Thanks very much for providing all the relevent info in this post!

You've got a very high bitrate clip (150Mbps) and you're going to have previewing issues on PD's timeline unless you have a very powerful many-core CPU. I can actually preview your clip in Ultra HD Preview Resolution on my brand new 16 core powerhouse, but I always recommend using either Full HD or just HD resolution so the system doesn't have to work so hard.

You can also turn on shadow files, which will cause PD to create lower resolution clips to make editing smoother and will then automatically switch to the original clip(s) when producing.

Here's what I can see:



YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

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You've got a very high bitrate clip (150Mbps) and you're going to have previewing issues on PD's timeline unless you have a very powerful many-core CPU. I can actually preview your clip in Ultra HD Preview Resolution on my brand new 16 core powerhouse, but I always recommend using either Full HD or just HD resolution so the system doesn't have to work so hard.

You can also turn on shadow files, which will cause PD to create lower resolution clips to make editing smoother and will then automatically switch to the original clip(s) when producing.

Thanks, optodata. I was already hoping for your quick reply, as you have helped me before :.

My i9 processor is quite powerful, so playback of the timeline is smooth using less than Ultra HD preview resolution or shadow files indeed.

My problem lies in the export which is ugly to show to people because of the stutter.

In my post I forgot to mention how I created the screen recordings.
In the timeline I manually pressed the frame forward button (.), for you to clearly see the effect of advancing one frame in the preview. My thought was that PD19 does not treat the imported file well, resulting in the 1-2-1-2-1-2 etc. movement in the image.

I downloaded DaVinci Resolve and the same source clip does what you expect: movement with every frame forward. I could not make an export, because I am new to Resolve and do not want to spend too much time on Resolve, as I am an enthusiastic user of PD! :

The export from PD19 looks like an export of 4K footage from my drone using the wrong fps (30 instead of 25). In this case however, both are 25 fps.

During the next days I will do some more testing and I am open to suggestions.

Ok, thanks for reminding me that you were talking about the exported (produced) version and not the timeline preview.

I believe you've probably just answered you own question when you described how the frames moved. Since your MXF clip is 25fps and I assume you produced to 25fps, I imagine that for some reason your project frame rate must have been something like 30fps.

Go to the first Preferences page and change it to 25fps and produce the clip again. You may also want to consider recording at a higher frame rate like 50/60fps as that will give you smoother motion in your videos.

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During the next days I will do some more testing and I am open to suggestions.

Why 25fps? Unless you use that footage for a national TV that has that ancient standard, I would move to a 30/60 fps rate. Every single device today can handle 30FPS because they use 60 Hz native displays (at minimum).
HDTV's, phones, tablets, laptops, PC monitors.

Quote I believe you've probably just answered you own question when you described how the frames moved. Since your MXF clip is 25fps and I assume you produced to 25fps, I imagine that for some reason your project frame rate must have been something like 30fps.

Go to the first Preferences page and change it to 25fps and produce the clip again. You may also want to consider recording at a higher frame rate like 50/60fps as that will give you smoother motion in your videos.

I have done as suggested, but it made no difference. At the moment I am testing with Handbrake conversion to 4k for Youtube of the exported/produced file and the first test looks good. The daterate has been reduced to 15 Mb/s. The original produced file was 34 Mb/s. Strange as I am using very fast NVMe m2 drives.

During my holidays next week I will test with 50 fps. Bad weather forecast, so enough time to read the manual of my new camcorder.

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Why 25fps? Unless you use that footage for a national TV that has that ancient standard, I would move to a 30/60 fps rate. Every single device today can handle 30FPS because they use 60 Hz native displays (at minimum).
HDTV's, phones, tablets, laptops, PC monitors.

Good question. Reading a lot of comments in the drone user fora and this forum and looking at YouTube video's, amongst others from Canon, I concluded that in Europe we have to choose 25/50 fps and elsewhere 23,98/59,94. This has to do with the system frequency set in the camcorder in order to avoid flickering due to artificial light. When the system frequency is set to 50 Hz (Europe standard), it is not possible to choose 30/60 fps. Nevertheless, I am going to try 50 fps as optodata also suggested. My initial choice for 25 fps was because this framerate (or 23,98 fps outside Europe) generally is considered to give a more 'cinematic' look due to more natural motion blur. Also, file size will increase when doubling the framerate.

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During my holidays next week I will test with 50 fps. Bad weather forecast, so enough time to read the manual of my new camcorder.

Sorry for the radio silence. I have been away on holidays for a week and then I became a grandpa for the second time!

In the meantime, Customer Support has been able to reproduce my problem. My case has been escalated to the engineering team as MXF video processing improvement reference.

Using 50fps indeed got me a smoother flow. The downsize is, that I now must use the HEVC-codec from Canon (H265, 4:2:2) which PD19 does not support yet, so I need an extra step in my workflow. Customer Support suggested to use Handbrake to convert the file back to XAVC 4:2:0. This worked.

My new problem is that I do not know how to export the right audio channels.
My external microphone is recorded at channels 1 and 2, while the internal microphone is recorded on 3 and 4 (which is a good back-up in case I forget to power up the external microphone).
Handbrake sees these 4 channels as 4 times mono, instead of 2 times stereo.
How do I go about to export the video with a stereo track from channels 1 and 2 only?
If you believe this is off topic, I will create a new topic.

First of all, congratulations on the new grandchild! That's certainly a bright spot in this unprecedented year we're living in

I looked at your original MXF clip (BTW the OneDrive link in your OP no longer works), and MediaInfo shows that there are four single-channel PCM audio tracks. That's why Handbrake's only "mixdown" option for the audio processing is "Mono" for all four tracks.

I don't know if there are any other audio choices for recording at 50p but I'd give them a try. You could also share the 4:2:2 50p MXF clip so other people can find a conversion that works with PD.

Quote First of all, congratulations on the new grandchild! That's certainly a bright spot in this unprecedented year we're living in

I looked at your original MXF clip (BTW the OneDrive link in your OP no longer works), and MediaInfo shows that there are four single-channel PCM audio tracks. That's why Handbrake's only "mixdown" option for the audio processing is "Mono" for all four tracks.

I don't know if there are any other audio choices for recording at 50p but I'd give them a try. You could also share the 4:2:2 50p MXF clip so other people can find a conversion that works with PD.

Thanks for your good wishes!
I will look into the availablity of the files and post new ones as you requested.

Have a nice weekend!

Quote You could also share the 4:2:2 50p MXF clip so other people can find a conversion that works with PD.

As most of holiday clips are private :, I share a clip testing whether the 300 digital zoom of my camera has any use.
I hope this clip will help to solve my problem of transferring 2 (out of 4) mono tracks (recorded with the Rode Stereo videomic pro) to 1 stereo track:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoSSjUSe0F5939tAiF335Gm14Z7Haw?e=cEy87s

We certainly don't want anything personal here, so your test clip is ideal.

Unfortunately, I can't open the clip with PD, VLC, Handbrake, VirtualDub2, Windows Media Player or Win10's Movies & TV app. MediaInfo confirms that it's HEVC 4K 4:2:2 150Mbps, though.

I downloaded and installed the HEVC codec from this support page. but my apps still don't work. I downloaded and installed the utility app from the same page, but it seems like it can only import MXF clips directly from the camera or from a "properly formatted" SD card as shown in these specs.

I can't guess as the exactly what shows up when your camera records, so could you copy the exact folder structure with the new clip to OneDrive so I can transfer it to an SD card? I created a virtual media but copying the clip there isn't sufficient. It has to have the proper INDEX.MIF file so if you created one with the sample clip on OneDrive and shared it here, that would be ideal.

HandBrake does not mix up, only down. Since your 4 audio channels are all mono you will have to convert manually. One way is to create a mkv file from HandBrake vs MP4, PD will then see each audio channel and you can select and create one as left other as right in AudioDirector. Takes a little finagling but doable.

Jeff

Quote Unfortunately, I can't open the clip with PD, VLC, Handbrake, VirtualDub2, Windows Media Player or Win10's Movies & TV app. MediaInfo confirms that it's HEVC 4K 4:2:2 150Mbps, though.

I downloaded and installed the HEVC codec from this support page. but my apps still don't work. I downloaded and installed the utility app from the same page, but it seems like it can only import MXF clips directly from the camera or from a "properly formatted" SD card as shown in these specs.

I can't guess as the exactly what shows up when your camera records, so could you copy the exact folder structure with the new clip to OneDrive so I can transfer it to an SD card? I created a virtual media but copying the clip there isn't sufficient. It has to have the proper INDEX.MIF file so if you created one with the sample clip on OneDrive and shared it here, that would be ideal.

I have made a special folder in OneDrive with no end date to put in all files for you to see. The URL is the same as previously posted:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoSSjUSe0F5939tAiF335Gm14Z7Haw?e=cEy87s.

I have added two sound clips (video clips with black video). One in HEVC 4:2:2 and one in XAVC 4:2:0 which is compatible with more software.
To play the HEVC files in Windows you must install the Canon codec indeed. I have installed a special version of Media Player, which is able to show the video together with this codec:

The Canon XF Utility works the way you described. The INDEX.MIF file seems to be a kind of library containing all my files after importing, so I don’t think you need this one.
In the shared folder I have made a copy of the ‘sound’files in the original structure. You probably need the .XML files.
The files are in the folders CONTENTS\HEVC_001 and CONTENTS\CLIPS001.
After importing a .THM file is generated.

I appreciate all the effort you (and others) are putting into it!

Quote HandBrake does not mix up, only down. Since your 4 audio channels are all mono you will have to convert manually. One way is to create a mkv file from HandBrake vs MP4, PD will then see each audio channel and you can select and create one as left other as right in AudioDirector. Takes a little finagling but doable.

Jeff

I thought I reproduced all the steps you mention correctly by panning channel 1 in Audiodirector to the left and channel 2 to the right. The result however is mono, whichever track I mute or play both. I have attached a screen dump from Audiodirector and the produced audio. Please advise what to do.

Quote I thought I reproduced all the steps you mention correctly by panning channel 1 in Audiodirector to the left and channel 2 to the right. The result however is mono, whichever track I mute or play both. I have attached a screen dump from Audiodirector and the produced audio. Please advise what to do.

Your produced file is mono, you'd want stereo.

I don't think panning will work here with mono. All I did was work with the two audio files from the mkv in stereo. Removed channel Left from "Audio 1" source and copied "Audio 2" source to Left channel of "Audio 1" source and produced as stereo. So in the end one has stereo output file with:
Channel R is from "Audio 1" mkv source
Channel L is from "Audio 2" mkv source

Jeff

Quote The Canon XF Utility works the way you described. The INDEX.MIF file seems to be a kind of library containing all my files after importing, so I don’t think you need this one.

Thanks for sharing this, but I'm afraid you can't pick and choose the files and folders you think are relevent. The XF app requires everything to be in the exact format that comes when the card is initialized in your camera.

Maybe you created a virtual media folder and copied the contents to OneDrive; however it seems like only the app that created the virtual media on that specific machine is able to read it. As far as I can tell the media folder can't be shared/read by an app on another PC.

Sorry for all the extra work requests, but I think the best way to get this resolved would be to clear your camera's SD card; record a short video of anything at 50p HEVC 4:2:2, then copy the entire SD to a OneDrive folder so it can be copied onto a local SD card for direct import into the XF app.

If there is a less user-freindly way of accessing media files from a camera, I've never encountered it

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Sorry for all the extra work requests, but I think the best way to get this resolved would be to clear your camera's SD card; record a short video of anything at 50p HEVC 4:2:2, then copy the entire SD to a OneDrive folder so it can be copied onto a local SD card for direct import into the XF app.

No problem doing more work as it is my problem you are trying to solve :.

Good idea to try this. I have uploaded the content of the entire SD card in the folder SD.

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All I did was work with the two audio files from the mkv in stereo. Removed channel Left from "Audio 1" source and copied "Audio 2" source to Left channel of "Audio 1" source and produced as stereo. So in the end one has stereo output file with:
Channel R is from "Audio 1" mkv source
Channel L is from "Audio 2" mkv source

Jeff

I am afraid that I must ask you for some more guidance because I am new to his kind of stuff in Audiodirector.

I can see the two language channels in PD. Only one at a time can be selected. When I transfer this file to Audiodirector it only sees a mono track. I cannot see any option (even greyed out) that would remove a left channel or to copy Audio source 2 to left, as suggested.

I have tried to look for the manual of Audiodirector, but the ? and ‘user's guide’ at the top right only brings me to the download of the software itself.

Quote Good idea to try this. I have uploaded the content of the entire SD card in the folder SD.

Ok, some progress on my end but some issues still remain.

On the positive side, the XF app was finally able to see the 3 clips when I copied the CONTENTS folder onto a USB drive. The bad news is that they're all displayed as black/empty video, even though I have the Canon XF-AVC and XF-HEVC Decoders installed - so I still have more work to do.

The other issue is that all 3 clips on the SD card (the ones that I can't play) are 25p AVC 4:2:0, not the 50p HEVC 4:2:2 clips I was expecting. Can you clear the SD card, change the settings and record at least one clip then upload the contents again? Make sure the lens cap is open, just in case