grief if you don't know what you're doing. To explain - I was shooting little sequences in various recording modes (24, 17, 12, 7 & 5MB/s) to see how they compared and how PD would handle them.

What I REALLY don't get is that the clips all play back perfectly in the Pixela ImageMixer library & in the bundled AVCHD player (software, by the way, that has a terrible reputation amongst users). They also play back cleanly when the camera is connected directly to the TV.

I think I partly know the answer to that... Pretty obviously, there won't be any spare cash to bring you guys out for a tuition retreat in OZ (as much as I'd love to)... it'll all go on getting myself behind a PC that can do what I want - and hope that the editing software catches up with the cameras.


Guys - thanks for trying to help. I do appreciate it.

Cheers -

Tony



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Aahhh Tony,

Sorry got carried away - wrote a three part answer.

Part 1

Shooting capability

The endless, unanswered cycle of "what do I shoot in, What can I see". Very chicken and egg and as such I refer you to :-

"if there has been a first man he must have been born without father or mother – which is repugnant to nature. For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an egg."
Aristotle

So shooting in 1080i@24Mbps gives you great source video but (and its a big but) if you will currently watch it on an ipod you might as well shoot in whatever ipod size is available.

However, you might want to capture the grandson, figuratively speaking, (because you don't get second chances of a first walk/word/sick/etc) in top quality for the future and store it away until you can watch it in 100" plasma 1080i.

But you want to see it now, edited and presented on a standard DVD or HD Ready TV or laptop etc.

So you can shoot in 1080i, edit in 1080i (much crashing and aggravation, plus much expense in upgrading kit, many posts to experts on the forum, etc etc) and then render down to say 720x576 or whatever.

Or you can shoot in 1080i (for the future), straight away convert to say 720p, edit in 720p, render to 720p and enjoy the experience ??

I know it is a compromise, I know it's not 'the best' but as I've said before I'm old and time's running out, I haven't got the best kit, or the best eysight or the best TV.

Question is "what's the best way to convert without losing (perceivable) quality?" The answer is .....

In my experience trial and error to see what you, and your audience, perceive as acceptable given their displays, eyesight etc etc.

My personal methodology is to use whatever I need, say Super© or pazera or a.n.other and play with stuff until I think its OK, it takes a bit of time but once sorted it shouldn't change much for any particular purpose.

However, it's not quite as straightforward. The "highest" technical spec might not be the best for a specific purpose. It's generally held that 720p is better for displaying action footage, 1080i (actually more equivalent to 540p) better for still(er) video (if thats possible).

So you might not want/need to shoot in such a high format - it depends.

Part 2 after the break

Cheers
Adrian
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

We return to Part 2

File formats.

Containers .v. codecs (without the detail)

Codecs
encode a data stream for transmission, storage or encryption (all we need to know is that they compress the data for storage and then uncompress it for display) BUT remember about how that may affect the editing process.

They are either lossless (no loss of quality) or lossy (some data lost in compression)

Again, not all codecs are equal - encoding fast sports needs good motion encoding but maybe not so good colours, fine art enxhibits need good colours and texture but not much motion.


Container/file formats (not quite the same thing)
are formats or wrappers that specify the way the data is stored (not coded), they store the coded data AND other information about the data.

So a software program (PD in this case) can identify/recognise and maybe open a container, but not necessarily decode the contents, depending on what codecs have been used, or are installed on your system.

Using MPEG4 Part 14 as an example. Its a container, it stores digital audio and video, stills and subtitles etc. It's file extension is .mp4

It has some added bits to Part 12, which was Apple's Quicktime container format. Extension .mov

So its very similar, eg Both can include h264 ecoded data, but not necessarily the same.

But audio only MPEG4 can have the .m4a extension
Encrypted audio (DRM style) may have .m4p
Podcast/audio book files may have .m4b (because they can have 'bookmark data'
iphone uses (I think) .m4r for its ringtones
.3gp, .3g2, .m4v etc,etc

they are all MPEG4 containers holding differing streams of data compressed with different codecs.


.m2ts files are containers for a (I think) BDAV MPEG2 data stream. As you now expect, not all .m2ts containers are the same and Sony, Canon and Panasonic put different things in the container.

Poor PD (and the system its sitting on) may (or may not) be able to handle all the differing content types.

So, in general, when the blurb for any software says it will handle .mp4 or whatever, it might recognise the container, but not necessarily whats in your camera's implementation of .mp4.

Part 3 next week

Cheers
Adrian
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Part 3
The practicalities

Ideally, the capturing, editing, producing and burning program (PD) should handle your file from start to finish.

But its often asking a lot, especially when the container people (camera manufacturers) shove differing things in the container for technical or (worse) for marketing reasons.

So, if PD can't handle them ideally, we have to drop into 3rd party software and there's no easy way to deal with this.

There are a multiplicity of general or specific, free or paid for transcoders,converters,filters etc that are designed to do differing things. Some are command line driven like avisynth, some have good GUIs and some have so,so GUIs.

Some do many things like Super©, some are more specific like Pazera video to flash and Divx. Some allow both audio and video transcoding, some do one at a time. Some can reverse video, crop, change colour, frame rate, bitrate,etc etc

Tony,
There really is no easy way to cover this topic.

However, either you have to find the software that handles the lot well (but maybe not perfect?) - like CS4 Master suite @ £2,500 or use trial and error.

Personally, if I could put together the right system to handle 1080i .m2ts files with PD burning to BD - fine, if not I'd decide what I could, for now, handle. Say 720p mpg for example. OK shoot in 1080i if you want to, but then find the best converter/transcoder and just convert everything to something you can enjoy dealing with. Keep the original footage for when you can handle it or need it.

If you've read this far, as a special reward, I'm happy to play with a few of your files to see what the most acceptable way forward might be to suit you at the moment.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Sorry Tony, my tiring weekend caught up with me and obviously showed up my inability to correctly express myself with adequate linguistic phrases of perfect word-smith punctuation, grammar or indeed hold off from dribble dialect technical terminology for the overstrained which will lead to loathing and much candour of understanding. I will now endeavour to give limited thought to how to pass on some form of instruction but not to compromise or adversely effect your ability to carry out a wide range of video editing on an already strained PC and some might infer something else and include hair pulling. Now I hope what I've mentioned is clearly understood and the perfectly itemised list of actions with incisive knowledgeable description are fully grasped .... ahh then maybe not

In a shortened form just for Tony: Select 720p in your camera.



Dafydd

Dafydd, I think the problem Tony is having is that there is no option to record in 720p with his camera. I looked at Canon's website for his S10 and there is no mention of 720p, only 1080i. I'll have another look at my HG20 to see what options I have available since our camera are basically the same except Tony's has a larger CCD sensor and does not use a hard disk. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Dafydd - you seem to be over your linguistic fiddiculties now. I know you put that apostrophe there to make me bite! I look forward to seeing your puffins & dolphins on SMWOV.

Adrian - combined with James' and Dafydd's advice, your lengthy post(s) made perfect sense. I very much appreciate you taking the time to put it in lay terms (as far as possible)... and I HEAR what you're saying (my hearing still works but my eyesight is in a similar State to yours). I also know that many many others will benefit by reading your account.

James - you're right about the Canon... well - of course - you have one beside you. I'm still trying to work it out - well - that's pretty obvious.

Gentlemen - it's all good learning - thank you - a hundred thousand thank yous.

Cheers -

Tony
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Hi Tony,
I am sure you have posted this before elsewhere but what is your target playback device eg HD media player onto HD screen, for DVD production for distribution to others etc
I ask as this does affect what you do with your editing process.

Sorry I didn't answer sooner pjc - went off on a different tangent for a while.

Typically, I've been producing things to burn to DVD for distribution to others. That's because I've only had a the camera a little while and the main things I've recorded are family type events.

I understand that the final purpose affects the choices you make along the way, as Adrian explained so beautifully.

My problem was that I was testing the various settings on the camera (admittedly, without understanding them properly) - purely to see what I'd come up with & how PD would deal with it.

The recording modes on the camera are:
MXP (High Quality, 24 Mbps)
FXP (High Quality, 17 Mbps)
XP+ (High Quaility, 12 Mbps)
SP (Standard Play, 7 Mbps)
LP (Long Play, 5 Mbps)

FXP records at 1920 x 1080 while all of the other formats record in 1440 x 1080... so 720p ISN'T AN OPTION.

Dafydd has advised me to send off a report with clips to Cyberlink - which I'll do.

Cheers -

Tony
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Tony,

If I remember correctly the the FXP setting is also 1920x1080. You are right that the other settings are 1440x1080. At least that's the way my HG20 is setup.

What actually happens when you put your clip into the timeline? Does it play choppy with the video lagging the sound? I assume after all that has been posted here that you have installed ffdshow or the K-Lite codec pack (it greatly helped my laptop). Does the problem go away in the low preview settings? Do you have problems with each of the settings or only the higher end ones? Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT