DVD for HVX and other Panasonic codecs.

Green Hornet

Green Hornet

Veteran
I have been searching for a very easy workflow for making DVD's.
Most of them have not been;

easy.
pretty.
good quality,
or simple to use.

I have found that using the Pegasys products have worked the best for me for
SD DVD creation.

I have been encouraging them to make more products to support the Panasonic workflow and codecs to all formats of HD and SD DVD.

I have been trying to talk them into making a software that can transcode a
HVX200 MXF file into:

Standard DVD footage
Internet video footage
and or a simply everyday AVI,
as well as HD-DVD footage and Blueray


The concern was if enough people would be interested.
I am sure all of you will agree, we want and need it, and I feel that Pegasys is the best company to do it, and at a price that is right.

Anyway,
They bit, and started playing with some MXF files.
Low and behold, their TMPGEnc Xpress 4 software will support the conversion
of MXF files into mpeg dvd files.

Obviously it is not "designed" to do this,
but with enough feedback from the group, I am sure they can be encouraged to
"Support" MXF files by design.

That being said,

here is a link to download the trial to play with yourself

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/te4xp.html#trial

To import the MXF file, you have to select "ALL FILES" to view
as it is not DESIGNED to support MXF, it just works.....so far.

With your feedback, maybe they will add the MXF selection and support more functionality in this and other products.

So try and buy if you feel this works for you.

I have not yet tried this myself as I am out of town,
and away from my footage,
but this is what was just told to me by Pegasys (that it works so far)

Post product requests, problems etc.
I know we all need an easy and pretty way to convert our files to DVD's, HD-DVD's and Blueray DVD's.


*note, you must have the P2 viewer installed and functional for this to work.
 
How many people actually create DVDs straight from their MXF files without any editing?
 
THoff said:
How many people actually create DVDs straight from their MXF files without any editing?
Click to expand...
It might be moderately useful for some applications. Can't think of any offhand, though.

[Sidebar]

TmpegEnc Xpress uses "Periodic License Validation," which is basically a continual Product Activation process that repeats itself every few months to make sure your software is still genuine... I strongly recommend everyone avoid such a product...

TmpegEnc Plus 2.5, however does not use Product Activation, and is a great Mpeg2 encoder for creating DVDs. I bought it a while back, and do not regret it.

[/Sidebar]
 
Thoff is correct -- there's probably not a whole lot of use for this. As the overwhelming majority of people edit their footage before burning to DVD, the direct creation of DVDs from MXF files is probably not going to reach much of an audience.
 
I downloaded and tested

Pretty slow, and watermarked. Ten second delay - 14 day trial with confirmation.

Even with 16:9 flagged, it produced 4:3 output.

Too bad.
 
If it works for MXF, it works for edited footage

If it works for MXF, it works for edited footage

THoff said:
How many people actually create DVDs straight from their MXF files without any editing?
Click to expand...


The intent is to create a software that could convert Panasonic codec into:

Standard DVD's,
HD-DVD's,
Blue Ray Dvd's
and acceptable quality videos for internet hosting sites, all in one program.

Step one in the process is to see how it currently handles such Panasonic files.

Panasonic files start out as MXF files, so we tried that, and surprisingly it took the file.
Pegasys would be interested in creating such a NEW program if I could prove to them that there was such a need/ want for this type of program.

The point is not to make a dvd from a raw MXF file, but that if we could offer suggestions, as to what our user based needs/ wants,
they would work on creating such a NEW software to do it.

If TMPGEnc can work with the raw MXF files, it can also work with your edited footage is the point.

If you feel you like something added, changed etc, then post it, and they will consider implimenting it into a NEW software to serve our needs.
 
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Green Hornet said:
If TMPGEnc can work with the raw MXF files, it can also work with your edited footage is the point.
Click to expand...

But then there's not MUCH point. Everyone working with the MXFs in their NLEs already have viable, working DVD solutions. I don't understand the benefit of this . . . ?

:huh:
 
David S. said:
I downloaded and tested

Pretty slow, and watermarked. Ten second delay - 14 day trial with confirmation.

Even with 16:9 flagged, it produced 4:3 output.

Too bad.
Click to expand...


This is just the type of input that I will forward to them, so they can fix it in a newer version.

Just remember,

Source file size is the input dimensions (16x9 for 16x9 footage)

Format is the size you want the file to play for DVD's I think you need it to be set to 4:3 AND 16x9 aspect ratio, and select pulldown if you
want it to play at 23.97 fps

Again, I can't try this till next week as I am out of town and don't have my footage available untill then.
 
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David Jimerson said:
But then there's not MUCH point. Everyone working with the MXFs in their NLEs already have viable, working DVD solutions. I don't understand the benefit of this . . . ?

:huh:
Click to expand...


For the creation of a NEW product for:

Standard DVD

HD-DVD

Blueray DVD

and internet video

in one product.

From what you are telling me, no one needs this but me?
 
Well, yeah. I mean, how are you authoring your DVDs? How are you creating the footage?

Everyone I know edits their footage in an NLE, and outputs MPEG-2 files from their NLE. Then they import those MPEG-2 files into their DVD authoring software.

The NLEs can all understand MXF now, so -- why would you want to take a raw-from-the-camera MXF and import that into a DVD application? Won't you have to edit or trim or color-correct or *something* to the footage? If so, you'll be doing it in your NLE. And every NLE can output a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 file. So... why would you want a DVD app to take MXF files?

(I mean, that's okay if you want it, but I don't see why you'd NEED it.)
 
Barry_Green said:
Well, yeah. I mean, how are you authoring your DVDs? How are you creating the footage?

Everyone I know edits their footage in an NLE, and outputs MPEG-2 files from their NLE. Then they import those MPEG-2 files into their DVD authoring software.

The NLEs can all understand MXF now, so -- why would you want to take a raw-from-the-camera MXF and import that into a DVD application? Won't you have to edit or trim or color-correct or *something* to the footage? If so, you'll be doing it in your NLE. And every NLE can output a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 file. So... why would you want a DVD app to take MXF files?

(I mean, that's okay if you want it, but I don't see why you'd NEED it.)
Click to expand...


I see what you mean.

I guess my workflow is a bit different.

I shoot the footage but am not always the guy doing the edit.


I shoot the footage and save a master AVI file and put it on a network storage.

Sometimes someone else gives me an edited AVI (could be from the HVX)
And wants it turned into a DVD. This suggested app, could be a drop down menu selectable app that opens the footage and makes the dvd, and also an internet optimised version as well, with out bringing it back into the NLE.

I guess for me the NLE is overkill for most of what I need to do.

I have a lower end laptop where i do my dailly duties.

I have a desktop for doing heavy duty editing, CC, and other stuff.
My files sit on a network redundant raid that i can make Mpegs with any computer running the suggested application. I don't have to be sitting at the desktop.

THe application would be an inexpensive item of around $200.

It would have drop down menus with HVX200 or dvcpro 100 selectable
(as well as all other codecs) for source, and then several outputs including HD-DVD, and blueray for output.

I don't know about you, but it is not user friendly making mpegs in the NLE.

Sure if you are doing this every day, then you probably have the process down,
but for someone who shoots more than editing,
I usually need to make 2 or 3 dvd's before making sure i have the pulldown right, sound from dolby making it too low, and or cropping, display being what i want it to be.

What you guys are suggesting is similiar to saying, you open all your photos with photoshop.
If I send you a picture of my son through e-mail, would you open that with Photoshop, or a faster program that views images quicker?
I use the quicker simpler app, and only use Photoshop for editing.

If you took your low end capture laptop out in the field, this app can convert your MXF files to DVCPRO100 avi files
(if the codec in the P2 viewer allows this) and make the DVD in the field, sure it would be slower on a low end laptop, but it would be doable. The whole mentioning of the MXF raw support was only to say that the capability is already there, and
I am told that only small changes would be needed to make the other requests I asked for.

The suggested app would make it a drop down, preconfigured app to make it an easy process on any low end computer. IT would be built for HD-DVD's which I don't think there is much of that in NLE's and built for lower end formats such as internet and even down to playback on ipods and cell phones.

I don't see presets for that in most NLE's and if you can do that, it usually is not the best quality.

In edius, you need to buy another program (procoder I think) to get the best quality compressions.

Speaking of procoder, it would be very similiar to that product but only cost around $200

What's NOT to like?


The applications function would be converting any file format INCLUDING MXF AND ALL FLAVORS OF Panasonic Codec
to any other codec INCLUDING DVD MPEGS

Everyone raved when Raylight did this, but didn't make mpegs.
Have you ever seen/ compared TMPGEnc's quality of mpegs? I find it to be the best out there, that's why I went to them in the first place.

From the sounds of it, I guess it won't ever be made as no one seems to need/ want it but me.
 
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