HDV editing expectations

[ABe]

I recent purchased a Canon HV30 for its great HDV output. I've used VS 6, then VS 9, and recently purchased VS 12 for its HD capabilities. Using VS 12, I authored a couple of DVD's from my old Sony D8 tapes, and VS 12 was similar to what I was doing with VS 9.

Now, I capture my HDV tapes (~12 GB for an hour) and try to author a DVD. I have two ~45 min tapes, so each file is 10 GB or so. After hours of work, I've multitrim'd it into 18 segments in 2 files. I rendered/authored a DVD VIDEO_TS file (no menus) overnight just to look at my editing and it took maybe 5 hours. I then added motion menus (1 main, 2 sub with 9 chapters each, so 19 mini videos) and tried rerendering. After rendering for a day and a half, it said it was still half way thru the second menu (of three).

I've created [several tries] ~proxy...upx files to "speed things up" in editing, but sometimes when I select a different clip, it takes 30 minutes to show up or play. After right-clicking on a 10 GB HD clip and creating a proxy file, waiting a couple of hours, finding via WindowsExplorer that VS created a 1 GB proxy file, VS's proxy file manager doesn't show it and the little film dodad doesn't show up on the thumbnail image.

SO... any helpful hints on what I am doing wrong, or things to check?

I'm wondering about first rendering my HD clips to mpg2, then authoring the dvd (titles, menu's, etc) in SD. If the desired result is a standard DVD, would the video quality be less if I did it this way?

Just started an overnight render with non-motion menus (well, just one on the main) to see what happens.

BTW, I have the patch and 9.0c installed.

Thanks,

[Ken Berry]

First, your computer is more than powerful enough to edit HDV without any use of SmartProxy. HDV has been editable with less than a computer like yours since VS10+. And I know, because I have a computer with almost identical resources, and used it -- at least with VS11+/11.5+ -- to edit HDV from my Canon HV20 camera. It works just fine, and does NOT require SmartProxy.

The fact that yours is taking so long to render things, though, makes me wonder if it has anything at all to do with HDV. Instead, I am thinking of another possible cause. One little thing you might want to look at is in the menu creation stage in the burning module. When you open the burning module (Share > Create Disc), you first insert your video in the burning
"timeline". If you want to add Chapters, then click the Add/Edit Chapters button. Then you click next, and the page where you choose a Menu template appears. Once you have selected a template, you click on the Edit tab on the same page to select background music, change the background photo etc.

Down in the bottom left corner of the Edit page, though, is an innovation which was first introduced in VS10 but continues in subsequent versions, and I have found that it slows down my burning stage enormously, and has even brought it to a complete halt. Now I never use it.

There are two icons, one above the other, labeled Menu In and Menu
Out. Using them is supposed to animate the transition from the menu to a selected video clip. You will see that the Menu In icon is disabled by default (circle with diagonal line through it). But the Menu Out button is enabled. And this was the culprit. Click on the icon and it brings up a choice of animations. Choose the disabling one identical to the default for Menu In. Then proceed to burn. I think you should notice a considerable improvement in the speed.

As for first rendering your clips to SD mpeg-2 (they are already mpeg-2, only the high def version of it), yes you can try that. But I find that I get better results by editing my HDV, then jumping straight to the burning module and letting the conversion take place there. Again, your computer should be fine for that.

I note that, apart from the patch, you have (DirectX) 9.0C installed. It would not hurt if you first go to the Microsoft DirectX website and download the latest update patch for it. The current one is dated March 2009 and can be found at http://tiny.cc/qb58I

Note that it updates both DirectX 9.0c (XP) and 10 (Vista). The number of your DirectX installation will not change, but the patch gives extra functionality in a number of areas and corrects other faults in VS11 in particular -- and now also in X2 -- which appear linked to Windows updates. The menu preview , 'building preview graph' and other problems in the burning module seem to be amongst them.

Note that DirectX is not included in the usual pattern of Windows automatic updates. It has to be done every so often by the user manually. So unless you have recently done this, you are probably still using the original, non-updated version of DirectX which came with your computer.

[ABe]

Thanks for the pointers.

I remember looking for the March version of DirectX based on comments in the forum here. I just checked my downloaded file, and it is March 16, 2009. (I updated my system in May when I got vs 12.)

I turned off all the motion menus (19 videos on 3 menus) when I did my render last night. It only took 11.5 hours, but it completed. I had already started the build, so did not turn off the "Menu Out". At least it completed! In the resulting DVD, I did get the menu to video clip transitions which are "nice".

I just started another render now, with the Menu Out AND motion menus disabled. I'll see how long it takes. I also used my other SATA drive as the work area, so maybe that will help speed things up.

One of the other things I noticed when checking all my parameters is that the Speed vs Quality on the MPEG compression screen at 90%. I think the default (on VS 9 anyway) was 70%, and the higher the number, the longer the build took (can't remember)? The current build I'm doing is at 70%. Comments?

But, I don't think that VS 12 is good at handling large (ie 10+ GB) video files. I have several clips in two of these large files, and sometimes it will take several minutes to switch from one clip to the next. Next time, I will make separate files (not just clips) of my different scenes and see how that works.

After I multitrim a video file and come up with several clips, is there a way to "batch" render them to separate files? Or, do I have to do them one at a time? These clips are not necessarily separate sceenes, but just segments from a continuously running video file.

Thanks,

[Ken Berry]

Well, it's good that you at least got a positive result! But I still suspect it was not the motion menus that were the problem. A lot of users, like me, use them all the time with no significant slowdown in processing such as you have described. I think the likely culprit was probably that menu out option.

As for the quality slider, it's default in X2 is also 70%, and I consistently leave it at that. As you suggest, it is really only meant to represent a balance of both good quality and a good length of time in which to achieve it. While more than a few users swear they get perceptibly better quality by putting it up to 90% or 100%, I have not been able to perceive much difference in the final quality, but certainly do in the extra time taken.

I can't really help on the "batch" render to separate files. I never use multi-trim. I prefer to capture using programs that split-by-scene and create a lot of real files that way.

[ABe]

Been gone to a family wedding (and shot more HD with my HV30...) This weekend I have my father in law's funeral (and will shoot more HD).

I stopped my latest build after 14 hours. It was 38% done. Quality slider was on 70%. No motion menus and no menu/video transitions.

Verified my 2 GB RAM and speed (PC4200), CPU, 2 SATA disk speeds (65MB/s), etc, with some system utilities. Defrag'd my drives....

Got my laptop back up and running (A/C power adapter died) so I'll now try it on that (~2 Ghz dual core pentium M, 1 GB ram, 500 GB sata). It captures the HDV from the HV30 just fine.

Somehow I think it is the 12 GB and 10 GB files that I have selected clips from to end up with a 1 hr 24 min DVD.

Anyone rendered multiple clips from 10+ GB files with good results? (.vs. smaller video clip file sizes).

THanks.

PS:
"How do you check which version of DirectX is on your system: click the Start menu, then choose Run. In the box type dxdiag and press Enter on your keyboard. A new Window will appear and your version of DirectX will be listed at the bottom."