What is the best way to edit MPEG4 files

[Paul W]

I used this forum some years ago with success and have been editing happily from my Mini DV camera using Video studio to edit / TMPeng to convert and Nero to Burn. Perfect for family viewing on DVD.
I have now upgraded my camcorder and am at a loss as what to do now. Help. I have bought the Sanyo Xacti HD1000 which produces MPEG4 files, what is the best way to get these edited and produced to DVD. I am currently trialing VS11.5 but it keeps stopping due to frame unreadable errors. I have used DVD Movie factory, that took 7 hours to produce a DVD and the results are jerky. (Some of that I am sure is down to camera technique). So I need help, what is the error with VS, is 7 Hours and a jerky DVD common and thirdly are their better tools to do the job?

[redwudz]

That looks to be a difficult format to edit and convert to MPEG-2:

New "platinum" video engine records up to 1920x1080 video using MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video codec and stereo AAC audio (on SDHC media).
60 fields/s for 1080i or 60 frames/s for 720p 12Mbps or lower modes.

But someone here should be able to come up with some suggestions.

And welcome to our forums.

[poisondeathray]

I was looking at this model, I ended up not getting it (for other reasons) but I'll share with you my research in transforming output files with avidemux (free)

You can download sample clips here, I used the peacock
http://stevenunez.com/xactihd1000/xacti.html

I found the native output files difficult to play in most software players, because the specs are not "regular,"
especially the frame rate.

Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : MPEG-4 AVC
Codec profile : Baseline@L3.2
Codec settings, CABAC : No
PlayTime : 11s 828ms
Bit rate : 12 Mbps
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 59.940 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.217
StreamSize : 16.9 MiB

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 11s 818ms
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 184 KiB

If your final goal is mpeg-2 DVD compliant video (I'm assuming PAL since you are in UK), you would have to convert to 720x576, 25fps from 720p, 59.94fps. => this is why you get jerky playback

The "correct" way to do it is probably use decimate and frameserve using avisynth into your favorite mpeg encoder; you can read the discussion here, thanks to the superstars jagabo, manono & others
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic313258.html

I did it another way. You should probably letterbox/add borders to conserve the proper aspect ratio 16:9 => 4:3, but I was lazy, so the aspect ratio is distored in this example

Open with avidemux, you can do editing directly by using keyframes, mark in/mark out, deleting segments (much like in virtualdub). Note that what you observe in playback within avidemux (in regards to audio, playback speed) is not necessarily indicative of the final output.

Video sidebar => DVD, Audio Sidebar => AC3, Format Sidebar => MPEG-PS
You can configure your encoder settings to whatever you want, use a bitrate calculator if you want precision






Video sidebar, filters => Resize (720x576) I used lanczos3, => resample fps = 25





Audio sidebar, filters =>resample frame rate, in your case to PAL





Press save with extension (e.g. "myfile.mpeg")

I uploaded "peacock.mpeg" here
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1GHLJX52

Now you can import the DVD compliant mpeg into an authoring application, like DVDLab Pro

Cheers

[Paul W]

Great, let me spend some time this weekend trying this out. I do not have a lot of time during the week. I will ask a few questions, does Video studio edit these files as they claim! I probably don't understand why I have to down grade these files to MPEG2, I assume this is the only way I can get these onto DVD. MPEG4 seems to be ahead of the game. Is there a way to download / edit and create using other methods.
Thanks

[Paul W]

Hi,
I tried Avidemux which with your help, the programme is easy to use once someone shows you the way. However I did not manage to get a file converted. It stated from when I transferred the file in that this H264 was incompatible and would cause stuttering when rendering, would I like to use another mode but this would loose frame accuracy. This I did but when it came to the final save the error was ‘A fatal error has occurred’ so I have not managed to convert this clip.
What is the next move?

[poisondeathray]

Are you using the latest release? http://www.razorbyte.com.au/avidemux/

Did you cut on key frames? ("<<" and ">>" to mark in/out)

Edit...I see you are using Vista, unfortunately many video editors have compatibility problems with Vista (even a year after it's release believe it or not!)

The next move would be "upgrade to XP," or frameserve and use avisynth, and use your mpeg editor of choice. This is a quite bit harder to learn, but there are dozens of guides on how to do this, here and on other sites.

[Paul W]

Yes to both questions and I agree about Vista, had many issues. Does Avisynth work with vista, can you change the compatability to XP. Sounds like I need to convert to MPEG2 and then use my favourite editor. I will try Avisynth.

[redwudz]

AVIsynth works fine with Vista, at least the latest versions. AVIdemux should work also, but I would use "Run as administrator' when installing.

[poisondeathray]

Hi Paul W, another option is to try MPEG Streamclip with the quicktime alternative plugin (look on the author's website).

You can do your simple editing and have to option to export to other formats like, DV, AVI and a few others. It claims to work with Vista (fingers crossed), but it's free and worth a shot. It seems to work on my XP system ok with the Xacti HD1000 clips

Good luck