help w Streamclip for MPEG2 edit from DIVCO HDTV card

[rotuts]

Hello
I’m trying to get some help in using MPEG Streamclip to edit and ‘downsize’ some file saved to my HD from my DIVCO HDTV card. These are files that average 750MB/30 min and are not the full bandwidth HDTV transmissions, but from the smaller bandwidth stations on PBS.

On placing the files in Streamclip (SC) it tell me this about them:

Stream: name of program
Type: MPEG program stream
Duration, data size
Bit rate 3.21Mbps
Video tracks: 224MPEG 704x480 29.97fps 3.98Mbps upperfield first
Audiotracks:
128 AC3 2/0 48hz 382 kbps
Stream files:
name of file

im trying to export the movie to a smaller format in QT say 3ivx quality 5 to get a 320x240 movie of about 150 – 200MB

as I have a lot of them to do, maybe Id like to choose a fast method as I do not have a G5.

Ive read the instruction to SC. Impressive stuff. But I don’t know if my files are interlaced or not. Or if they are progressive. How might I find out?

Scaling , as indicated by the instructions is slow. Im only looking for a reasonable file size that has reasonable video as these are ‘how to’ shows from PBS. Im not looking for ‘Cinerama’ and understand these conversions are processor intensive and my G4dual is a limiting factor time wise.

Hope Ive been reasonably clear.

Thanks rotut

[AntnyMD]

All digital television here in the US is interlaced except for 720p content. I havent checked in awhile, but almost all HD/SD TV is 1080i/480i except for ABC's network HD, which is 720p.

[mhar4]

I've been tinkering with a similar task using dvb-t streams recorded in the UK. I've found first doing a "Convert to MPEG" in Streamclip helps clean up the raw mpeg data, and then I've been using ffmpegX to do a transcode to an MPEG4 mov. I've found that because the mpeg data is not as clean as you would get off a DVD, i.e. it has data breaks, that doing separate video and audio encodes, using 3ivx and DiVA, and, say, iTunes, tends to deliver out of sync files. ffmpegX seems to keep things together better.

[AntnyMD]

You can export to 3ivx (plus any of your other QuickTime codecs) directly from MPEG Streamclip.

[mhar4]

Doesn't transcode audio, however. So you get MPEG-4 video with uncompressed audio. You can extract the audio and convert it with QT Pro, but I found that that introduced sync problems.

[AntnyMD]

Well, using the pure definition of transcode, it does transcode audio -- just only to uncompressed. What I do is take the Streamclip conversion, which keeps everything in sync, then open the file in QuickTime to finish.

For example, if I wanted everything in a neat MP4 container, I convert with Streamclip, open file in QT, export as MPEG-4 using bypass on the video, and encoding the audio into an MP4 container.

To get a DivX file that will play on my settop DVD player, I convert with Streamclip, open the file in D-Vision 2, set video to bypass, and encode the audio to MP3 and have it all wrapped in an AVI container.

[mhar4]

Ah, the old mp4 video passthrough trick. I completely forgot that as an option and damn if it isn't the best way to do it. The results look great.

thanks

[physicsguy]

Since Streamclip told you which field is first, it is obviously interlaced. Progressive video frames would have no fields.

[Smithers]

To get a DivX file that will play on my settop DVD player, I convert with Streamclip, open the file in D-Vision 2, set video to bypass, and encode the audio to MP3 and have it all wrapped in an AVI container.

Can you still get D-Vision 2 though? Streamclip saves 3ivx as a .mov file which D-Vision 3 says it doesn't support.

[physicsguy]

Yes. Just click More Info after searching for d-vision on Macupdate.com, which will take you to the developer's site. You will find 2.2.1 on his download page. Once in a while, though, even version 2 has trouble with a .mov. Haven't spotted a pattern yet.