Why does my footage suck?

ajamils said:
Where do I put 23.976 ? In video frame rate control (Video > Frame Rate) or under Filters > IVTC (offset of first combed frame)
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The idea of pulldown/telecine is designed to take 24fps video (actually 23.976) and place it into 60i (29.97). The process of IVTC (inverse telecine) is to remove what was done and get back to 23.976. Because the very definition of the process is to get back to 23.976, it's the assumed default.

As a bit of an aside, the underlying problem was that television broadcast was 29.97. However, hollywood movies are shot at 24. So how do we get to show hollywood movies on TV? The process devised was this pulldown methodology. So your GH1 records video in the 29.97 format, so since we want to get back to the 24, we just do the inverse telecine as though we had a hollywood movie.

Make sense?
 
Ya, it makes sense. Sorry of the questions, I'm still trying to learn all this stuff.

As for VirtualDub, I guess, I do not need to put any frame rate. When I add IVTC plugin, it should automatically change it to 23.976...right ?
 
ajamils said:
Ya, it makes sense. Sorry of the questions, I'm still trying to learn all this stuff.

As for VirtualDub, I guess, I do not need to put any frame rate. When I add IVTC plugin, it should automatically change it to 23.976...right ?
Click to expand...

Correct, as long as you check (reduce frame rate)
 
I am loving all of the questions being asked and the answers too (truly deep thanks, PerroneFord).

Mind if I ask which program people recommend to convert AVCHD to lossless .avi? From glancing around I saw NeoScene on Video Guys for $99 if there's not a solid free program.
 
Andor said:
I am loving all of the questions being asked and the answers too (truly deep thanks, PerroneFord).

Mind if I ask which program people recommend to convert AVCHD to lossless .avi? From glancing around I saw NeoScene on Video Guys for $99 if there's not a solid free program.
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Neoscene doesn't create lossless .avi files. It creates .avi files encoded with the Cineform codec. The Cineform codec is excellent, but not lossless. Examples of lossless (when coverting AVCHD) codecs are Huffyuv, Lagarith, uncompressed, and a few others. Be aware that these codecs create LARGE files. Somewhere on the order of 15-20 times the file sizes of your AVCHD files.

Cineform Neoscene is also going to create large files, but smaller than these because it isn't lossless.
 
Ok, this is going to make me sound even more noob than before (if that's possible). But how do I exactly get Huffyuv or Lagarith open to work with? Or are they just codecs and I need another program to act as a GUI? Only posting it here because I don't see anyone else having this problem and I figure it might be faster to just ask (well, except for one person that launched it through command prompt, but that seems inefficient and risky).

Oh, and I'm running Vista 32bit. I'll keep looking around and see if I can't find an answer while refreshing this page.
 
You simply download and install the codecs onto your machine. Once that is done, they become available as options from your editing program or any transcoding program you may have. Be aware that both Huffyuv and lagarith will ONLY be options if you have chosen the .avi container.
 
Oh, awesome! For some reason after I re-import the footage into Vegas Movie Studio it reads the new file as 47.952 fps. I am sure this is my fault somewhere along the line and I will go back later and retrace my steps.

Thanks for the help, PerroneFord.
 
Yeah, if you're new at this I recommend not going thru the loops with transcoding and converting thru so many programs. if you have vegas, work within Vegas to get your workflow going. 24p is nice but I don't think you can see a night a day difference from native 1080 60i from GH1, unless your work is going to be seen in a theater.
 
dojoman said:
Yeah, if you're new at this I recommend not going thru the loops with transcoding and converting thru so many programs. if you have vegas, work within Vegas to get your workflow going. 24p is nice but I don't think you can see a night a day difference from native 1080 60i from GH1, unless your work is going to be seen in a theater.
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Well, it's not just that, but any format I have tried rendering to, well, the video lags. And it's kind of sad to have such a nice camera but not be able to render a video in 1280x720 (any fps) without the video skipping. So really, I'm just trying to figure out how to smooth everything out. The 24p look is just kind of the whole "icing on the cake" thing.
 
Uh...once you have the IVTC filter set correctly in virtual dub....what is the next step to remove the pulldown?

Save as AVI? Export?

Thanks for all replies
 
More Questions...

More Questions...

OK...I rendered a GH1 1920x1080p/24 clip into a lossless AVI in Vegas 8.1Pro.

I then dropped the clip into virtualdub at the settings suggested.

I re-rendered the saved AVI after filtering clip in Vegas once again, and I believe it looks better, however, when you use the IVTC filter in virtualdub and have it display the frame rate, it indicates 19.2, and Vegas also shows this as the native frame rate of the clip that was in virtualdub that is to be re-rendered.

Is that correct?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
Why would you put that poor file thru so much to remove pulldown? It doesn't make sense. Just pay the $40, I believe it is, for VoltaicHD and convert from AVCHD to .avi with pulldown removal in just one shot!
 
whooo i had so many questions about my gh1 and pulldown and 24p (new to all this film stuff) and i got all the questions that i could think of answered in this topic and more. and i didnt have to ask a single thing XD

ive got to say thanks to perroneford for being so informative. youve been a big help
 
elko99 said:
OK...I rendered a GH1 1920x1080p/24 clip into a lossless AVI in Vegas 8.1Pro.

I then dropped the clip into virtualdub at the settings suggested.

I re-rendered the saved AVI after filtering clip in Vegas once again, and I believe it looks better, however, when you use the IVTC filter in virtualdub and have it display the frame rate, it indicates 19.2, and Vegas also shows this as the native frame rate of the clip that was in virtualdub that is to be re-rendered.

Is that correct?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Is there somewhere I can grab some of your raw footage from the GH1? I don't have any to play with, but if I can get some, I'll do the entire workflow and send you the steps.
 
John Caballero said:
Why would you put that poor file thru so much to remove pulldown? It doesn't make sense. Just pay the $40, I believe it is, for VoltaicHD and convert from AVCHD to .avi with pulldown removal in just one shot!
Click to expand...

Well for one, many people aren't happy with the quality of output from Voltaic. Second, even if you use Voltaic, you are going to take your AVCHD file, and transcode to something else. Generally a quicktime codec on the mac and some form of AVI on the PC. So Voltaic saves a single step. Maybe it's worth it. Maybe not. VirtualDub can do things Voltaic can't dream of, and it's free. So that is an incentive. Here is a nice piece of info on the matter: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/gh1.shtml

Really depends on people's needs. For instance, in VirtualDub, I can deshake, remove pulldown, resize, and do a basic one light color correction, and then save that file in a codec of my choice. The quality stands up to any pro tool on the market, and it costs nothing.

But hey, people have different ways of doing things. So there you go.
 
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Voltaic HD

Voltaic HD

Thank you, Mr. Ford for all of your input. I used VoltaicHD and now I understand how beautiful the 1920x1080P/24 footage looks without pulldown.

Stunning. Film like. Just what I was after.

However, Voltaic can't make lossless AVI files, or any AVI files for that matter that can be edited in Vegas 8.1 Pro, and I'm kind of married to Vegas...unless...there is a program that can edit like Vegas and remove pulldown from the GH1 footage to boot (in a PC environment).

VirtualDub seems enticing, but I'm a little confused about the GUI. When you select "reduce frame rate" with the IVTC filter, it reduces down to 19.2 by itself, with my 1920x1080/24P footage, and the resulting render looks it. I'm toying with it somewhat, and will continue to do so.

Voltaic is close, but since basically it removes pulldown at the expense of resolution and bit rate...some of the footage has some very unattractive compression artifacts....it doesn't seem like the best way to go.

I'm not averse to spending some money, nor am I squeamish about working hard at crafting good footage. I think I'm on my way, I appreciate all the help.

Mr. Ford, I could send you a DVD, or upload to an ftp site, or send you via email a very small clip. Anything you suggest. Thank you once again.
 
PerroneFord said:
AVCHD is a codec. And you can encode all kinds of video with it. You can encode 60i, 24p, 25p, 60p, and all other manner of files. So you need to separate the idea of the codec (AVCHD in this case) from what is contained inside of it.
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Sorry to be a bit nitpicky about it but strictly speaking AVCHD is not a codec.
It is a recording format specification based on a subset of the Blu-Ray specification.
And while Blu-Ray supports MPEG-2, VC-1 and AVC video codecs the only codec supported by AVCHD is AVC aka H.264 and it's embedded into MPEG-2 compliant transport streams.

Just to get this right. AVCHD is much more than a codec.
 
The first one who can make a program that rips out the H.264 from the AVCHD container without transcoding will make lots of money.
 
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