HD and how to share the JOY

[MIKEL]

I record in HD (AVCHD) format and I personally do not yet have a Play Station 3 or a blue-ray disk writer. Then there are people that ask me to send them a copy of the video on DVD.

Maybe it is because I have run out of whisky and other brain enhancers but I cannot seem to be able to burn a DVD with anything I can playback without it stopping and watching me perspire and mutter.

The manual is not that much help in understanding the CREATE DISC options. Could someone be so kind as the enlighten me and bring serenity back to our home?

Maybe there is a video editor's prayer I am not aware of. Is it because only those down-under get it to work properly. Standing on my head did not help.

Thanks
Mike

[MIKEL]

I can make a very nice, well behaved file that is 4.9 GB.
Is there a way to sqealsh it into a smaller file under 4.7 GB so I can put it on a DVD?
Mike

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Mike

I don¡¦t know what properties you have used to create the very nice well behaved video.
But reducing the bit rate(video data rate) by say 500 should squelsh your file size below 4.3 Gb (4.7Gb)

If your using LPCM audio try Mpeg Audio or Digital Dolby, this will also squelsh your video file.

Ken from down-under is probably your best bet for AVCHD

[Ken Berry]

As Trevor has already said, first we need to know what properties the well-behaved file has. So within VS, either in the timeline or in the library window, right click on the file and copy ALL its properties here, please.

But if you are wanting to produce a standard definition DVD, one way or another the AVCHD -- which is high definition mpeg-4 -- has to be converted to standard definition, DVD-compatible mpeg-2. That can be done in a couple of ways.

The first is to have your AVCHD in the Editing timeline -- with the editing already completed -- and, depending on how long it is -- you choose Share > Create Video File > DVD. If the file you are converting is an hour or less, that will produce a high quality (though standard definition) mpeg-2 using a default bitrate of 8000 kbps and LPCM audio... If it is longer than an hour, then you would choose Share > Create Video File > Custom and follow Trevor's advice and either use Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio if it is only about 10 minutes over an hour. Otherwise, you would reduce the bitrate from, say, 8000 kbps to around 7500 kbps. Roughly, though, 90 minutes of video on a single layer DVD would require a bitrate of around 6000 kbps, and 2 hours -- 4000 kbps.

The other way would be to finished your editing of the AVCHD and then go straight to Share > Create Disc > DVD. This will open the burning module and automatically insert your AVCHD project file in the burning timeline. Then you go to the middle of the three icons in bottom left of the burning screen. At the top is a big box with the properties that will be used for burning your DVD. You can edit these as per the above advice. You might also want to uncheck the box below that big box -- the one that says 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files'. However, in this case that really does not matter since (a) you do not have compliant mpeg files in the burning timeline -- you have a VSP file; and (b) AVCHD is not compliant with DVD standards. But it may make you feel better! Then build your menu and burn.

Personally, when working with high definition video and down-converting it to standard definition for an SD DVD, I find this second workflow works better.

[heikki]

I'm struggling with a similar situation as Mike except that my HD format is MPEG-2 (from Canonc HV20). I've tried to figure out the right project properties and burning properties using the great help of this forum but all disks that I've burned so far have jerky and blury picture. Video properies are MPEG-2 UFF, 24 bits, 1440 x 1080, 16:9, 29.97 frames/sec, 25000 kbps, 48000 Hz, 16 bit stereo.

What project and burning module settings I should use to get the best possible picture quality when burning SD DVD out of MPEG-2 video?

Is there any critical differences between the capturing, editing and burning workflows of SD and HD footage?

Any help would really be appreciated because I have about 6 months worth of family videos stuck on tapes that I can't edit and burn on DVDs...

Thanks,
Heikki

[Ken Berry]

It depends on how long your projects are. But if, say, they are about one hour long each or less, then the properties you would use for conversion to SD mpeg-2 are 720 x 480, UFF, 8000 kbps and your choice of audio. LPCM is the highest quality but makes larger files. If the projects are slightly over 1 hour, then use Dolby which is more compressed and would allow about an extra 10 minutes of video to be burned to a single layer DVD. (I personally use the original mpeg layer 2 audio which is native to HDV. You could probably use that too, though some North American DVD players -- particularly older ones -- apparently can have difficulty with that audio codec. It is not part of the NTSC DVD standard, though most modern NTSC players have no difficulty with it.)

If your projects are closer to 90 minutes or more, then you have to drop the bitrate to around 6000, and if 2 hours, then it would have to come down to 4000 kbps. But of course, the lower the bitrate, the lower the quality.

The really important thing is to keep UFF throughout the project and during burning.

I also have a HV20 and personally, when I occasionally have to burn a standard def DVD from my HDV footage, I do my editing in HDV then go to Share > Create VideoFile > Custom. I then essentially set the properties to the same as above (though of course I use PAL frame size, whereas you use NTSC). That way I never have to worry about Project Properties...

Note also that after you produce your new mpeg-2, you go to File > New Project. Don't worry about giving your new project a name. The objective is just to clear the timeline of your current project.

Once that is done, you select Share > Create Disc > DVD. The burning module will open. Use the Add Media button at the top to insert your new mpeg-2 in the burning timeline. Then go to the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen. There is a little box beside the words 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files'. Make sure that box is ticked (it usually is by default). That way, your already compliant mpeg file will not be re-encoded. Then build your menus and burn.

The results are consistently good.

There are no significant differences of which I am aware between capturing DV and HDV via firewire. However, I do not use VS for my HDV captures any more. Instead I use a small freeware program called HDVSplit because, as the name implies, it splits my captures by scene -- which is something VS cannot do during capture. Not a crucial feature -- I just happen to prefer having a lot of real files to deal with, rather than the virtual ones that VS creates.

[MIKEL]

After reading Ken's answer I think this is the first time in my life I feel that it could be detrimental to your health to know so much.

You would be a very good reason to visit Ausie land.
Mike

[mitchell65]

After reading Ken's answer I think this is the first time in my life I feel that it could be detrimental to your health to know so much.

And I believe video work is only a very small tip of the iceberg

[MIKEL]

Mitchell you must be talking about the temperature of the water the last time I had a swim in your neck of the woods.

As regards video you are pretty much on the button.
The equipment has become amazing.

[heikki]

Thanks for your answer Ken. It was great to have the video settings confirmed for good and now I can stop guessing...

I created a video file overnight and the result looks good. However, there's still some of that "jerkiness" left in certain sections of the video. I took a better look at those sections and in all of them I had been slowly turning the camera to pan a landscape (~15 sec / 180 deg). I viewed the original tape on my HDTV and the jerkiness is also there. Therefore I can rule out editing/burning process and focus on my camera usage skills...

I use PF24 recording mode in my HV20. I wonder if that's more sensitive to shaky hands or too fast camera turning...? Maybe I should do some trials with the normal HD mode and SD mode.

Heikki

[Ken Berry]

I am not sure that using the 'movie' mode 24 fps would be the cause, though it might make it worse. In effect, though, one of the Achilles heels of all high definition video, in my humble opinion, is horizontal panning. I have commented on this in more than one thread here in the past. But with HD, it is absolutely essential -- much more so than with SD -- to keep horizontal pans verrrrrrry slow and ensure that they only cover a quite small angle... There seems to be an effect with faster pans in both HDV and AVCHD which creates the sort of effect you are experiencing and it can almost hurt the eye to watch it if the panning is too fast.

If you look at professionally filmed HD video, you will see that the cameraman almost invariably tries to avoid horizontal pans, preferring to keep the camera still or using a zoom, with only the motion occurring within the frame giving an indication that it is video and not a still photo. At most, there might be a slight horizontal pan of 10 or 15 degrees of arc but not much more than that, and of course that pan is verrrry slow... Moreover, those professional videos are almost invariably done with the camera on a fluid head tripod which removes any of the shakiness of a handheld camera...

[MIKEL]

Interesting post. For what it is worth you can get a really good oil-head tripod for $400 here so you should be able to get it for a third less where you are. It is truly amazing-I'll get one when the bank manager goes on holiday.
One of my kids used to live in the UK for a few years and worked for a company that designed the equipment that the BBC (and others) use to change transmissions from one format to another. He designed the boards and wrote the firmware. He said that the only thing he couldn't get 100% spot on was when a pan included zoom as he had no reference and the result was jerkiness. Is that what you were doing?
Mike

[Ken Berry]

And here's a link to a Velbon Videomate 607 Tripod with PH-368 2 Way Fluid Head. A link is below.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/control ... &Go=submit

That is from our friend Black Lab who is very pleased with it. Sadly, it is not available here in Australia (where we have to pay $400 or more for something similar). So I am arranging for a friend in the States to buy me one!

[Black Lab]

Thanks Ken, you beat me to it.

As for the jerkiness problem, my research for a new HD cam revealed that this isn't so much an HD issue, but a CMOS chip issue. Many of the new cams are moving from the traditional CCD chips to the lighter, smaller, cheaper CMOS chips. But CMOS chips use a rolling shutter which is prone to "skew, wobble, and partial exposure".

A good explanation can be read HERE.

[MIKEL]

Since SONY are using 3CMOS technology in their professional cameras I would think that the problem is more chip manufacturer based than a problem with CMOS itself. SONY are the most difficult customers as they are so thorough in testing everything. I don't see them settling for anything that didn't work well. I have a 3CMOS camera (Panasonic HDC-HS300) and thankfully haven't seen that problem-yet.