smart-renderer produces shortdistortions with titles

Post by **lancecarr** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:50 am

Jerry I have just done the following using VS10:

1. Import a DVD camcorder MPEG-2 file;

The file was imported from an 8cm DVD disc created by a Sony DCR DVD201. Standard NTSC MPEG properties, only 704x480 instead of 720. 9800VBR

2. Adjust your VideoStudio/MediaStudio project settings to match the properties of your DVD camcorder MPEG-2 source file;

Done

3. Insert a title into the timeline over the MPEG-2 source file;

Done.

4. Render out the timeline to file using the "SAME AS PROJECT SETTINGS" export option to create a smart rendered MPEG-2 file on your computer's hard disk.

Done

5. Play the file.

Done

6. Observe the video carefully immediately after the title leaves the screen and you should then observe the bug, which is a slight 'bump' or 'distortion' where the edit is being capped off by an I-frame.

Nope. Nothing unusual, smooth as a baby's...
Whilst I am not doubting those who are getting the glitch I am wondering why mine doesn't create the problem.
I am using VS10 still. Are you saying that this has been introduced since the release of 11?

Sektionschef · Post by **Sektionschef** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:09 pm

Hi lancecarr

The problem is also in VS10 but it is not shown on EVERY cut or any title position.
If you like to generate such distortions then please follow the procedure of my previous post: http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 946#122946
If you still can't see the distortions then check whether smartrendering is enabled. Even if smartrendering is enabled this does not mean that VS10 uses smartrendering.
The best way to check whether smartrendering is performed is to look at the rendering time. If you just have one clip on the timeline and put a short text in the middle of this clip then at the beginning the rendering should be very fast, then changes to slow and then accelerate to fast rendering again.
If you just see a constant rendering time then smartrendering seems to be disabled.
Regards
Sektionschef

bsuratt · Post by **bsuratt** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:51 pm

lancecarr,

I think the problem exists with editing of HD MPEG files not necessarily any MPEG file. I believe that you are using SD MPEG files. I don't know that a problem with SD files has been reported.

Also, if you are changing any of the original file parameters the smartrender will not occur in the creation of the mpeg output file.

bsuratt · Post by **bsuratt** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:59 pm

<<I suspect this may be "as good as it gets" on the PC plaform in the sub-$500 price range.>>

Not so, Jerry.

I have produced stunning, near perfect HD-DVDs on red media using Womble MVW/DVD (not just VCR), and Ulead MF6+. You would have to see it to believe how good it is.

Granted, Womble does not yet have all the bells and whistles but it does prove that it can be done! Most of the other packages will undoubtably offer a patch to solve the problem as soon as enough people yell.

Early adopters are the unpaid "beta testers" for many companies now, and that is truly a shame on the industry.

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:31 pm

For those who have standard definition DVD or HDD camcorders and have a hard time editing the SD long GOP MPEG-2 files, I've done some tests that are quite interesting.

Today I answered a question I've long wondered about.

Which would look best:

a. A DVD camcorder long GOP MPEG-2 file captured via the Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus "Import From DVD/DVD-VR" capture plug-in and then transcoded to DV .avi...

...or...

b. A DVD camcorder disc played in a portable player with S-Video and analog audio out into a MiniDV camcorder's analog to digital converter and recorded onto MiniDV cassette and then captured via Firewire?

I did some tests in my studio today.

Option "b" won by a landslide.

It's more work; you need to run S-Video and stereo audio analog cables from the portable DVD player into the MiniDV camcorder's input ports (assuming your DV camcorder has them).

But the quality of the analog to digital conversion is spectacular.

Razor sharp.

Far better than the computer digital transcodes from .MPG > DV .AVI.

I suspect the reason has to do with the quality of these consumer analog-to-digital converters; they're remarkably good.

The portable DVD player I used was a Panasonic DVD-LS5 (a typical mini player) with S-Video and stereo audio outputs.

The MiniDV camcorder I used was a JVC GR-DF550 with S-Video and stereo audio inputs.

To make sure the stereo audio was going down on the MiniDV cassette as stereo, I used a Studio1Productions.com adapter.

Then I captured from the camcorder via Firewire to the computer's hard drive.

The transcode from .MPG > DV .AVI looked much softer.

I was surprised by this little experiment.

But this will be my workflow from now on when incorporating standard definition DVD or HDD MPEG-2 sources into typical standard definition DV .avi editing timelines.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:36 pm

Yes, the reason I don't use Womble is due to the fact it's still too basic.

But you're right that Womble proves it can be done.

Still, I think the intermediate codecs will always be useful in shops where there's a lot of file sharing and a need for material that holds up better than MPEG in multi-layer composite workflows.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

bsuratt wrote:Granted, Womble does not yet have all the bells and whistles but it does prove that it can be done!

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:45 am

Actually, the problem appears to affect all MPEG-2 long GOP files.

I confirmed it here with standard definition DVD camcorder files that were placed in the Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus timeline with titles and then rendered out -- with smart render turned "on" -- to a single file.

Playback of the file reveals the slight distortion at the end of titles.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

bsuratt wrote:I think the problem exists with editing of HD MPEG files not necessarily any MPEG file. I believe that you are using SD MPEG files. I don't know that a problem with SD files has been reported.

Post by **lancecarr** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 2:20 am

Ok I just repeated the test and I do get the little "jump" at the end of a "fade to black" inserted into an MPEG2 file from a DVD cam using Smart Render.
It really does look like the encoder is referring to a previous frame to create an I frame at the end of the transition as Jerry suggests.

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:21 am

Some more experiments in my studio.

I was not pleased with the standard definition DVD to DV transcodes in Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus; they look soft and fuzzy.

So I did the analog to digital conversion from a mini DVD player (Panasonic DVD LS5) to one of my MiniDV camcorders with analog inputs (JVC GR-DF550).

That looked much better.

Then I tried grabbing the digital video recorded on the DVD with Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11.

This was interesting.

Unlike Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus, which grabs each "cell" (chapter) as separate videos, the Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 program doesn't split each chapter, but instead attempts to capture the entire title. I say "attempts" because the Pinnacle "Import From DVD" plug-in seemed to be buggy and refused to grab certain sections of the title properly, resulting in "frozen" segments.

So I went back to Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus and grabbed each of the "cells" (chapters).

Then I imported those into Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 and transcoded them to DV .avi format using the Pinnacle encoder.

Let me tell you it was amazing to see the far higher quality produced by the Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 DV encoder.

The DVD-to-DV conversion looks perfect... razor sharp.

This is great to know because it will save me a lot of time the future and will now become my way of incorporating DVD long GOP MPEG-2 segments into my DV .avi timelines.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:51 am

Interesting observations. As a side note, the VideoStudio DVD Import function works either way -- importing the entire Title, or 1-to-many specific Chapters.

So you are saying that the software conversion from mpeg2-to-DV was better than the camcorder analog-to-dv conversion? I'm wondering if that is because the camcorder used an RCA connection (or was it S-Video)? And the software conversion skips the analog-out wiring?

Also, I am assuming your tests used NTSC source -- did you see any difference going from 4:2:0 to 4:1:1, and then back to 4:2:0 for DVD?

Another thing I'm curious about -- did you capture from analog-to-camcorder, then camcorder to computer via firewire? Or was it an analog-to-dv using "pass through" on the camcorder?

Did the analog-to-dv conversion with the camcorder add/remove "setup" (IRE levels modified using the analog-to-dv route)?

Regards,
George

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:32 am

Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus refers to DVD disc "titles" as "programs."

When I check the check box to capture the entire program, I see that the check box next to each cell now has a check and each cell is captured separately.

If you've managed to get the various cells to be joined as one file during the capture in VideoStudio 11 Plus, I'd like to learn how you did it.

In the Pinnacle software, the "cells" are joined together during import (but unfortunately the software is rather buggy and sometimes fails to transfer the video correctly as there are segments of the MPEG that "freeze" during playback.)

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

GeorgeW wrote:As a side note, the VideoStudio DVD Import function works either way -- importing the entire Title, or 1-to-many specific Chapters.

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:45 am

Jerry Jones wrote:Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus refers to DVD disc "titles" as "programs."

When I check the check box to capture the entire program, I see that the check box next to each cell now has a check and each cell is captured separately.

If you've managed to get the various cells to be joined as one file during the capture in VideoStudio 11 Plus, I'd like to learn how you did it.

In the Pinnacle software, the "cells" are joined together during import (but unfortunately the software is rather buggy and sometimes fails to transfer the video correctly as there are segments of the MPEG that "freeze" during playback.)

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

When using the Import from DVD function in VS11+, I see the Tree on the LEFT side, and I put a check mark in the TITLE box -- this imports the entire Title for me (one long Title). When you do that, it imports the chapters as separate files for you?

Regards,
George

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:47 am

Don't know the answer to the "setup" question.

But I plugged my mini DVD player's (Panasonic DVD-LS5) S-Video and stereo audio output cables into the S-video and stereo audio inputs of my MiniDV camcorder (GR-DF550). Then I recorded the signals to MiniDV cassette. Then I captured from the cassette to my computer's hard disk using Firewire.

The clarity of the picture was great.

However, the 8cm disc in the mini DVD player (a DVD-RAM disc recorded in a Panasonic VDR-M30 DVD camcorder) featured a 704 x 480 frame size and when it was recorded onto the MiniDV tape and then captured via Firewire, the resulting DV .avi file -- 720 x 480 -- had thin black vertical edges on the left and right sides of the video image. So the analog output was recorded very precisely.

The transcode from MPEG-2 to DV .avi in the Pinnacle software corrected very nicely -- automatically -- for the frame size difference; the result was really clear and no black edges and looked much more like what one would expect from a decent MiniDV consumer camcorder.

For some reason, my Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus SD MPEG-2-to-DV .avi transcodes don't look nearly as good.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

GeorgeW wrote:Another thing I'm curious about -- did you capture from analog-to-camcorder, then camcorder to computer via firewire? Or was it an analog-to-dv using "pass through" on the camcorder?

Jerry Jones · Post by **Jerry Jones** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:51 am

Correct.

The chapters import as separate video files.

This is an 8cm DVD-RAM disc recorded in a Panasonic VDR-M30 camcorder.

So maybe it has something to do with .VRO files in DVD_RTAV folders as opposed to .VOB files in Video_TS folders; I don't know.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

GeorgeW wrote:When using the Import from DVD function in VS11+, I see the Tree on the LEFT side, and I put a check mark in the TITLE box -- this imports the entire Title for me (one long Title). When you do that, it imports the chapters as separate files for you?

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:59 am

Jerry Jones wrote: The chapters import as separate video files.

This is an 8cm DVD-RAM disc recorded in a Panasonic VDR-M30 camcorder.

So maybe it has something to do with .VRO files in DVD_RTAV folders as opposed to .VOB files in Video_TS folders; I don't know.

That's most likely the difference. So maybe that's why you see Program, and I see Title for DVD's?

Do you have any DVD Folders you can try to see if they will import the entire Title? If not, you can always create a quick DVD Folder with a single Title broken into 3 or 4 chapters (burn to hard drive, then Import from that DVD Folder).

EDIT: I did not read all 90+ posts in this thread (forgive me if I am repeating something already mentioned). But to get back on topic -- are we saying that SmartRendering would work better if the program could identify the BEFORE and AFTER I-Frames of pieces of timeline that require re-rendering, and automatically turn SmartRender off for those sections of the timeline (making sure to always re-render from I-Frame to I-Frame)

Regards,
George