Converting AVCHD to DNxHD

how are you trying to import? And what are your exact settings from the "Avanti". I've never tried that workflow. Seems too complicated.
 
Perrone, I will have to get back to you next year. Thanks for your time... have a great night and new decade. I am not sure what you mean by Import- if you mean into Avid, I can assure you that I know how to do it, including matching color-space.
As for Avanti, I'll have to get back on the exact settings. They do work, just not "Fast-Importable".

Which program are you using to run your code? I'll give that a try.

Best, MS

Denwa- Thanks for that tip- I was hoping to save some $$$ for some batteries for my neat new camera. I guess I'll putter some more. I assume that tmpg is full-featured and can do scaling of 720 movies to 1920x1080, as well as batching.
 
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Hi- Here's what I've discovered: If I ask Avanti to make a 1280x720 .mov, then in Avid flip my 1080i project Tab over to the 720p/29.97 Project type, a 11000 DNxHD encoded file will "Fast-Import". This method is a good workaround, though I really want to learn to use Avanti to scale my 720 footage to 1080, encode at 145 (or 220) and be Fast-Importable in a 1080i Project-- especially if the image quality can be improved before importing.
 
That's why I asked about how you were importing. That is not a workaround, that is how you are supposed to import multiple types into Avid. You change the project "format" tab to mirror the frame rate and frame size of the media you are importing. Otherwise it transcodes whatever you are importing to whatever the project type is.

But you assured me you knew how to import into Avid so I left it alone.
 
Hi, I was under the impression that I could use Avanti to Scale my AVCHD footage up to 1920x1080, as well as encode with DNxHD. Remember, I was already successful at having Avid import my upscaled Avanti/DNxHD encoded .movs- it's just that they would not Fast-Import.

As forthe other variables within Avanti, I have tried them every which way, along with every possible Avid-Import setting. All to no avail.

I see the Project Tab flip as a workaround because I am not convinced that I am getting the best image from Avid's internal upscaling (most of my other footage will be 1080).

Anyway, thanks for your help. When you did your test yesterday, did you flip the Project Tab to 720?
 
NONE of the NLEs do a decent upscale/downscale. That's what the pro's use a Teranex for. You can upscale nicely in Virtualdub if you like. That's free and very easy.
 
I'd really like to know. Is image resizing something nobody does, or is quality image resizing just something nobody cares enough about to demand it from the major NLE makers? I just don't get it.
 
I guess I can answer that though. Obviously, a lot of folks are resizing, when they shoot HD and burn DVDs of their final edited projects, so pretty simple logic says nobody gives a good gawd dang rip or even a rats ass how awful it is. <--- censored myself to make this the G-Rated version of what I was thinking!!!
 
Yes, people care. But the people with enough weight to get the NLE manufacturers to change already have better and faster solutions. Honestly, we have very good solutions too as small timers, but it just takes longer.

VirtualDub (and other software) can do Lanczos, Bicubic Spline, Mitchell, and other resizing. It's not rocket science, though it is a bit inconvenient. I know the Avid suite has these kinds of tools, but I don't know about other pro NLEs like FCP and Premiere.
 
I think it boils down to having a healthy interest in helping the lesser formats combine nicely with the better ones within the same program.
 
MathewS said:
I think it boils down to having a healthy interest in helping the lesser formats combine nicely with the better ones within the same program.
Click to expand...

I don't understand this comment. What do you mean? If I shoot Panalog or ArriRaw I am getting a 1920x1080 image from a quarter million dollar camera. If I shoot 1080 on the GH1 I am getting a 1080 image from an $800 camera. Both have to be processed in much the same way before they can enter the timeline on FCP or Avid.

I don't see how lesser or better has anything to do with it.
 
Perrone, I have noticed that Avid's included Squeeze can do a very nice job of uprezzing onto 1920x1080 QT with DNxHD-- too bad my version 5 does not accept the AVCHD format.

**************EDIT: My camera's movie files come off the card as 00000.MTS, 00001.MTS, etc. I WAS able to bring them into Squeeze 5 by changing the extension to 00000.MPG, 00001.MPG,etc. Squeeze5 offers a variety of Filters in addition to simple Re-sizing to 1920x1080. These .mov quicktimes do Fast Import into Avid, which is just what I wanted. Those Squeeze filters offer Gamma, Sharpen/Noise Reduction, Brightness, Contrast, Sat, Hue, Black Restore, White Restore and De-interlace. Many of the filters have sub-menus. I'd be curious to know if you've tried Squeeze's Noise Reduction.


Speaking of which, you mentioned MPEG_Streamclip up top. I can't seem to get my camera's 720 sized .m2ts files to work with it. Were you using the same format when you said it was a breeze? What am I missing? I even upgraded my
MPEG-2 Component this morning.
 
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I've been using VDub to resize video for years, and for a few other things, like noise reduction. MSU (Moscow State University) has a denoiser that can work incredibly well for some purposes. It's really quite good at visually lossless, light denoising, that can sometimes improve x264 compression performance (quality/bit) notably (of course, it depends on the material). It's both a spatial and temporal noise reduction filter. The temporal noise reduction is actually the best I think I've ever seen, anywhere.
 
You can't get DNxHD out of VDub, but you can certainly get a file that something like Mpeg Streamclip can open and you can convert from there.

VDub has to be the best free video application available on the PC right now. Best Deshaker out there, a number of good denoisers, can remove pulldown, excellent rescaler, clean sharpening, excellent decimation (frame rate changer), etc. Just phenomenal. It's slower than hardware options to be sure, but my opinion is that it's just as good.
 
I finally had Fast Import success using Squeeze 5 and noted it above:

**************EDIT: My camera's movie files come off the card as 00000.MTS, 00001.MTS, etc. I WAS able to bring them into Squeeze 5 by changing the extension to 00000.MPG, 00001.MPG,etc.

Squeeze5 offers a variety of Filters in addition to simple Re-sizing to 1920x1080. These .mov quicktimes do Fast Import into Avid, which is just what I wanted. Those Squeeze filters offer Gamma, Sharpen/Noise Reduction, Brightness, Contrast, Sat, Hue, Black Restore, White Restore and De-interlace. Many of the filters have sub-menus. I'd be curious to know if you've tried Squeeze's Noise Reduction.

Thanks for kicking it around, good luck in 2010.
 
I have not tried the noise reduction in squeeze. That doesn't really fit in my current workflow. I have been greatly underwhelmed by Squeeze, but I'll throw some more stuff at it this coming week.
 
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