Exporting footage from the Sony HDR HC1 on my Macbook Pro using iMovie HD

[hirschab]

I have tried many different export settings but I just can't seem to find the right one. Every time it renders it creates this terrible look when there is movement, but it looks fine before it is compressed. In this example -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LNwn6Q3NLQ

The problem I am talking about, weird lines appearing on the outlines of our bodies that seem to be a problem with interlacing, does not appear, but as you can tell the footage looks like ugly SD footage whereas it should appear to be glorious 1080i, the original footage is quite beautiful and this just does not do it justice. It also isn't youtube's encoders doing this to it, what appears in this youtube video is very close to what the raw encoded footage looks like.

Can someone tell me the optimal settings for exporting HDR HC1 footage to youtube? I would really appreciate it muchly, thanks.

 

[boch82]

I have tried many different export settings but I just can't seem to find the right one. Every time it renders it creates this terrible look when there is movement, but it looks fine before it is compressed. In this example -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LNwn6Q3NLQ

The problem I am talking about, weird lines appearing on the outlines of our bodies that seem to be a problem with interlacing, does not appear, but as you can tell the footage looks like ugly SD footage whereas it should appear to be glorious 1080i, the original footage is quite beautiful and this just does not do it justice. It also isn't youtube's encoders doing this to it, what appears in this youtube video is very close to what the raw encoded footage looks like.

Can someone tell me the optimal settings for exporting HDR HC1 footage to youtube? I would really appreciate it muchly, thanks.

where is the conversion happening that is giving that result? From the camera to imovie or from imovie to youtube?

Also the quality of the youtube link is not terrible. If you watch in 1080p it looks quite good for web video. The over use of timewarps and shakey cam do make it hard to watch though

 

[Dave Braine]

glorious 1080i

The i in 1080i indicates interlacing, which is your problem. I had the same problem with some interlaced video footage. If you can, download the video into Finder rather than direct to iMovie, then use MPEGStreamclip to convert to DV format and then it will work fine.

This Wikipedia article says that you can convert to DV in the camera:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_camcorders

 

[hirschab]

I want it to be HD footy though. Converting it to DV would defeat the whole purpose of purchasing a HD camera.

 

[Dave Braine]

In that case, you're probably going to need Final Cut Express/Pro because interlaced video doesn't work in iMovie.

 

[martinX]

I can't see any interlacing artefacts at all so that's not the problem.

What version of iMovie do you have? Do you plug in the camera, bring in the footage, edit and then "share to YouTube"? Or do you export a movie and then upload that to YT?
Either way, can you try some footage that hasn't been sped up, just in case it's iMovie trying to cope with that and not doing well.

Like boch82, it's not bad for web video and, yes, it always looks better before YT gets a hold of it.

 

[hirschab]

Thanks for the replies, I actually do have final cut express, so how can this help me? MY friend gave it to me but I use imovie because I don't understand fina cut.

Bascially I encode it with imovie then upload it, if my settings would help you I can post those. There aren't any interlacing artifacts in this particular video no, but in every other encoding attempt there are. The only reason this edit is unsatisfactory to me is because of the degradation from the original quality. I know that I can expect some degradation but I'm just looking for a way to get minimal degradation, I see a lot of amazing, amazing hd footy on youtube so I know that it is possible. I didn't spend 2000$ on a camera to not be able to share my footage with anyone! I mean I have blu ray rips on my computer that are gorgeous and they are undre 5gb in size, how is this possible to achieve when my edits are 5 minutes long and approaching the same file size as a 2 hour long movie?

 

[bmb012]

Set the camera to cinema mode in the effects menu, then run that footage through an inverse telcine using JES Deinterlacer. It might have problems if you have multiple scenes, though. I don't know if I've gotten that thing to be reliable, but the footage looks pretty great, when it works.

For a more foolproof method you can just shoot normally, and run it through the deinterlacer, I'd just tell it to drop one set of fields, then lower the video resolution to 1280 x 720.

Or, an even easier way would be to open the footage in Quicktime, click on Window, Show Movie Properties, Video Track, Visual Settings, and select 'Single Field' at the bottom right.

I think Final Cut Express has a quicktime filter called deinterlace also...

But, uh, looking at the YouTube video, I don't see anything wrong with it... Ah, sorry, you uploaded the raw footage. iMovie should do the deinterlacing automatically, but you can try any of those, or check those settings.