How would you process and edit a mts to mp4?

[Srivas]

Hi everyone!

I though it wise to ask what would you do in my general scenario of editing my videos? I got so much good advice here over the years that it makes me think why not get the ultimate advice for most that I'm doing? Usually when something becomes clear, I start to think back how much videos I would re-edit in the future (since I was messing around with them for all that time, having really no idea what is what and the actual output could be so much better, if it's not messed up forever)? I feel kinda embarrased that I haven't really learned much over the years of being in this forum...

In general I'm getting material from a Canon XA-10 (that is recorded with the highest bitrate full HD, 50i, UFF), edit it in Vegas Pro 12 and render out as Mainconcept mp4 (1280x720, around 4-6000 kbps files, progressive). Now I started doing bob deinterlacing for videos with lots of motion and it gives much better results.

The thing is that now I want to get into more quality stuff, put out more quality while keeping considerably low bitrate (not only).

I use Vegas since that's what I know to some extent and have been satisfied with. Most of the material is 1-2 hour long lectures.

So my question is: Those of you here who get to the core of things and do quality stuff, what would you do if you want to put out considerably small mp4 files for laptops, tablets, smartphones and youtube? What softwares, processing scenarions you use (for above material)?

My anchor is vegas since that's what I know. It doesn't have to be, but you have to use some NLE to combine different tracks, effects, crossfading, stuff like that, isn't it? Or can you do all that in avisynth, virtualdub, with the same ease???

I know avisynth is a powerful tool for many things, as that's what I read on the forums all the time, but do you use it in a combination of a NLE or what?

And if I should stay in Vegas then what steps I should take to get things better? Should I deinterlace before importing the media (for the above criteria)? Should I frameserve afterwards to get x264? Should I go elsewhere and try out Premiere of FCPX or something else? Or combine something?

Anyway, that's the idea. I could try out all this and some I have, and I guess I should, but I'm also a little tired of inventing the bicycle or being in doubt that is that really how things should be done?

And, I'm also not after the ultimate quality (which usually means days of rendering for 1-2 hours videos), but I do consider to buy a new computer, so I'll take a note of everything.

Actually I'm really interested how professionals do things also...

Your good, healthy, mature advice is always very much appreciated.

[aedipuss]

the xa10 can shoot 25p why shoot 50i if you want to end up with p anyway? the video will be much cleaner with no de-interlacing.

[LMotlow]

Only one downside to shooting 25p.
- Not compatibe for BluRay/AVCHD 1920x1080.
- Not compatible for BluRay/AVCHD 1280x720
- Not compatible for SD BluRay/AVCHD or DVD.
- Playable only for PC, web, external media storage, external media player, tiny mp4's for laptops and phones. As long as you don't need to share with conventional media, and don't mind making copies for friends and family on USB sticks or hard drives and that sort of thing, you're OK. It's not difficult to make even bad video look OK on a laptop's small window or tiny phone screens, so one has to wonder what you're doing.

Maybe if you used something better than simple-simon bob deinterlace and use decent bitrates, you could be getting better quality. But after going over your remarks again, it doesn't seem like "highest quality" is what you're really talking about. For the simple edits and primitive resizing you've mentioned, Vegas Pro, Premiere Pro, FCPX, etc. are overkill. You can accomplish the same thing with SONY's Movie Studio for under $100. You also mentioned "x264". SONY, Adobe, FCP, etc. -- none of them use x264.

Avisynth can get better results for what you're doing, along with better encoders, but it's a learning curve. Avisynth is script driven. The easiest interface for running Avisynth coded scripts is VirtualDub, but some software apps can read and save Avisynth's output. If you've browsed the forum threads, you likely know by now that you have to write your own scripts to run Avisynth filters and procedures. There are no icons to click. On the other hand, resizing, deinterlace, other frame structure operations, color matrix conversions, etc., are good enough in Avisynth to make you realize how much $$$ is wasted on $500 apps that don't do it as well. Yes, pros do use Avisynth but most of the world's Avisynth users are not pros. There are free GUI apps and converters around that use avisynth for input and x264 for output.

Up to you. You can buy more pricey software, but their results are all pretty much alike. Without learning something new about video, the quality you're getting now won't improve much.

[smrpix]

Vegas can use the x.264 encoder directly if you use the vfw version of x.264. The only limitation is you must output it as an avi with PCM audio. (Or mp3 audio, but it makes no sense to recompress at this stage.)

From there you can use simple tools like avidemux or ffmpeg to speedily re-wrap to mp4 with AAC audio.

(Sample ffmpeg command - -i mymovie.avi -vcodec copy -acodec libvo_aacenc -b:a 320k -ac 2 -ar 48000 -o mynewmovie.mp4)

[pippas]

In general I'm getting material from a Canon XA-10 (that is recorded with the highest bitrate full HD, 50i, UFF), edit it in Vegas Pro 12 and render out as Mainconcept mp4 (1280x720, around 4-6000 kbps files, progressive). Now I started doing bob deinterlacing for videos with lots of motion and it gives much better results.

I convert my HD 50i files to the Grass Valley HQX intermediate format using the free codec from HERE in conjunction with their converter utility from HERE

I use that utility to deinterlace and convert to a 1280 x 720/50p progressive file. I find that high quality intraframe format much easier to work with.

Edit in Vegas, and frame serve the output to Virtualdub, using the x264 vfw codec.

[smrpix]

Edit in Vegas, and frame serve the output to Virtualdub, using the x264 vfw codec.

Not trying to start an argument -- but why do it this way rather than output x.264 directly? If you want to add avisytnth filters into the stream perhaps?

[pippas]

I'm not a Vegas user, so I'm not sure that you can export an edited HQX timeline directly from that program?
Hence my suggestion to frameserve to Vdub ...which I know works

The suggestion of conversion to HQX in the first place was for several reasons. HQX is a high quality intraframe, intermediate format, which makes it a easier to work with in an editor.

The Grass Valley conversion utility allows several selectable options when converting AVCHD or .mp4 camera file into that format , including a decent de-interlacer and re-sizer.
In an earlier life, Grass Valley was Canopus of course, and I suspect many of the features of this conversion utility owe their heritage to Procoder. Hence the high quality.

Converting 50i AVCHD 1080/50i files to 720/50p in a high quality intermediate format before the editing process might help the OP to achieve his stated aim of high quality but smaller files....At least that was the intention of my suggestion...

[Srivas]

the xa10 can shoot 25p why shoot 50i if you want to end up with p anyway? the video will be much cleaner with no de-interlacing.

I should have looked into the matter more precicely when deciding what format to choose. I read some superficial previews saying that you should always prefer i to p, but that really depends mostly on the output device, as I understand now. Yep, I will switch to 25p.

I'm too buzy today to get into the other suggestions (though lot's of good advice already!), I'll get back to you tomorrow.

[Srivas]

So I'm thinking of doing some preprocessing with avisynth, render to some lossless format, then do editing in Vegas and probably save through frameserving to x264.
The interlaced files I have definitely need good deinterlacing. I was amazed to see the difference even just doing bob directly in Vegas, but I know avisynth has more advanced deinterlace filters such as TempGaussMC.

Can you suggest some not too slow/decent setting for that filter?

And another question is about stabilization. I really need to stabilize some clips also. Could I do that also through avisynth or is there some other better way? That would be nice to do before editing.

[pippas]

the xa10 can shoot 25p why shoot 50i if you want to end up with p anyway? the video will be much cleaner with no de-interlacing.

I find that deinterlacing and frame doubling a 50i source provides a 50p file that has much smoother motion than a 25p file.
Of course the resolution is reduced, but it really depends on whether that is more important than the smoother motion from a 50fps video?......

Everyone will have their own preference of course.....

[Srivas]

the xa10 can shoot 25p why shoot 50i if you want to end up with p anyway? the video will be much cleaner with no de-interlacing.

I find that deinterlacing and frame doubling a 50i source provides a 50p file that has much smoother motion than a 25p file.
Of course the resolution is reduced, but it really depends on whether that is more important than the smoother motion from a 50fps video?......

Everyone will have their own preference of course.....

hmm, I'll try both and see.