Trying to process video - questions about HDV & SD

jcbii · Post by **jcbii** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:59 pm

I've filmed a couple of Little League games with my new Canon HV10 camcorder. I have run into some problems while using VideoStudio 11+, and have a few questions.

Is there a plug-in for the Canon HV10? I read somewhere that there was, but can't seem to locate it. When I connect my HV10 via firewire, VideoStudio does recognize it as a "Canon HDV device", and allows me to capture the video.

This brings up the next question: While capturing, the only option that VS11+ allows me to save as is "mpeg", which saves the newly created file with an .mpg extension. Being fairly new to this whole thing, I'm wondering if the mpg file that is created is in High Definition. How can you tell, & what should I look at?

I took the mpg file that was created and simply tried to make a DVD-video out of it. Ulead choked and died several times (infamous "encountered an error" message and then Ulead terminates. While the entire Video only took up 3.38gb on a DVD (much smaller than the 10gb actual video size), it just couldn't create the DVD. So I cut out one inning and tried to create a DVD with the smaller file. It still encountered more microsoft errors, but was able to successfully create a DVD.

So this brings me to the next question. Is Ulead converting the video from HDV to SD for creating the DVD, or was the video file ever in HD format to begin with? (it was recorded in HD using the HV10 camcorder) I'm wondering if VS11+ brought in the raw video in SD format. Is there a HD plugin I'm supposed to download for VS11+, as I was thinking it already had that feature.

Final obervation. If I use the "Clip / Save trimmed video" option to render the entire video, the newly created file is 8gb, which is smaller than the original 10gb file size. What happened? Just curious, as both files seem to play fine.

Any info would be appreciated.

JCBII

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:53 pm

While old and experienced in SD DVD production and editing, I am a newbieat High Def capture and editing, having just recently bought a HV20. However, you are obviously suffering from at least a couple of misapprehensions. If you are filming in High Def mode, then you are filming using the Canon's HDV format which is a high def version of mpeg-2 using the high def frame format of 1440 x 1080i. If you are filming (or capturing from High Def) in SD format, then you would be capturing in DV format. Both use the firewire connection, but apart from that, life is different with both. HDV uses Upper Field First, while SD DV uses Lower Field First. In other words, if you are capturing from your HV10 as high def, you are getting the correct reading of mpeg.

Having captured high def mpeg, though, you still need to convert it to standard definition mpeg if you are producing a SD DVD. And you are better capturing to HDV then converting that first to SD mpeg-2 (Share > Create Video File > DVD). I suspect instead you are going straight to Capture > Create Disc which can lead to trouble.

jcbii · Post by **jcbii** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:12 pm

Ken Berry wrote:While old and experienced in SD DVD production and editing, I am a newbieat High Def capture and editing, having just recently bought a HV20. However, you are obviously suffering from at least a couple of misapprehensions. If you are filming in High Def mode, then you are filming using the Canon's HDV format which is a high def version of mpeg-2 using the high def frame format of 1440 x 1080i. If you are filming (or capturing from High Def) in SD format, then you would be capturing in DV format. Both use the firewire connection, but apart from that, life is different with both. HDV uses Upper Field First, while SD DV uses Lower Field First. In other words, if you are capturing from your HV10 as high def, you are getting the correct reading of mpeg.

Having captured high def mpeg, though, you still need to convert it to standard definition mpeg if you are producing a SD DVD. And you are better capturing to HDV then converting that first to SD mpeg-2 (Share > Create Video File > DVD). I suspect instead you are going straight to Capture > Create Disc which can lead to trouble.

Ken, thanks for the information. You are correct in that I was going straight from the video to cd creation. This was only to create a test DVD, as I will be editing the video, adding transitions, music, etc. I just wanted to see what an HDV sourced video looked like on DVD (converted to SD first of course). However, I will follow the steps you mentioned in order to down-convert to SD first. I was actually wondering how to perform the down-convert, so thank you again.

On another subject though, do you know why VS will create a smaller file from the original when rendering? I selected the entire video I had just captured (which was a little over 10gb) and selected Clip / Save trimmed Video. It rendered the entire video and created a new file that was approx 8gb in size. Everything in the new video looks fine, but I was wondering if it had either been compressed some, or maybe a little video quality was lost. Anyway, that was just a "curiousity" thing, as it does not keep me from doing what I want to do.

jcbii · Post by **jcbii** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:57 am

Question about Share > Create Video File > DVD. It plays the video while rendering. Is this right? At the rate it is going, it will take about 2hrs to render a 1hr movie. PowerDirector6 does it in about 25minutes, so I figure that I am doing something wrong in Ulead. I don't think it should be playing the video while it's rendering.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:14 am

Since you haven't fill in your System specs, I have no idea of the computer set-up you are using. However, the time you specified for a render of a DVD compatible mpeg-2 is well within the bounds of a reasonable time for VS. I used to use a P4 3.0GHz with HT 2 GB RAM and NVidia 7600 video card with its own 512 MB RAM, and it would take anything between 1.25 to 1.5 hours to render a 1 hour video. My new Quad 4 does it in less than real time. But some people with less powerful computers will find it could take up to 4 or more times real time...

As for your earlier question, I am not sure I understand. Do you mean you just used Save Trimmed Video on your entire original video without having made any cuts or other edits whatsover and the size reduced? Or did you in fact make a cut somewhere, in which case Save Trimmed Video would only apply to the part of the video which was selected/highlighted when you used Save Trimmed Video...