which file format ?

[Dentifrice]

Hi,

I'm new to video editing (amateur) and I have a question.

I need to create DVD from various file formats (divx, mpeg2, xvid, etc.). All with different ratios, somes in HD, some SD.

Everything is for SD NTSC DVD.

I'm importing these videos in final cut directly. As I see, editing highly compressed video is slow.

What is the best way for that ? Should I convert all videos to quicktime format before editing ?

And in Final cut...Audio/video settings, what should I set in sequence preset ? Is it important (I don't have any camera yet).

Sorry if some questions are stupid, i'm very new to all of this !

Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

You should recode all the files to the settings you will use as your sequence settings in Final Cut.

What settings you will use is up to you, as you decide what you want it to output to.

Best would be DV NTSC (widescreen or not), as the DV codec can be easily edited in real time on slower machines, and as the source material hasn't that much of a bitrate to begin with. Also you will save some disk space, but know that one hour of DV encoded material will take 12-13 GB space.

And consider the different dimensions and aspect ratios of the clips, also the frames per second (29.97fps is NTSC).

What do you want to do with the clips in Final Cut?

Maybe this will suffice for the task.

 

[Exman]

I'd personally use Adobe Premier for this project. I find it is more 'friendly' towards sources such as divx, mpeg2, xvid. It gives you native editing in the timeline. Exporting the to NTSC-DVD is quite fast with Adobe Media Encoder (Maiconcept) as it will saturate all your CPU cores.

 

[Dentifrice]

thanks for anwsers !

Which application do you recommand for converting to DV NTSC ? Can I do that with Compressor ? Or do I need another application ?

I'll will try SimpleMovieX too and Adobe Premiere when I'll have the time

thanks !

 

[Dentifrice]

Which application do you recommand for converting to DV NTSC ? Can I do that with Compressor ? Or do I need another application ?

anyone ?

 

[ChrisA]

thanks for anwsers !

Which application do you recommand for converting to DV NTSC ? Can I do that with Compressor ? Or do I need another application ?

I'll will try SimpleMovieX too and Adobe Premiere when I'll have the time

thanks !

You might want to try converting it all to DV. It's a good format for editing because there are no key frames, so each frame stands alone. How to convert? Use Quick time pro.

When ever you are seeing software run slow you should bring up Activity Monitor and look to see where the bottle neck is. Are the CPU cores both running at 100% or is the disk the bottle neck or maybe you notice many swap outs. You need to address the bottle neck

One of the good thinks about HD footage is that you can re-frame it and still have enough resolution to look good in SD. When you convert to DV you give this up. Do any adjustments like stabilization or zoom or straightening before you convert.

 

[Dentifrice]

thanks !

great help. I'll try that today!

 

[Dentifrice]

I tried it last night, export to DV with quicktime....but...the quality is awful

My goal is to create a dvd but it seems the quality doesn't match dvd quality...

Am I doing something wrong ?

 

[spinnerlys]

What setting did you use to export to DV? Just DV and nothing more?

What is the bitrate of the exported file (Quicktime > Get Info or Information)?

What is the size of the exported video and its length?


What file did you use to export?

 

[Dentifrice]

What setting did you use to export to DV? Just DV and nothing more?

What is the bitrate of the exported file (Quicktime > Get Info or Information)?

What is the size of the exported video and its length?


What file did you use to export?

In quicktime, I did export to DV, didn't see any bitrate value. 1 hour file. In DV it takes 12 gb. I choose NTSC widescreen. The source file was an HD file encoded in xvid

I will give you the bitrate of the DV file once I get home

 

[spinnerlys]

That seems strange, as you say DV encoded material takes about 12GB per hour. Math will show us that the bitrate should be right too (25Mbit/s = 3.125MByte/s).

DVD has a maximum bitrate of 7 to 8 Mbit/s so the DV codec should look a lot better. But not if the HD source has a bitrate of only 1 or 2 Mbit/s.

Can you tell me any specifics about the source media file (size in MB, codec, dimensions, ....)?

 

[Dentifrice]

First picture : source file
second : dv output (why does it say 24,22 GB and on my HD it's 12,11 ?)
third : DV quality
fourth : source file quality

normal ?

 

[spinnerlys]

If Quick Time can read the Divx, you should also be able to import the source file into FCP and use Compressor..


I found the following here:

"Use Compressor, Choose the format, In the inspector under Geometry tab set the Output Image inset (padding) to 16X9."
---
"In choosing the format, in the standard definition folder, do I choose DV NTSC or DV NTSC anamorphic? Thanks much."
--
"If you need to deliver Letterboxed then choose DV NTSC."


Maybe this helps with the quality, as Quick Time is sometimes not that good of a compressor.

 

[Dentifrice]

thanks again for your help

I did it and the quality is the same, so the only conclusion is that my expectation are too high

It's probably normal quality for DV...

 

[spinnerlys]

From the small thumbnail I would say: no, it's not normal quality for DV - I have edited plenty of DV recorded and encoded material, and it looks better than what you posted.

Could you post once more two stills (not reduced in dimension) from both videos (source and DV encoded file) with "a Command + Shift + 4" snapshot of the respective window?

I can also offer to look into it with a small video sample from both if possible.
YouSendIt is quite a good service sending files under roughly 100MB.

PS: where those thumbnails just a reduced image or a cropped part of the video?

 

[Dentifrice]

they were just part of the image

here is the full image

 

[spinnerlys]

The DV image does look bad, but so does the Divx encoded one.

Divx is a highly compressed codec, that uses keyframes to interpolate between frames. DV uses intraframe compression, which means it encodes every frame of the video.

But that you use the Divx as source and re-compress it again means image quality loss as it seems.
You gain edit ability, but lose image quality.

I have no further solutions.

Besides the stills, how does it look in motion (if you play the DV encoded material)?

And why do you have to use those formats (divx, ...)?
You wrote you have to edit something, so it seems it is some kind of job. That should at least give better encoded material.

Or maybe it is an assignment.


PS:
This is what DV recorded material looks like anyway.

Sample 1:

Sample 2:

 

[Dentifrice]

it's only for me and some friends. They sent me 3 files of their music show (it's 3 hours long, I need to make 2 DVD of 1 1/2 hour each).

I don't know who and why they made it in divx format (which I found really stupid).

I will try to contact the person who did this and try to have it not compressed with divx.

As for the look in motion...it's ok but not as good as I want (or it's going to be better on a tv than a monitor...)

thanks again

edit: it's REALLY better on your example than mine...I don't understand...

 

[spinnerlys]

My sample was only compressed once during recording the actual image inside the DV camera.

Your material is encoded thrice at least.
Once during record, then again at capture (if the camera used an AVCHD codec, so the capturing software -Avid, Final Cut, ...- used another codec), then again at export, then at encoding to Divx (if it wasn't during export) and finally your encoding to DV.

That is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a original.

Try that with magnetic tape and you get loss too.

 

[Dentifrice]

My sample was only compressed once during recording the actual image inside the DV camera.

Your material is encoded thrice at least.
Once during record, then again at capture (if the camera used an AVCHD codec, so the capturing software -Avid, Final Cut, ...- used another codec), then again at export, then at encoding to Divx (if it wasn't during export) and finally your encoding to DV.

That is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a original.

Try that with magnetic tape and you get loss too.

ok I understand. Thank you ! I'm *very* new to video editing and I think I'll wil like it!

Now I need the original shot !

 

[Dentifrice]

updates...

Did some tests and I don't understand.

Export to DV with QT is not good (and said above).
I tried with Compressor, same thing !

And my last test, I tried with MPEG Streamclip and what a surprise : very VERY good quality.

I can't believe a free application does it better than Compressor/QT ?? I must be doing something wrong ?


And second problem, everytime I convert something to DV NTSC with Compressor (maybe the problem occurs with other formats, didn't have the time to try it yet) I don't have a full audio track.

For example, if I try to convert a 1 hour file, I will have 1 hour of video (obviously) and 4-5 minutes of sound ! If it's 1 hour and a half, something like 6 minutes of sound. If I go Movie Properties in QT, the sound track is really 4-5 minutes. I tried with Linear PCM and ACC, same results.

Ideas ???

 

[Dentifrice]

no one ?