Jerry Jones' Pinnacle tests

[Jerry Jones]

If it's any comfort to those of you who dislike this bug as much as I do, I have just tried the Pinnacle Ultimate 11 software and I put it through the paces with MPEG-2 files.

First, it's tough to really understand what's going on with the Pinnacle software relative to smart MPEG rendering.

The timeline scrubber seems to move slowly -- one frame at a time -- when writing out MPEG segments that should be smart rendering so it seems to not be smart rendering correctly.

On the other hand, the numerical counter in the Pinnacle software does, in fact, seem to indicate that multiple frames each second are being written to the hard disk; so maybe it's working, but much more slowly than I'm used to with the Corel software.

I've reported this on their forum and -- to his credit -- one Pinnacle staff concedes he doesn't believe this is working quite right in Studio Ultimate 11.

Wow, I'm talking seemingly slow MPEG-2 rendering, too.

It seems to take a very long time.

I remember when Pinnacle used to claim to be "high tech" and "advanced" and "cutting edge."

Well, when it comes to MPEG-2 captured from 8cm discs recorded in the Panasonic VDR-M30 DVD-RAM/DVD-RW/DVD-R camcorder, Pinnacle's Studio Ultimate 11 seems quite slow.

But I have managed to get the Studio Ultimate 11 software to quickly smart render one high definition MPEG-2 file.

Consumer-level video editing software should be a lot better than it is, in my opinion.

Sometimes it seems we're still working with "stone knives and bear skins."

I'd really love to know if Apple's Final Cut Pro works as advertised when it comes to smart MPEG rendering.

They claim to have it figured out.

If somebody has had experience with Final Cut Pro and specifically with the smart rendering of HDV and other MPEG-2 files, then please e-mail me.

If it isn't possible to do smart MPEG rendering correctly, then it is my belief that the only other choice is to transcode HDV or AVCHD to Cineform or other intermediates and we'll have to live with the long transcode times and the huge file sizes.

Welcome to consumer-level desktop video editing.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Sektionschef:

I have Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 does not give you a clear idea of what's happening relative to the question of whether it is or is not truly smart rendering.

With files captured from a DVD-RAM disc recorded in a Panasonic VDR-M30 DVD disc camcorder, Studio's timeline scrubber painfully and dreadfully seems to move only one frame at a time no matter how you adjust the output settings when you attempt to write your timeline to a single file (although the numerical counter indicates multiple frames per second are being written to the hard disk).

I'm working with 720 x 480 and 704 x 480 frame sizes in Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 and -- so far -- it's been rather humorous.

I have managed to get smart MPEG rendering to work in Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 very quickly with one file so far... a 720p MPEG-2 file.

The so-called "custom" output DVD data rate parameters seem to be narrowly confined to the following bit rate options:

1. 5000 (too low for me)
2. 6000 (too low for me)
3. 7000 (too low for me)
4. 8000 (too low for me)
5. 8500 (still too low for me)

So Pinnacle doesn't even allow the user -- even when "custom" output options are selected -- to specify a 9800 bit rate as one can do in the Corel software.

(But if you choose the 720 x 480 frame size in Pinnacle you can choose 9800.)

Now, aside from the so-called "custom" DVD output options, one can also choose "Best Quality" or "Automatic Quality" or "Most Video On Disc."

Perhaps the "Best Quality" option allows one's source files to be burned to disc without further re-encoding, but I'll have to do some more testing to find out.

As I mentioned earlier, Sektionschef, I've been to the Pinnacle forum and I've reported the lack of smart MPEG rendering capability in the Studio Ultimate 11 software and their own staff have responded with the opinion that for some files smart mpeg rendering may not be working.

They claim it worked in earlier versions; but they indicate they have logged my observation as a valid tech support request for a fix.

You are incorrect about the Apple Final Cut Pro product.

The Apple Final Cut Pro product, which is actually one component of "Final Cut Studio," truly does support smart HDV rendering.

You are correct, however, where the Apple "iMovie HD" and the Apple "Final Cut Express HD" products are concerned.

They transcode MPEG-2 to an intermediate format using the "Apple Intermediate Codec."

Regards,

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Hi Jerry
I did a lot of investigations in the past concerning smartrendering and this is what I know:
-Pinnacle Studio DOES support mpeg2 smartrendering but only for some certain video formats. I defenitely know that sr works with 720X576 files and it does not work with 704X576 files(which I use).

[Jerry Jones]

Sektionschef,

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 does not support smart MPEG rendering for me in connection with my Panasonic VDR-M30 camcorder's DVD-RAM 8cm disc recorded MPEG-2 files (standard definition).

Moreover, here's a link to the Pinnacle forum thread:

http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/22044.aspx

Pinnacle's "Glus (Nick)" -- a Pinnacle employee - confirms that smart MPEG rendering is broken in the Studio Ultimate 11 software:

J Jones,
Thanks for the details. Indeed Minimal ("Smart") Rendering should apply in your case. Confirmed your findings in Studio 11.1 and Studio 10.8. Observed this also with SVCD, where Minimal Rendering was *definitely* working fine not too long ago! Entered a defect to our database: "Minimal Rendering fails for Mpeg Custom, SVCD"
Thanks!
Nick

As you can also see in the thread, some individuals claim they have it working.

But there's one thing that causes me a great deal of heartburn when working with software and it is what I call the "weird" factor where some individuals claim they have a feature working and others -- including Pinnacle's own tech support staff -- concede that it isn't working.

Pinnacle's own tech support staff -- as you can see -- concedes it's not working.

That's all I need to know.

As for the chap who claims to have it working, I say "great."

But how the one user manages to get it working -- when I and others have done repeated tests by matching project settings and output parameters carefully to match the properties of our source clips -- is a true mystery that none can explain.

Pinnacle may not be the answer.

Magix may not be the answer.

Corel may not be the answer.

Sony may not be the answer.

That leaves Apple (and maybe Adobe and Nero).

Regards,

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Studio will automatically enable smartrendering in case the properties of the source video file matches to the specified settings of the output format.

[Jerry Jones]

Here are links to the technical documents about Final Cut Pro:

http://tinyurl.com/y8xvr5

A really good explanation of how Apple tackles long GOP editing is on page 20 of this PDF file:

http://tinyurl.com/y6hyzt

APPLE's senior director of pro video applications engineering, Brett Halle, affirms the native smart MPEG rendering approach.

His team measured PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio).

The native, smart MPEG rendering approach clearly outperformed transcoding to intraframe using the Apple Intermediate Codec.

Apple "iMovie HD" and Apple "Final Cut Express HD" are the lower cost consumer products that transcode HDV MPEG-2 using the Apple Intermediate Codec.

The more expensive Apple Final Cut Pro -- a component of Final Cut Studio -- supports native smart HDV MPEG-2 rendering.

If anybody has tried it, I'd love to hear a report about how well it works.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Regarding Final Cut Pro:

[Jerry Jones]

Clearly, the Apple Final Cut Pro software has my interest at the moment.

I'm going to investigate its performance to find out if there are any distortions at edit points when people are editing HDV or AVCHD streams.

One of the really intriguing things about Apple Final Cut Pro is that it does support AVCHD with the 6.0.1 update here:

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ ... ro601.html

But it natively edits the long GOP MPEG-2 HDV files.

If it does that properly, then it's clearly, clearly the best and most affordable option for professional users.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

So what are you going to do now???

[Jerry Jones]

The other great thing about Apple Final Cut Pro is that it supports even the truly "pro" high definition video formats.

HDV is a consumer format.

The professional high definition formats are DVCPro HD, XDCAM HD, or even fully uncompressed HD.

Apple Final Cut Pro supports them all.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/

In addition, one can now use the Apple ProRes 422 post-production format, which offers SD file sizes with HD resolution.

So there's a lot to like.

By the time one spends a few hundred dollars sampling the $100 consumer-level applications on the PC, one can easily save that money and invest it in an Apple computer and Final Cut Studio and have true professional-level editing.

Or -- at the very least -- one can buy a Mac "Mini"...

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

...spend only $599 and get the entire Apple iLife software -- including iMovie HD which supports transcoding HDV to intraframe using the Apple Intermediate Codec and output to various DVD types and you have not lost a single capability that is currently offered by the current selection of video editing software on the PC platform.

If Corel can't get smart MPEG rendering working properly -- which was the key reason I've stayed with the Corel software to this point -- then switching to Apple now makes a lot of sense.

And no more Microsoft Windows XP vs. Vista headaches.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Again, when Pinnacle's own technical support staff now concedes they can't get it to work, then something would seem to be broken.

On the other hand, I suppose it's possible that it is working, but doing so much more slowly than in Corel (Ulead) software.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Perhaps smartrendering with Pinnacle Software only works with some certain mpeg2 files.

[Jerry Jones]

Since it would be expensive to plunge into buying a new Apple computer and Final Cut Pro at this point in time, I've decided to take the plunge and spend only $250 for the Cineform Neo HDV product here:

http://www.cineform.com/index.asp?PageA ... ID=86&HS=1

The Neo HDV product includes "HDLink" -- a software application that allows one to convert AVCHD to a more editable I-Frame codec format:

http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNo ... ersion.htm

The disadvantage is that I expect there to be *some* quality loss from transcoding (although I've read this particular codec is preserves as much quality as possible).

There's major waiting involved for transcoding to complete.

There's major hard disk space consumed by the Cineform .avi files after transcoding.

But the advantages are that high definition files that originated as long GOP HDV or AVCHD are now converted to I-Frames for easy editing, which means one's computer processor should be able to edit these files with the same ease we've come to expect with DV.

In addition, this method should avoid any glitches that we now see with rendered MPEG-2 files from Corel's (MainConcept's?) long GOP smart render bug.

My approach with my old standard definition MPEG-2 DVD camcorder files would be to simply transcode them to DV .avi for editing.

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

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

The analog-to-dv was better in comparison to the Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus MPEG-2-to-DV transcode.

However, the Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 MPEG-2-to-DV transcode is better than the analog-to-dv conversion.

It's amazing to see how well the Pinnacle DV codec performs; now I finally have a reason to be happy that I bought the Pinnacle program. The MPEG-2-to-DV .avi conversions are absolutely stellar.

Yes, S-video (not RCA) is the analog video connection I used in my testing.

The thing that was truly amazing about the Pinnacle DV codec is how well it managed to transcode a 704 x 480 (odd resolution) Panasonic DVD (model VDR-M30) camcorder MPEG-2 file into a 720 x 480 DV .avi file without the soft, fuzzy look that I get from similar transcodes performed by Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus.

This really surprises me.

Maybe this is the difference between Pinnacle's DV codec and the DV codec being used by Corel VideoStudio 11 Plus.

But it's a world of difference between the two software.

I wish the Pinnacle Studio software could export Type 1 DV .avi files, but it only seems to support Type 2.

The Ulead Web site offers a free converter, but it only converts from Type 1 to Type 2; it doesn't convert Type 2 to Type 1, unfortunately.

Does anybody know of a Type 2 to Type 1 converter?

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

So you are saying that the software conversion from mpeg2-to-DV was better than the camcorder analog-to-dv conversion?

[Jerry Jones]

I continue with my tests in the Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 software, which I'm beginning to understand better and better.

The Pinnacle Studio 11 Plus timeline has a horizontal bar over the timeline that works a lot like the stripes in Corel MediaStudio Pro 8.

The bar is orange in color when you drop the first clip into the timeline.

Then if you apply a title or insert a transition, that specific timeline segment triggers a green color and you can see an animated shade within the green color that indicates that Pinnacle's "background rendering" technology is at work.

I've been increasingly impressed by the render quality.

I just experimented with AVCHD clips that are down-converted from the timeline to DVD-quality MPEG-2.

Lovely -- simply lovely render quality.

There are only two video tracks, but that's all I use most of the time anyway.

The next question I had was whether one could do picture-in-picture (PIP) effects similar to Corel MediaStudio Pro 8's "moving path" effects.

Yes, you can.

And you can even put a soft drop shadow under the PIP.

I was not expecting to see the dramatic difference in render quality.

This has radically altered my opinion of the Corel products.

Here's another fascinating tidbit about the Pinnacle software behavior.

The user doesn't even have to concern him or herself with "fields."

The software handles them in the background automatically.

When DV .avi files are transcoded to DVD-quality MPEG-2, the resulting MPEG-2 files are "upper field first," according to the Corel software.

So -- all these years -- I've assumed one had to make sure the field order was consistent "lower field first" from DV-to-MPEG-2.

Turns out that isn't necessarily true.

The Pinnacle clips -- which become "Upper Field" -- look fantastic on playback.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Ron P.]

Jerry,

These are posts that I have split from the topic Smart Render Produces short distortions..., then moved them here. Postings about competitive products are only allowed in the General Discussions Forums.

Thanks

[neonbob]

The timeline scrubber seems to move slowly -- one frame at a time -- when writing out MPEG segments that should be smart rendering so it seems to not be smart rendering correctly.

Well first, that was me that reported Pinnacle smart render to work fine (I'm Blackbill).... and it does. Granted it can be a bit finicky. One of the BIG reasons I swithed from MSP to Sony Vegas was that I could never get an imported MSP file to smart render at full speed in studio (MSP's fault or studio's fault... I don't know)

Second, you can't look at the scrubber to determine the speed of smart render. The reason is that the time line can be "streched" (or zoomed in other words). If you have the time line zoomed, the scrubber will APPEAR to be moving fast. If you have the zoom set all the way out, then the scrubber will appear to be at a crawl.

The frame counter will tell you what's happening. During a full smart render you will see the frame counter hit 300 (I've seen as high as 450 frames) per scrubber movement. In a no (or low) smart render senario you may see about 25 to 50 frames per scubber movement. In my smart renders the counter is running a on average about 250 to 300 frames per.

Third, the render engine in pinnacle studio is new... it's the same one that is contained in Avid Liquid... a pro level NLE... so no matter what the render speed is... the render will come out good.


Heee Heee.... let's see how long this post lasts!!

[Jerry Jones]

Well, just so there's no confusion on the part of the administrators, I am still a fan of Corel (Ulead).

But I am leaning toward the belief that Corel needs to take a serious look at the rendering quality -- and the MPEG smart render functionality -- of the current products.

Those are key technologies.

I'd be happy to sit down with them -- or exchange e-mails/files as I've done many times in the past -- to help them see and understand what is of concern to me and other customers in the spirit of improving the products.

Unfortunately, the key people with whom I worked at Ulead are no longer employed there.

I don't know if any of these key people have even been replaced.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[neonbob]

NOTE TO JERRY:

If you're looking for a MSP replacement with a smart render system then I would strongly suggest giving Avid Liquid a try. It's a tough interface to learn and there is A LOT to it, but it can do some pretty amazing things, and unlike FCP, it's a full package (FCP be it good as it is, does lack quite a few features that a full package NLE has.... its various formats do not integrate well with other pc based NLE's either). Liquid however does not have AVCHD edit at the moment.... don't know how important that is to you.

I would suggest Sony Vegas as well.... good program but it does not have mpeg smart render which does tend to be a bit of a pain.

Like you, I have spent a boat load of time and money trying to find that "perfect" NLE..... I don't think there is one.... but the 2 that I have come up with so far that come the closest, are liquid and Vegas.

I should also add Speed Edit to the list. It runs on the same basic idea as Vegas.... everything works on real time.... or as close to real time as one can get anyway. It's still pretty young and new and therefore a bit lacking in features, but easy to handle, and fast. A few more versions and upgrades, and there may be another real contender to look at.

[Jerry Jones]

Well, MediaStudio Pro, VideoStudio and Studio give me plenty of tools for now.

The AVCHD is important to me.

When I worked as a Ulead consultant, Ulead flew me down to L.A. and I visited with several of the product managers in their cubicles and one of them had Liquid loaded and I took a look at the interface.

I seem to recall it was originally a Fast Multimedia product.

Then Pinnacle acquired Fast.

Then Avid acquired Pinnacle.

With the Cineform.com Neo HDV codec on my system, I can use the AVCHD decoder in VideoStudio 11 Plus to transcode my AVCHD source files to Cineform .avi files; VideoStudio 11 Plus does very well with this type of transcoding.

(Although I now use Studio for all standard definition DVD disc camcorder file transcodes to DV .avi).

These Cineform files work so well I can't say enough about how pleased I am about buying the Cineform codec product.

They scrub so easily in VideoStudio and -- bonus -- they import nicely into MediaStudio Pro 8.

So I am a happy camper with these .avis.

They smart render very nicely because they are essentially I-Frame wavelet files.

They do a terrific job of preserving the quality of the original AVCHD, but they also hold up far better under multiple layers of editing.

I like editing them far better than editing HD MPEG-2.

Pinnacle Studio has a problem with the Cineform codec.

And so does Avid Liquid.

While Pinnacle Studio seems to be able to transcode AVCHD source files to Cineform .avis, the resulting Cineform .avis are not quite right; they seem to be 32-bit files (instead of 24-bit files) and they don't work as expected.

If you attempt to import them into the Pinnacle timeline, they cause the program to freeze.

But they work just fine in VideoStudio 11 and MediaStudio Pro 8.

So... for me... the solution to the smart render bug is to use Cineform intermediate codec .avi files for all high definition video editing.

The Cineform codec also converts HDV MPEG-2 files to edit-friendly Cineform .avi files.

So HDV users can benefit.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net