Cam footage to finished product - still struggling - help please

[atacama40]

Hi there, first post, been reading posts & experimenting for an age & made some good progress but still not quite getting it right. Thought it best to ask those who have gone down this painful road.

Situation I have:

Have new footage from a new Panasonic W850 in ACVHD & MP4.
Have historic footage from a Sony MiniDV PCR cam on tapes.
Have new/historic footage from Panasonic TZ40 camera in .MOV format
Would like to convert them to format that I can store on a NAS & feed over RJ45 to Panasonic DT30 TV's
Would also like them to be in format that could be dropped to DVD if needed & also that preserves quality as far as poss.
Also to stitch together the short MP4 & MOV files into one video with minimal quality loss & ease

What I have tried:

Capture from Sony MiniDV tape to PC with Premerie - process worked great but AVI would not run on Panasonic TV's - not sure why, runs on PC, Also TV runs other AVI's with ease from the NAS. - Could be I had the wrong Premiere settings but fairly sure they were vanilla.
Then converted to AVCHD using TSmuxer (great advice from this site) - that output works on TV but video stutter & out of sync. - again not sure why
Then tried Win X HD Convertor which process wise worked but still stutter & sync issues - at this point maybe the original capture is in question
Also need to convert the MP4 & .MOV files to store on NAS & run to the TV's.

So I can get footage from devices to PC but not sure I'm using the best formats.
Then when I get the footage to the PC, it does not play well with the Panasonic TV's when other AVI's & files played from NAS work fine
Then when I modify fomat it works on TV but quality appears impared

What I'd like help with please:

What is the optimum route to get footage from The Panasonic W850, Sony MiniDV and Panasonic TZ40 camera to a solid file format on PC?
What is the best tool(s) to get AVCHD, MP4 and .MOV to the PC into a single high quality format & will that tool stitch together those short files?
Advice on the right equipment / processes & settings to make this a simple predictable process & result

I don't mind to spend money on the right equipment. I've tried loads of options/advice from this site....many things have worked to some extent...some worked great but I'm unsure now whether the originally captured material was solid.

So I can start from scratch but keen after many many lost days and weeks and months to get it spot on this time, not close.

Advice and ideas would be very welcome. Seems a common problem from the many posts I've read. I am certain someone out there has this knocked and would love to take advantage of that knowledge

Many thanks in advance

Other Data maybe useful:

Network: Gigabit & using RJ45 to most devices - Sonos / TV's / Cameras /Printers / Desktop
Network: Wireless just to laptop
TV's: Panasonics DT30 .... about 3 years old, fully up to date & work a treat with streamed video
NAS: Qnap T410, fully updated & with 6GB new disks
Software used: Premiere / Tumuxer / Win X HD Converter

[pippas]

As you can imagine, there will probably be as many suggestions on the best way forward as there are answers to your post!......Understandably, everyone has their own favourite way of doing things....and each way will be the 'best way' of course.

First point. 'Capturing' MiniDV video at it's best quality is actually simply a data transfer, with no quality loss. I suspect that's what you have already done with Premiere.
The resulting DV.avi files will almost certainly not play on any TV.. or media player...although, as you know, they can be played (and edited) on your computer.

The extension 'AVI' is merely a 'wrapper' for many different video formats. Many of them can be played on your TV. Most of the 'intraframe' ones (like mini DV files) cannot. They need to be converted into a player 'friendly' format like mpeg2 or mp4 first.

In your position, with several different formats to consider, I would take a (probably) slightly controversial route to get all your footage into a common and editable format before converting the final composite footage into a format suitable for playing via your TV or media player. I'm confident other folk will have different answers!....
The following assumes you are running Windows 7...

Grass Valley have a free converter utility that allows you to convert most of the formats you describe into their HQX format. (The HQX codec is now also free as well).
To get these programs you either need to register an account with Grass Valley (free), or you can find slightly earlier (but still recent and valid) versions at their Taiwan website, without the need to register.
here for the utility:

http://www.canopus.com.tw/PC/Download/Program/TOOL/AVCHD_File_Conversion%20Utility_(v4.10).html

and here for the codec pack:

http://www.canopus.com.tw/PC/Download/Program/TOOL/Grass_Valley_Playback_Codecs_Pack(v652).html

'Matching' your DV footage to edit in with the others may prove slightly more difficult, simply because it will be in an interlaced 4x3 format, with the more modern footage as 16x9 progressive..... but not impossible!

Using the free editor Virtualdub you can de-interlace and resize the DV footage into a 'matching' 16x9 format, which can be saved as an HQX file. Not a one click operation, but not too difficult!


Once you have all your footage in the HQX format, it would be easy to edit, and then convert to a smaller - and player friendly - format like mp4. These HQX files will be big...but they are only temporary working files....

If you can accept not 'mixing' the DV footage with the more modern stuff, then there are probably simpler ways to convert the different formats separately. I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions there.

Having been 'brought up' with 'intraframe' Mini DV footage, I find converting more modern video formats to an intraframe format like HQX makes it much easier to deal with.... but there will be a bit of a learning curve involved...although as all the software I have suggested is free, it's not quite so painful, if it doesn't work out!...

[smrpix]

You can easily mix and match all your footage in a Premiere timeline and then render out to a format your tv supports (most likely some form of HD h.264 + AAC.). That's what it's designed to do. It may not be the absolute best way to handle each individual clip, but it's an excellent way to handle all of them.

[atacama40]

As you can imagine, there will probably be as many suggestions on the best way forward as there are answers to your post!......Understandably, everyone has their own favourite way of doing things....and each way will be the 'best way' of course.

First point. 'Capturing' MiniDV video at it's best quality is actually simply a data transfer, with no quality loss. I suspect that's what you have already done with Premiere.
The resulting DV.avi files will almost certainly not play on any TV.. or media player...although, as you know, they can be played (and edited) on your computer.

The extension 'AVI' is merely a 'wrapper' for many different video formats. Many of them can be played on your TV. Most of the 'intraframe' ones (like mini DV files) cannot. They need to be converted into a player 'friendly' format like mpeg2 or mp4 first.

In your position, with several different formats to consider, I would take a (probably) slightly controversial route to get all your footage into a common and editable format before converting the final composite footage into a format suitable for playing via your TV or media player. I'm confident other folk will have different answers!....
The following assumes you are running Windows 7...

Grass Valley have a free converter utility that allows you to convert most of the formats you describe into their HQX format. (The HQX codec is now also free as well).
To get these programs you either need to register an account with Grass Valley (free), or you can find slightly earlier (but still recent and valid) versions at their Taiwan website, without the need to register.
here for the utility:

http://www.canopus.com.tw/PC/Download/Program/TOOL/AVCHD_File_Conversion%20Utility_(v4.10).html

and here for the codec pack:

http://www.canopus.com.tw/PC/Download/Program/TOOL/Grass_Valley_Playback_Codecs_Pack(v652).html

'Matching' your DV footage to edit in with the others may prove slightly more difficult, simply because it will be in an interlaced 4x3 format, with the more modern footage as 16x9 progressive..... but not impossible!

Using the free editor Virtualdub you can de-interlace and resize the DV footage into a 'matching' 16x9 format, which can be saved as an HQX file. Not a one click operation, but not too difficult!


Once you have all your footage in the HQX format, it would be easy to edit, and then convert to a smaller - and player friendly - format like mp4. These HQX files will be big...but they are only temporary working files....

If you can accept not 'mixing' the DV footage with the more modern stuff, then there are probably simpler ways to convert the different formats separately. I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions there.

Having been 'brought up' with 'intraframe' Mini DV footage, I find converting more modern video formats to an intraframe format like HQX makes it much easier to deal with.... but there will be a bit of a learning curve involved...although as all the software I have suggested is free, it's not quite so painful, if it doesn't work out!...

Pippas good morning to you and many thanks for taking the time to help me. Also apologies for the late reply, we had a rare internet outage.

This helps a lot and you are right, getting the MiniDV footage onto PC I found quite straight forward but the key piece of data I think is the intraframe that you mention. I'd never heard of that but now knowing that the mountain of tapes that I imported are 'most likely' OK and that its the conversion that I'm missing makes me a lot happier.

One small question there mind - I have downloaded AVI movies that do play on the TV's....I think ones that use DIVX or XVID...basically ripped DVD's. They work fine. What is the difference between those and the AVI's taken from the Premiere/Sony MiniDV...just for understanding?

Actually just to mention, I'm not too bothered trying to edit/integrate the three formats into one video, just to convert all three individual formats into one easily playable format on the Panasonic TV's....or to manage to any other media. Although thanks for the pointer on that. I'm not sure I'd have the patience to integrate three formats into one video. Luckily the volumes of each mean that can exist in their own right without being clunky.

I've continued experimenting since making the post and I'm getting some results with the MOV and MP4 formats but I'm definitely going to try the tools you suggest.

What I have seen is that using the TUmuxer and the WIN X HD Converter tools that the video does convert and indeed plays on the TV's but that there are still stutters and audio loss. For example, I had some fairly static footage on a plane and some night time footage (on MiniDV) in Shanghai. It plays perfectly. BUT then footage from the next day out of a taxi window of streets and passing images then stutters and drops audio really badly. I converted the one tape to PC and then used WIN X HD to convert it. It came out in a 720 format with black side bars but plays ok. I guess this is standard output from the Sony MiniDV cam?

Then I set an option in WIN X HD to stretch the output to 16x9 and also ticked the high quality option. This file stutters and drops out audio as mentioned. I think I must be over-baking the options.

I was wandering if this could be down to the sheer power of processing on the i3 PC?

OK and now to contradict that last point a bit....in double checking results to respond to your post, I tested the Shanghai file a. on PC b. from NAS box to PC, c. on one networked Panasonic Tv from the NAS and d. on a second networked Panasonic from the NAS. And guess what it plays on a, b and c perfectly....but d has the hesitation, drop out and stutter! So at least part of the problem is network to the one TV! Frustrating but at least progress. Off now to get a long RJ45 cable to prove that

Nevertheless I think I'm getting there. Summary of where I am I think:

- My converted tapes to PC files I'm now confident are good - thanks for explaining, you saved me a HUGE amount of time/pain reconverting
- I have to convert all the MiniDV converted files on PC to MP4 - not sure the tools I have are up to the job, will try those suggested
- I have to convert to MP4? to use on the Panasonic units which will not play the Sony MiniDV AVI's
- My NAS and basic network is working well
- My one network feed to the kitchen Panasonic is duff & needs looking at

Steps forward, and still a few problems but you definitely improved my understanding of the problem. Many thanks for taking the time

[atacama40]

You can easily mix and match all your footage in a Premiere timeline and then render out to a format your tv supports (most likely some form of HD h.264 + AAC.). That's what it's designed to do. It may not be the absolute best way to handle each individual clip, but it's an excellent way to handle all of them.

Smrpix good morning to you and thanks for the help.

I have to say although I've managed to import the tape data using Premiere successfully, I do find the app a little heavy. I think I'm looking for '5 minute' solutions rather than investing the time required. Think I may need to bite the bullet and invest a little time doing some real learning at some point.

When you mention 'some form of DH h.264 + AAC' is there any version in particular that I should be using that keeps the options open? luckily the output I've been using in testing has indeed been the format you mention...with the WIN X HD tool. Although it tends to fail quite often with larger files. I don't know i that's limitations of the package, memory or the PC.

And can I specify that form of output from Premiere easily enough?

I have not really considered the editing side of things so much yet, just the import of the multiple data formats into a single manageable format as you mention.

Thanks for the advice, I've learnt more in 2 replies on here than I have in quite some weeks of meddling! Appreciate the time and pointers.

[pippas]

One small question there mind - I have downloaded AVI movies that do play on the TV's....I think ones that use DIVX or XVID...basically ripped DVD's. They work fine. What is the difference between those and the AVI's taken from the Premiere/Sony MiniDV...just for understanding?

Following on from my comment about AVI being a 'wrapper' for many different types of video file.......that includes both 'intraframe' and 'interframe' formats.

Mini DV ( and Grass Valley HQX) are intraframe formats. That means that every frame is 'complete', and independent of every other frame. It is very easy to edit intraframe video, with frame accuracy. Every frame is an editable 'keyframe'. Editing and converting Intraframe video is also much less demanding of computing power.
The downside?.. and there's always a downside!... is that the actual video files tend to be pretty big (About 13GB per hour for MiniDV, more for HD intraframe video).

The other 'type' of video file is 'interframe'.... That includes the Xvid and Divx formats you mentioned, along with mpeg2, mp4, AVCHD,mov ....and lots of others.

These 'interframe' formats are much more compressed, and are constructed using a process known as 'long GOP' (GOP stands for 'Group of Pictures'). There are many good descriptions of the technical detail of that concept that you can find with a quick Google, but in essence the processing involves encoding the video so that most of the frames look both forward and backwards to adjacent frames, to minimise the amount of 'new' data that needs to be stored. There are far fewer editable 'key frames' (known as 'i' frames).

Result?... much smaller files that will play well on most TVs, media players etc. But, because most frames are no longer editable 'keyframes', it's more difficult to edit the video accurately without involving a modern NLE program. And the process will use a lot more computing power.

In your case the MiniDV is already 'intraframe'... your other files are 'interframe'.

I'm not familiar with the conversion programs you mention, so can't comment on their efficiency or quality... or whether they deal well with MiniDV footage.

A further complication is that I suspect that most of your 'newer' footage will already be in a progressive 16x9 format. MninDV is neither of those things. It is interlaced, and will display as 4x3 - (unless it's anamorphic 16x9?... but let's not go there at present!)
Yet another complication is that it the pixels in MiniDV are not 'square'.. so the footage needs to be replayed by something that identifies the display ratio 'flag', and adjusts the display ratio accordingly.

All of which needs to be taken into account when converting the footage. Some programs do it well... others less so.

Me?... I like to use freeware.. which, although not always the user friendliest of options can, nevertheless, often give the very best results. There are many experts here on this forum who can advice on the very best way to proceed for optimum results, but be prepared for a bit of a learning curve!

I find a useful way (there may be other technically 'better' ways?), to make Mini DV more compatible with modern TV replay, is to import the footage into the free editor Virtualdub, and then:

- De-interlace, using the Yadif preset - doubling the frame rate, and bottom field first.
- re-size to 768x576 (to make the pixels square)
- letterbox to 16:9 (to allow for a 16x9 display, at the correct aspect ratio)

You can then output that footage as an AVI from Virtualdub, using any one of several suitable codecs. The obvious ones would include Xvid - or better still x.264

At the moment that would still be exporting the audio in the original linear PCM format. There are several options you can take to re-encode that as well, to make it smaller.... if you want to!

That should give you a good quality 16x9 version of your DV footage, which should play on most TVs and media players ( as well as on computers of course).

You could turn those files AVI into mp4s if you feel it necessary... again using freeware!

You mentioned earlier about using DVDs as well. If you are intending to create DVDs that will play on external standalone DVD players (as opposed to computer DVD drives), then you need to consider a completely different route.
Your files will need to be converted to DVD compliant Mpg2 format, and then 'authored' to create a compliant disc. Again, that can be done using freeware.
But it's a rather different process, and one that is slowly finding less favour with many folk, as the move towards streaming, TV or media players continues to become more popular.....
Now whether your DVD complaint mpg2 files can be played on your TV without using a DVD disc?...... you'd need to check the TV specs!