Hv20 Best Practices

60i is the NTSC standard. i means the video is interlaced (first odd then even lines are recorded) vs p which is progressive (full frame). When you use 60i mode it records a total of 30 full frames as odd and even which makes it 60 interlaced frames. But when you use 24p mode, due to HDV compression specs it still needs to record it as 60i so the camcorder uses a method called pulldown which makes it possible to record 24p signal inside a 60i signal. So if you don't remove the pulldown your video will be 60i even if you record in 24p mode.
 
The workflow and the time sheet from my last video:

This is for 1 hour video

*Capture using sony vegas 8 1 hour

*Remove the pulldown using TMPGenc 4 Xpress 3.5 hours
*Import the video back into Sony Vegas ,render as 1920x1080/24p HD mpeg2 video with the highest video quality setting and preserving 25Mbps bitrate and using Magic Bullet Look suite for CC
11 hours

*Using Ulead DVD movie factory 6 plus burn it as HD-DVD to regular DVD-5 or DVD-9

3 hours

Total for 1 hour video: 17.5 hours

My computer specs:

HP dv9500z laptop with AMD dual core 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM 5400rpm hard disk, running windows vista ultimate. During the pulldown both of the cores were used nearly full performance all the time but during sony vegas rendering they weren't fully used for some reason. I guess it just takes time to do the rendering.
 
Vsansal,

You've been very helpful on this front and I know I can speak for everyone when I say thank you very much. The 24p thing can be very confusing. One more quick thing...when you render in vegas what would you use if you were to view it on your computer. In other words I'd like it to be the highest quality possible at 1080 but with decent compression. What file type and codec would you use?

Thanks again!!
 
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If you are only going to watch it using your computer, than I would suggest you to keep it as it is which is mpeg2 and burn it to a DVD as data disc. What I do is I first select blu-ray 1920x1080 24p or 60i. Then get into custom settings. I choose the best quality for rendering and in video settings I choose the highest quality. I keep the constant 25Mbps bitrate. Don't forget to include the audio from the audio settings (as default it is not included). Then render it. If you want it to be a small file to keep it in your computer than you can use WMV with at least 3Mbps bitrate with 1080p/i resolution to get decent results.
 
The program I'm using doesn't understand m2v which is the default extension under your instructions. I can just rename the extension mpg or will that effect the render?

There doesn't appear to be much compression there. I'm reading up on it and according to microsoft the wmv9 is comparable to h.264....may be up for debate but the results look good and although it's not all the compression I was looking for 1 min vid results in about a 50meg file which isn't terrible I guess. I'll be keeping most of my tapes but I'll want tot do a few montages and keep them on the comp so this may be the best way to go.

Thanks for you help.
 
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Are you talking about playback?

BTW, in custom settings, if you go to system and unselect save the audio as a separate file, it will output it as m2t instead of m2v
 
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Ya, playback is what I'm most concerned with. I have an HTPC set up downstairs and the program I'm using (j. river media center) does not understand m2t or m2v extenstions plus I did want some compression without noticeable loss in quality.

I have noticed motion isn't great. I have a clip of me walking around the house to test it and it become fairly blurry at points. But this may also be a property of the camera.

Oh, one quick thing. The workflow that you told me about, just to be clear that will maintaint he "film" look as it is designed in the camera correct?
 
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I don't know for sure, but blur with motion would indicate to me that you need to change your shutter speed, manual focus, or give it better conditions for auto focus.
 
Good point on the shutter speed. DV is new to me...I'm a still camera guy and there is a manual shutter speed. It was lower light so I'm assuming the shutter speed was very low to allow more light in. From what I understand these cameras are very sensitive to lower light scenarios.
 
The forkflow will maintain the film-like look.

The compression I suggest is the same as the recorded one so you should get quicker rendering times using it. I don't like AVCHD format which can reduce the file size but I like the quality of mpeg2 better. You can try WMV with a high bitrate. Just make sure which ever compression you use, go into the custom settings and change the quality settings to the highest possible and select proper frame rate (23.97) and aspect ratio.
 
I have Premiere Pro 2.0, after effects CS3, and HDVsplit. How should I do the reverse telecine for 24p?

When I import 24p into a 30p/60i project it has the occasional doubled frame to make it 30 frames per second. Once I do the 24p pulldown removal, will I be able to edit with 24fps?

Also, what's the point of HDVsplit? I downloaded it thinking it was the only way to capture, but it started giving me difficulties. I tried capturing with PP2.0 and it works fine.
 
HBlack said:
I have Premiere Pro 2.0, after effects CS3, and HDVsplit. How should I do the reverse telecine for 24p?

When I import 24p into a 30p/60i project it has the occasional doubled frame to make it 30 frames per second. Once I do the 24p pulldown removal, will I be able to edit with 24fps?

Also, what's the point of HDVsplit? I downloaded it thinking it was the only way to capture, but it started giving me difficulties. I tried capturing with PP2.0 and it works fine.
Click to expand...

You can use after effects to remove the pulldown.

The fork flow is:

  1. In the Project panel, select the footage item from which to remove 3:2 pulldown.
  2. Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.
  3. In the Fields and Pulldown section, select Upper Field First or Lower Field First from the Separate Fields menu.
  4. To have After Effects determine the correct settings, click Guess 3:2 Pulldown
HDV split is a free tool for only capturing. You don't need to use it if you can capture fine with your NLE.
 
Is there any known issues with renaming the m2t file as an mpeg? WMP, wich means my media center program, understands it and plays it but will there be issues down the road if I do this?
 
Instead of renaming try this:

Right-click on a .m2t file in Explorer and choose Properties. Beside "Open With..." click the Change button and then locate the Windows Media Player.exe (It should be in Program Files, and then the Windows Media Player directory).

After you do this, without renaming it you should be able to watch them.

if it doesn't work I don't think you will have problems renaming since they are both mpeg files only with different extensions.
 
Vsansal,

Looks like after I do the Tmpgenc thing I'm going to try and use super to convert it to h264. Have you used this? I again want to keep the film look so I guess in frames per second I should keep the 23.98 or 25?
 
I've never used conversion, but if you are planning to make a DVD out of it, don't convert it to h264 since you will be converting it back to mpeg for dvd. As for the frame rate, don't change it to 25 since it is the frame rate for PAL camcorders, keep it as 23,98.
 
I'm still struggling with how to convert this and get it a good size...quicktime buffer issue, super doesn't work and when using nero i convert to avc, works fine but it doesn't play....it just gets stuck on the first frame.

I'm also hanging on the same spot every time I use tmpgenc for a certain video...obvious this is an issue with the m2t video file but I can't resolve it.

Check that...no issue with the m2t only when I encode several files at once. I did them seperately and it worked fine. It's also doing it to another batch I'm running now. Just hangs...sucks.

Is there any other program that can do what tmpgenc does?
 
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Okay, we'll I've answered my own question. It appears it's a memory issue. If you try and encode too much at once your system just freezes it. So I used the batch process and it worked fine. Question though, what happens if you have 10 ro 20 minutes of consecutive tape and you want to encode it? I guess you would have to split it then reassemble it eh?
 
I have 2 gigs. After about 5 to 7 minutes of encoding I'm at 1.6 to 2 gig of mem usage for tmpgenc. I recall this for vegas as well, if the video is over a certain length you have to split it. There is a way to do it in Vegas...not sure how you would split and reasseble here.

Also, I've been trying somehow to convert my files to h264. Super doesn't work and when I try to rename m2t to mpeg and import into Quicktime, it has a bufferoverun. Without rendering / encoding twice, how would you suggest I encode with tmpgenc then import into Quicktime?

Thanks.
 
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