Canon VIXIA HF-100 - New User

[FrankLad]

Hi Guys!

I recently purchased a Canon VIXIA HF-100. Right out of the box I have it set to 24p, Cinemode.

Initial tests show some artifacts on a few frames. Blocky and very similar to what I might would see on a MiniDV/Tape camera like my Canon GL2.

However, with this being a flash recorder, I have no idea why it would do this, unless it's either: A) Simply part of the compression or B) An issue with the Flash card (which in this case is a Transcend 8GB SDHC Class 6)

I tried slow camera pans, fast pans, etc. to see if it was a case of the compression scheme not handling certian types of motion. BUT I remember seeing several samples on Vimeo and elsewhere which let me know I shouldn't be seeing as many artifacts as I am.

Granted, it doesn't happen all the time, but the very first sample shot exhibited this and that was disappointing. I did some later tests , and even some using a homebrew 35mm adapter and didn't really see any problems there.

I did verify that it wasn't a playback issue by converting the MTS files to uncompressed/Lagarith AVI and scrubbing frame by frame in After Effects, where the artifacts show up there as well.

By the way... THANKS, Soopafresh! The AVISynth/VirtualDub batch process works well!

I appreciate any help you guys can offer.

[Soopafresh]

Hi FrankLad, no problemo.

Do the artifacts look like this ?

vimeo_00005.mp4

[FrankLad]

Hey - that does look like what I'm getting!

So I should download the batch file which uses DirectShow, correct? As I'm doing everything in 1920x1080, can I simply edit the batch file to change the 848x480 to 1920x1080 or is there something special I must do?

Also, when I select the batch for "1920x1080_Same_As-Source.bat", it gives a file at 29.97. Am I to assume that the 24p camera mode is actually recorded to a 29.97 format (with pulldown and all done in the camera) or should it (the AVI file as output from VirtualDub) actually be a 24p / 23.976 fps?

Sorry for all the questions. My old workflow with the Canon GL2 was to bring in DV/AVI and convert to 24p with Twixtor but now I'm not even sure what the camera (VIXIA) is recording to.



THANKS!

[Soopafresh]

Yep. Try the directshow batch.

As far as the pulldown issue: yes, that's possible. I'll rewrite the batch to include pulldown. What do you want the output dimensions to be ?

[FrankLad]

I guess I'm wondering what exactly the Canon VIXIA is recording to.

I was thinking that setting the camera to 24p mode would give me an actual 24fps file, but is it actually giving a 29.97fps file? (this is what VirtualDub reports the framerate as.)

Is it actually capturing at 24p but doing pulldown to get it to 29.97 on the fly?

Old workflow was thusly: 29.97 (Canon GL2) -> 23.976p (Uncompressed AVI) -> pulldown back to 29.97i (Mpeg2/DVD)

So if the HF-100 is doing the pulldown, there may not be a need for me to take it to 24p in post, correct?

Ahhhh.... Sorry if this is all confusing. LOL!

The output dimensions on the batch would be 1920x1080.

Thanks so much for your willingness to help!

[Soopafresh]

Try the following: (copy to same folder as the other batch files)

directshowsource_pulldown_1920x1080.zip

I don't have a source to test it on, so I don't know what the output is going to look like. If it doesn't seem to play correctly, the problem is in the following line:

for %%a in ("*.mts") do @echo tfm().tdecimate() >> "%%~na.avs"

Change it to:

for %%a in ("*.mts") do @echo tdecimate() >> "%%~na.avs"

[FrankLad]

Tried that on the machine here at work (with sample .mts file) and got the following:





Also, I added a "pause" to the end of the batch file so that I could see the output before the screen disappears. It doesn't say anything except "Press any key to continue." Is that normal?

Again, that is sample footage. I'll try at home with some actual HF-100 footage.

Thanks!

[Soopafresh]

Yes, the pause command will give you that message.


The error you're seeing is because the machine you're testing on doesn't have the proper codecs installed to play back MTS files. That's a requirement. Have a look at the post on the bottom of this page:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic346331-300.html

It's never easy

[FrankLad]

Yes, the pause command will give you that message.

Sorry about that. What I meant was whether or not it was normal to be seeing no output other than the pause message.

I downloaded the additional files per the other thread and can now play back MTS files in Windows Media Player (woo hoo!) and am not getting the error message in VirtualDub. However, I'm only seeing the green screen at the beginning - no file being played.

However, I'll wait and try all of this on my home machine, as I'm on Vista here anyway and not sure how that affects things.

THANKS again! I certainly appreciate your help!

[Soopafresh]

Let me know how it turns out.

[FrankLad]

Woo hoo! Worked just fine!

Thanks a ton, Supafresh!