Hi Terry, Brian, George:
I getting back into video editing again after an almost 2 year break. I just bought a Canon HV20 camcorder.... this thing rocks by the way.
My questions are this as I have yet to do any capture and import into MSP8. I know HDV is supported so there should not be an issue other than my PC speed... that is another discussion.
I have read conflicting statements about the 1080 spec of HDV - some say 1920x1080 and others say 1440x1080. It appears the HV20 is 1920x1080 and I know MPEG2 allows up to 4096x4096 pixel. HDV is basically an MPEG-2 stream on a DV25 tape at 25 Mbits per second.
So what am I going to get when I capture this baby into MSP? 1920 or 1440? Not that it is a big deal because this thing looks incredible played on a HDTV thru HDMI... I can shoot a newspaper full frame and read everything including the smaller print!
Just wondering since i have been "out of touch" so long.
Any other heads up issues I should watch out for?
Regards,
Rob
HDV editing in MSP - general questions
HDV editing in MSP - general questions
Athalon 64 X2 6400+, 1GIG DD2 PC6400, Asus M2NBP-VM CSM MB, ADS Pryo IEEE-1394, 260 Gig UDMA133 Hard Drive + 15 gig system drive, 18x DVDRW+/-, Windows XP SP2. 47" LCD HDTV / Monitor 1920x1080
The 1080 spec for HDV is always a 1920 x 1080 display. However, pixels are generally stored anamorphically (i.e. non-square) resulting in a 1440 x 1080 stored image which at a 1.333 ratio becomes 1920 wide.
The standard HDV presets for MSP8 provide a 1920 x 1440. I am not familiar with your camera but the only one I know *does* record @ 1920 x 1080 is Sony XDCAM EX. I'm guessing yours will be 1920 x 1440.
This is the same issue with SD 16:9 v. 4:3. Both actually are recorded anamorphically @720 (x 576 for PAL) with differing non-square pixel ratios for both. With 16:9 the ratio is 1.422 and 4:3 1.067 giving widths of 1024 and 768 pixels respectively.
The standard HDV presets for MSP8 provide a 1920 x 1440. I am not familiar with your camera but the only one I know *does* record @ 1920 x 1080 is Sony XDCAM EX. I'm guessing yours will be 1920 x 1440.
This is the same issue with SD 16:9 v. 4:3. Both actually are recorded anamorphically @720 (x 576 for PAL) with differing non-square pixel ratios for both. With 16:9 the ratio is 1.422 and 4:3 1.067 giving widths of 1024 and 768 pixels respectively.
I have verified the CMOS image sensor is a true 1920 x 1080 image... just not sure how it gets recorded to tape. MPEG allows this resolution and though it may or may not be part of the HDV standard I suppose it could record to tape in the ful resolution. Otherwise it has to drop every 4th pixel horizontally to change to 1440 x 1080... and that may have some visual side effects. Canon calims it to be true 1920 x 1080 so I suspect they may be doing something non-standard with the HDV tape format though as long as the MPEG header is correct it should work either way. After all it is just an MPEG-2 transport stream on tape.
I need to get my video PC restored from my family wrecking the installation to test this out.
Regards,
Rob
I need to get my video PC restored from my family wrecking the installation to test this out.
Regards,
Rob
Athalon 64 X2 6400+, 1GIG DD2 PC6400, Asus M2NBP-VM CSM MB, ADS Pryo IEEE-1394, 260 Gig UDMA133 Hard Drive + 15 gig system drive, 18x DVDRW+/-, Windows XP SP2. 47" LCD HDTV / Monitor 1920x1080
Rob,
Here's a tip/trick that you should read. Helps you get the most out of your Canon HV20. Enjoy!
http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/
Here's a tip/trick that you should read. Helps you get the most out of your Canon HV20. Enjoy!
http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/
Welcome back Rob!
ALL HDV format recordings are 1440x1080, period. It's the standard.
As mentioned on video output (component/hdmi) the pixels are stretched anamorphically/horizontally to make a 1920x1080 picture.
As such, the HDV1080-60i preset format in MSPro8 is 1440x1080, Andy's comment was partially correct.
The Canons do have true 1920x1080 CMOS imagers, which then downsizes to 1440; this is instead of some lower-res pixel-shift array which upsizes to 1440, so that helps get the phenomenal picture quality... but the recording is still only 1440. There was some talk on the boards (dvinfo.net, great forum) about using HDMI out on the HV20 to record pure raw 1920 (before HDV compression), but that seems kind of overkill and had limitations.
Only some AVCHD etc HDD cameras record 1920 to disk/media (but I'm not convinced they have the same great quality as the Canon HV's.)
Don't worry about 1440 vs 1920, the picture quality is truly awesome! Better than DiscoveryHD channel
Congrats on your HV20 purchase. My HV10 rocks too, now that I'm used to the tiny buttons
MSPro8 seems to work ok w/ HDV format, except that:
it doesn't keep/use the camera start/stop record-timestamp metadata eg for automatic scene splitting... you have to use "Image content" method which is slow.
I think this is a side effect of the native M2T format -> MPG2 conversion which MSPro8 does during capture so it can edit.
You can use HDVSplit (great free program) to capture 1file/camera shot, named for timestamp, which is handy to find and re-capture clips painlessly...
however, it's a big pain then to have MSPro8 try and convert/import tons of little M2T->MPG2 files. VERY slow and of course disk-intensive (both head/seek workout and 2x space.)
I've kind of gone to 4gb MPG2 captures and then waiting for image-content split instead, which is disappointing.
You can't use the other DV metadata features either like showing time-of-day overlay on the preview video, or "Scan DV Tape" for shot thumbnails; however, you can put the camera in "DV Locked" mode on the firewire output (before connecting to PC), then it works just like regular DV, with pretty good quality. You can even capture/edit that way if you want.
However, note that I've found the scene splits are like 1-2 frames off with this method; not sure if it's the camera's fault in converting to DV in-camera, or MSPro... I'd suspect it's the camera being a bit behind on the MPG long-GOP stream converting to DV. Again disappointing because it messes up my auto-scene-split workflow
Given the above, be careful recording back to tape in that your camera metadata (time-of-day, aperture/shutter info etc) will be lost in the conversion, even if picture quality is the same (eg even if smartrendered).
Note that I have tried the trial of Vegas Pro8, in desperation to fix this, and while Vegas *will* do auto-scene splits of HDV content, it is ONLY during capture, and only by cutting into separate M2T files. (There is no "split/scan for scene" in the editor at all, but at least it does capture/edit native M2T files). You may or may not like this, some prefer larger single files only virtually split into clips.
I personally didn't like the Vegas interface at all, being very used to MSPro, especially the wierd/slow timeline scrubbing, and no "jump to next event on timeline PageUp/Down key" mechanism (!!).
I haven't done much testing yet to see how the quality compares for HD-> SD DVD render methods, eg:
capture/edit in HDV -> software mspro render to SD DVD MPG, vs having the camera down-convert to DV and doing capture edit in DV and SD DVD render MPG in mspro...
HDV of course will give you better colorspace etc vs DV compression if you render/do effects on the timeline, but some had mentioned that hi-res HDV noise/lines could have issues for SD DVD encoding (hi-freq noise impacting bitrates, diagonal line moire patterns etc), some which might be fixed w/ a softness/NR filter, but that kind of defeats the purpose of sharp HD
So far I've mostly edited bulk DV downconversion, just out of laziness.
Good luck and enjoy the camera!
ALL HDV format recordings are 1440x1080, period. It's the standard.
As mentioned on video output (component/hdmi) the pixels are stretched anamorphically/horizontally to make a 1920x1080 picture.
As such, the HDV1080-60i preset format in MSPro8 is 1440x1080, Andy's comment was partially correct.
The Canons do have true 1920x1080 CMOS imagers, which then downsizes to 1440; this is instead of some lower-res pixel-shift array which upsizes to 1440, so that helps get the phenomenal picture quality... but the recording is still only 1440. There was some talk on the boards (dvinfo.net, great forum) about using HDMI out on the HV20 to record pure raw 1920 (before HDV compression), but that seems kind of overkill and had limitations.
Only some AVCHD etc HDD cameras record 1920 to disk/media (but I'm not convinced they have the same great quality as the Canon HV's.)
Don't worry about 1440 vs 1920, the picture quality is truly awesome! Better than DiscoveryHD channel
Congrats on your HV20 purchase. My HV10 rocks too, now that I'm used to the tiny buttons MSPro8 seems to work ok w/ HDV format, except that:
it doesn't keep/use the camera start/stop record-timestamp metadata eg for automatic scene splitting... you have to use "Image content" method which is slow.
I think this is a side effect of the native M2T format -> MPG2 conversion which MSPro8 does during capture so it can edit.
You can use HDVSplit (great free program) to capture 1file/camera shot, named for timestamp, which is handy to find and re-capture clips painlessly...
however, it's a big pain then to have MSPro8 try and convert/import tons of little M2T->MPG2 files. VERY slow and of course disk-intensive (both head/seek workout and 2x space.)
I've kind of gone to 4gb MPG2 captures and then waiting for image-content split instead, which is disappointing.
You can't use the other DV metadata features either like showing time-of-day overlay on the preview video, or "Scan DV Tape" for shot thumbnails; however, you can put the camera in "DV Locked" mode on the firewire output (before connecting to PC), then it works just like regular DV, with pretty good quality. You can even capture/edit that way if you want.
However, note that I've found the scene splits are like 1-2 frames off with this method; not sure if it's the camera's fault in converting to DV in-camera, or MSPro... I'd suspect it's the camera being a bit behind on the MPG long-GOP stream converting to DV. Again disappointing because it messes up my auto-scene-split workflow
Given the above, be careful recording back to tape in that your camera metadata (time-of-day, aperture/shutter info etc) will be lost in the conversion, even if picture quality is the same (eg even if smartrendered).
Note that I have tried the trial of Vegas Pro8, in desperation to fix this, and while Vegas *will* do auto-scene splits of HDV content, it is ONLY during capture, and only by cutting into separate M2T files. (There is no "split/scan for scene" in the editor at all, but at least it does capture/edit native M2T files). You may or may not like this, some prefer larger single files only virtually split into clips.
I personally didn't like the Vegas interface at all, being very used to MSPro, especially the wierd/slow timeline scrubbing, and no "jump to next event on timeline PageUp/Down key" mechanism (!!).
I haven't done much testing yet to see how the quality compares for HD-> SD DVD render methods, eg:
capture/edit in HDV -> software mspro render to SD DVD MPG, vs having the camera down-convert to DV and doing capture edit in DV and SD DVD render MPG in mspro...
HDV of course will give you better colorspace etc vs DV compression if you render/do effects on the timeline, but some had mentioned that hi-res HDV noise/lines could have issues for SD DVD encoding (hi-freq noise impacting bitrates, diagonal line moire patterns etc), some which might be fixed w/ a softness/NR filter, but that kind of defeats the purpose of sharp HD
So far I've mostly edited bulk DV downconversion, just out of laziness.
Good luck and enjoy the camera!
Thanks for the input....I figured it was 1440x1080. A test file I downloaded from the internet that is supposed to be a raw HV20 file says 1440x1088...weird there is 8 more lines.
I also know HDV supports 1280x720p at 19 Mbits...though I would not use that mode.
Probably will not edit anything till after Christmas due to time constraints but looking forward to it. I will likely shoot 1080 30p which is possible on the HV20 with a shutter setting of 30 fps. Cinema mode by itself looks quite nice and is also 30p - at least it looks like it because I see no interlacing effects. still playing with the settings...
Regards,
Rob
I also know HDV supports 1280x720p at 19 Mbits...though I would not use that mode.
Probably will not edit anything till after Christmas due to time constraints but looking forward to it. I will likely shoot 1080 30p which is possible on the HV20 with a shutter setting of 30 fps. Cinema mode by itself looks quite nice and is also 30p - at least it looks like it because I see no interlacing effects. still playing with the settings...
Regards,
Rob
Athalon 64 X2 6400+, 1GIG DD2 PC6400, Asus M2NBP-VM CSM MB, ADS Pryo IEEE-1394, 260 Gig UDMA133 Hard Drive + 15 gig system drive, 18x DVDRW+/-, Windows XP SP2. 47" LCD HDTV / Monitor 1920x1080
Some of the Mac/other capture programs add the 8 to make it divisible I think, I've heard of the 1088 before too. can ignore.robtywlak wrote:Thanks for the input....I figured it was 1440x1080. A test file I downloaded from the internet that is supposed to be a raw HV20 file says 1440x1088...weird there is 8 more lines.
I also know HDV supports 1280x720p at 19 Mbits...though I would not use that mode.
Probably will not edit anything till after Christmas due to time constraints but looking forward to it. I will likely shoot 1080 30p which is possible on the HV20 with a shutter setting of 30 fps. Cinema mode by itself looks quite nice and is also 30p - at least it looks like it because I see no interlacing effects. still playing with the settings...
Regards,
Rob
HDV supports 720p but the Canon HV's do not.
As you noted the HV20 does support true 24p mode (not 30p though, unless you have PAL? I forget.)
Careful though, as I'm not as sure how well MSPro deals with 24p... I think there are sometimes issues with the 3:2 pulldown since the camera doesn't flag the cadence in the stream. The cadence also might vary between different camera start/stops, so you might have to tweak by hand? Just relaying what I vaguely recall others saying.
I'm not sure how that would all work in MSPro8 either, if it has much tools/methods to do 3:2 pulldown at all actually...
I'd recommend you check and post at the HDVinfo forum for HV10/20 cams , there were a few threads re 24p pulldown and NLEs, but not so many about Ulead/MSPro...
Good luck and Happy Holidays!
Glad to see I'm not the only one who severely dislikes the weird timeline scrubbing in Vegas. I found you can jump to the next event (after trying about 4 million combinations ). Ctrl+Alt+Left or Ctrl+Alt+Right IIRC.cgould wrote: I personally didn't like the Vegas interface at all, being very used to MSPro, especially the wierd/slow timeline scrubbing, and no "jump to next event on timeline PageUp/Down key" mechanism (!!).
....don't what I was doing when I wrote the confusing rubbish in the post above..... note to self: engage brain before sitting down at keyboard.
I did not like the look of 24p - to jerky.
The camera *does* have a 1/30th second shutter mode which effectively gives you 30p because both fields are from the same snapshot image. That is likely how I will use the camera but I am still playing arround with it. This has a smoother "film" look than the 24p mode does.
If I change to 1/60 shutter then I get interlaced video. The image scanning is done interlaced both ways but if the image is the same for both fields it is the same as scanning 30p and can be edited as such. There would be no interlace artifacts from a 1/30 shutter speed.
This I think is a hidden feature of the HV20 and very good for indoor low light filming.
Regards,
Rob
The camera *does* have a 1/30th second shutter mode which effectively gives you 30p because both fields are from the same snapshot image. That is likely how I will use the camera but I am still playing arround with it. This has a smoother "film" look than the 24p mode does.
If I change to 1/60 shutter then I get interlaced video. The image scanning is done interlaced both ways but if the image is the same for both fields it is the same as scanning 30p and can be edited as such. There would be no interlace artifacts from a 1/30 shutter speed.
This I think is a hidden feature of the HV20 and very good for indoor low light filming.
Regards,
Rob
Athalon 64 X2 6400+, 1GIG DD2 PC6400, Asus M2NBP-VM CSM MB, ADS Pryo IEEE-1394, 260 Gig UDMA133 Hard Drive + 15 gig system drive, 18x DVDRW+/-, Windows XP SP2. 47" LCD HDTV / Monitor 1920x1080