Dafydd & Adrian -

Sorry - no raw mp4 clips here... & not sure I understood the question anyway!

Anyway - just for fun - I took a clip (.wmv) & converted it to .mp4, placed it in the timeline and produced to .3G2 (as described)... initial conversion might make this irrelevant.

MediaInfo displayed the same properties for both clips (.mp4 & .3G2)

... all of which proves very little.

Cheers - Tony


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Hi Tony,
Of course, you dropped the 3G2 into MediaInfo. Both Adrian and I were right clicking and selecting from the popup (which in 3G2 didn't show).

The test is to check the compression quality between the original .mp4 and the 3G2 file which then has the extension changed.

Reason: Because .mp4 users have not been able to output to the same format as the original footage. The workaround.... is as close as we've come to .mp4 output.

Just needs comparing between original and output to check quality.... see if it's "good enough".

Thanks Tony for looking and playing. I couldn't see you on Skype to explain.

Dafydd

Well I just checked out the setting on my Sanyo mp4 videos and I must say the quality is pretty good. It would be nice if I could up the bitrate a little higher but all in all a great find, well done Adrian your a legend.

It also shows me that it is just a simple setting that would allow us to produce our mp4 videos to their original format instead of going down the m2ts route.

Just as a side note it even lets me use CUDA to produce progressive 720p videos at the right fps as well, instead of the interlaced bug we have at the moment. Not to take this thread off topic too much. Talking about the interlaced bug Dafydd sent me a couple of dll's to put in my Cyberlink folder. They worked for the interlaced bug but added another bug in that it doubles the frame rate of the produced video.

Just to be clear I re-installed PD after noticing the double frame rate bug before I tried the mp4 output. So we are close to a fix for the interlaced bug and maybe even close to 1080p instead of 1080i.

My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Again thank you Adrian for digging around in the insides of PD. I just uploaded an exact copy of a previous short video to youtube, this time in MP4 format. Here are my findings.

1. It is almost half the size of the m2ts version. (No loss of youtube quality) this may just be because I produced the m2ts at a higher bit rate 15,000 -v- 8,000. It is nice to know though I am not loosing anything on Youtube. The camera outputs at 14-17,000.

2. The PD text at the beginning of the clip is much sharper on the MP4 version than the m2ts version. Check in HD FULL SCREEN to clearly see the difference.

Here are the links to the two clips, they are only 30 seconds long.

m2ts version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAAlECa9_4Y

MP4 version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x__xsq8P8-E

Now you see why I have been asking for native in native out since I first got PD. Every time you change something you loose quality.

Anyway thanks again Adrian and I hope this little test helps other members.

EDIT=======The clearer render of the text in MP4 even at a smaller bitrate is also evident in the video out of PD not just after YouTube has rendered it. So it looks as though MP4 is a winner for H.264 video.

Cheers

Robert S My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Thank you Robert,

Adrian and I both knew you'd want to test this find out. Excellent.

Anybody else like to play with the feature and give some feedback.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

I gave this a try.

I converted one of my 24 Mb/s 1920x1080i mts files from my Canon HG20 and converted to 720p using this method. PD obviously had to reencode everything, but the quality was excellent. On my 23 inch 1080i LCD monitor I don't see any obvious differences. The frame rate increased from 29.97 to 30.0 fps and the audio is louder after the conversion.

I also tried making a custom 720p profile from the AVCHD presets. I found using the 3G2 profile was much better than 720 AVCHD. This was especially obvious when the camera was panning or when an object was moving fast. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

James, how did you make the custom 720p profile from the AVCHD presets? I don't see anywhere in the disc creation area to do this. Is it something similar to the .wmv presets?

Cheers

Robert My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Robert,

Produce tab --->H.264 AVC ---> Select one of the AVCHD presets ---> Create new preset button ---> Video tab ---> Resolution drop down box ---> 1280x720 (720p).

I guess it's not really custom, but activating one of the ones included with PD. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Thanks James, I guess I miss read you I thought there was a setting for .3G2 inside the AVCHD settings.

Yes I came to the same conclusion that producing to .3G2 then renaming to MP4 does produce a better output even with a lower bitrate of 8,000 as the only choice with .3G2. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

I guess I'm a little stumped. I had thought the 3G2 container usually just suffers from reduced audio quality as it often uses AAC LC (Low Complexity) audio often used in streaming. The video can be AVC/H.264 amongst other formats. It looks like this Hi-Vision CAM Wooo is using this profile in PD8. I'd think one could replicate in PD8 Produce by using the H.264 AVC produce format, selecting 1280x720 (720p) as James pointed out and then modifying the Rate control length to 29 with 0 B Frames and 9000 bit rate. Audio could be an improvement over the AAC LC Wooo profile if one wishes.

I'm guessing the issue is really PD8 would put this in an m2ts container and you want the mp4 container?

Jeff