Editing AVCHD in Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0

[Tom Saurus]

I have had success with capturing video with a Hauppauge HD-PVR. I have decided not to buy bluray discs, and go that route of having menus and such. I dropped my captured file into Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0 and it accept the file. I was able to edit the file as well, with no problem.

My question is this I noticed that if one chose you could select certain key frames to use as chapters. Would these markers get encoded into the file you are exporting?

I also have the need to crop the video if I am recording off a SD Channel because my receiver exports at 1920 x 1080. It is described in this thread:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/350495-Hauppauge-HD-PVR-SD-Cropping-Info

I would also like to understand what can be done with the "Picture Resize" filter in Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0. I am of course recoding.

I also would like to know if AVCHD is capable of having close captioning info hidden inside it? When I drop a .mpeg2 video captured by the Hauppauge 150 a lot of times, if I drop that in Vidcoder, I can select that CC info and use that as subtitles to be encoded into the .mkv file I am encoding to.

I can use Freemake to edit AVCHD as well and export to a .mkv file, the only thing is the cropping peramaters are not able to fine tuned to what one may need.

I am thinking of trying a trial version of VideoRedo as I have read it has a lot of options and if you didn't have to do some cropping, you can edit and just export it without recoding, except perhaps at the edit points. I am anxious to learn more about what I can do with Tmpgenc Express 4.0 and the editing of AVCHD video.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me regarding these matters.

[aedipuss]

what format are you looking to create as an end product?

[Tom Saurus]

I have took quite a liking to .mkv files; though .mp4 seems to be nearly as good. Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0 offers me Mpeg-4 AVC. With the cropping it took about twice as long as what the video was in length. The bitrate for the video was variable and MediaInfo says 2028 kbs. It did look good when it was all finished; though I am watching it on a 17 inch CRT screen. I like h.264. I am moving on from .divx more as time goes on.

If it is of interest I did edit a True HD 1920 x 1080 AVCHD file in Freemake Video Converter and then converted it to a 640 x 360 h.264 .mkv file with .mp3 file and it looked and sounded good once it was encoded. I didn't need to crop it. I did notice though it now has 25 as it frame rate instead of the 29.97 frame rate; maybe I didn't pay enough attention when I chose the settings.

[aedipuss]

try a newer encoder like vidcoder, handbrake, or mediacoder

[Tom Saurus]

Well I do like Vidcoder. If it had an editing function in addition to its capabilities as an encoder, that would be terrific. I have read that VideoRedo can edit AVCHD and your file is not re-encoded. One could conceivably take that file and drop it into Vidcoder and encode it to your liking. AviDemux should be able to do this job but it is prone to crashing.

[Tom Saurus]

I noticed something stranger. According to MediaInfo the original captured file has a frame rate of 29.970. When I drop the file into Freemake Video Converter it says the frame rate is 25 fps. If I drop it into Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0 it says it has a frame rate of 29.97 fps. AviDemux says it has a frame rate is 59.94 fps. AviDemux tells me every time it crashes that I didn't cut on key frames. I just checked the file in VLC Media Player and it is saying in the codec details that the frame rate is 59.94.

I installed the trial version of VideoRedo and I can edit and export the file and it has the same specs as the original file. In the file info it is telling me the frame rate is 29.97 fps.

It looks like VideoRedo is worth the money they want for it. I bought Womble Video Editor years ago and it is a great program. It is sad that they didn't move beyond .mpeg2 and come up with ways of handling newer formats.

[Tom Saurus]

I did some research and have been able to get AviDemux to trim some footage at the beginning and end of the 1920 x 1280 True HD video file and the program did not crash. It is all about understanding to cut on the key frames. You get the key frame positions by pressing the up or down arrows on your keyboard. It is not as fine tuned as the frame level accuracy that I am used to with .mpeg2 files. The video that got exported even though it was in copy mode, AviDemux stated it was encoding. It didn't take very long to complete. The specs other than the duration look the same as the original. This could be because I get confused as to the part of AviDemux that says Output Format; I chose MKV muxer.

I thought perhaps this information would be useful. If one can get AviDemux to do the job of editing, then it is just a matter of using a free video encoder to export to the final file you want. I doing a test right now where I am resizing the file with the resize filter in Avi-Demux to a 640 x 360 .mkv file that even though I am loosing quite bit of the original HD video quality it will be smaller in size and still look pretty decent on a TV screen no bigger than 32".