Womble and HD

[ADigitalMan]

I've been editing standard def stuff in Womble for years, having really enjoyed that the unchanged parts don't get re-encoded. I've recently been learning how to rip and work with HD video and got ambitious in my first outing. I successfully converted a HD-DVD source from it's native .EVO format into the Blu-Ray friendly .TS format. Womble successfully let me import and edit these video streams just fine.

As I went to export and ... Womble apparently wants to re-encode the whole thing. The WHOLE thing. The big selling point of Womble has always been that it doesn't re-encode the parts that aren't changed, which is better than 99% of this edit (mostly I've done a reshuffling and inclusion of deleted scenes but have only one extra title card and one slo-mo fadeout to be re-rendered by Womble).

So, for anybody who's been working in Hi-Def, is there a way to get Womble to export the streams without all the re-encoding (like it does in standard def)? Does the source video need to be set up differently? Or is this just a limitation of Womble? And if so, is there another tool that is as good as Womble for editing video that doesn't re-encode the non-changed parts?

I'm still new to the HD world but am trying to come along. I'm pretty sure the original source was VC-1, but as I converted to .TS I don't know if that changed or not. I don't think it did, since the conversion process was on the order of minutes for a 2.5 hour HD film.

--ADM

[Baldrick]

I guess the so called smart rendering is ONLY for mpeg2 video and not vc-1 or h264. But they don't mention it at there site though.

[ADigitalMan]

I've done some editing and test encoding in Womble MPEG Video Wizard 5 since my last post. It is required to re-encode, even Mpeg2, when working with HD video.

The encoding engine does look much better than it's predecessors. That said, I still have a show-stopper with regular jitter being introduced into the output and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I'm pretty sure the source is OK. I've taken a HD-DVD, ripped the EVO files, demuxed to VC-1 and audio streams, and converted the VC-1 to .TS.

From this point I've tried two things:
1) remuxed the .TS and .AC3 files with tsMuxeR into Blu-Ray format and burned to a re-writable .... that resulted in a perfect conversion. So I know the conversion process to this point has been successful.

2) But when I loaded the converted .TS files into Womble, edited, and then ran the output through tsMuxeR, the result has a nauseating bit of jitter noticible when there is any serious motion on the screen. The jitter seems to be in the resulting .m2v file before the streams are re-muxed, so I can only surmise that Womble's encoding is doing something to add this jitter ... but I can't figure what.

The input .ts files are 23.98 f/s. The output .m2v file is also set to 23.976 f/s. I've tried changing to 29.970 and other framerates, but that didn't smooth things. Other settings:
* VBR 15000
* Maximum Quality
* Horizontal distance: 15
* Vertical distance: 15
* temporal noise reduction unchecked
* scene change detection unchecked
* Closed GOP unchecked
* GOP size N=12 M=3
* PAR = 9/16 (default is 3/4 but that screws up the aspect ratio)
* Field Order = No Change
* A/V streams are exported separately (remuxing takes place in tsMuxeR)

Any ideas?

[jagabo]

Post short samples, before and after.

[ADigitalMan]

Not sure how to get a snippet of the good video with the tools I have but I'll work on that and see what I can get.

Meanwhile, a snippet of the bad video was easy enough to produce and upload. Hopefully its pattern will provide some clues.

Notice the jerkiness as the camera pans across the floor. The original is much smoother.

http://rapidshare.de/files/48917389/SR-ADM-Recoded-Bad.m2v.html

Let me know what you think.

[jagabo]

That clip has both missing and duplicate frames. It's likely that Womble wasn't reading your source properly.

[ADigitalMan]

Many thanks. Any ideas on how to address that problem? Should it be addressed at the source or in Womble?

Also, I got a snippet of the good video now.

http://rapidshare.de/files/48917764/manin_video_fixed_goodsnippet.ts.html

[jagabo]

Interesting. When I play your second file with MPCHC it's jerky -- just like your earlier file. When I play it with VLC it's nice and smooth. I'll dig into it later...

[ADigitalMan]

Very interesting indeed. I've been using VLC for my previewing since I first discovered the problem, but I did burn the whole "good" version to a BD-RE and it looked great on the TV through my Samsung BDP-1500. The "bad" one was jerky through the same set up, and that's what has kicked off this whole investigation.

In the meantime, I'm going to try something a little different now ... going to rip from a BR source instead of from a HD-DVD source so all of the conversions get taken out of the mix. I'm curious if a straight .ts rip running through Womble will yield the same results.

[jagabo]

After playing around a little more I find that MPCHC is getting about 16 fps from the TS file. That is, some of the frames are missing and in a regular pattern. Something like 1, 2, x, 4, 5, x, 7, 8, x... Disabling MPCHC's internal TS reader/splitter (using Haali instead) smooths out the video. I suspect what's happening in Womble is it's TS reader is screwing up in a way similar to MPCHC's. So it's not getting the frame rate it expects and ends up duplicating frames to make up for the missing ones. You might get better results if there is some way to force Womble to use a different TS reader/splitter.

Some more details: Using MPCHC's internal TS reader and internal VC1 software decoder (ffmpeg) plays smoothly. Using MPCHC's internal TS reader and internal VC1 hardware decoder (DXVA) is jerky. So you might also get better results using a different VC1 decoder.

[ADigitalMan]

Thanks for the continued help. I think Womble uses Haali as it fires up in the system tray every time I open Womble. I can't seem to figure out where in Womble this is specified or how to tweak the settings. The options from the system tray icon for Haali seem pretty limited.

I do have ffmpeg installed, but I haven't figured out where in Womble I can use this for input, as opposed to output.

The VC-1 was converted from EVO to TS using vc1conv. The guide I've been using is here: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-burn-an-hd-dvd-to-blu-ray

[ADigitalMan]

I attempted to upgrade Haali and it caused Womble to hang upon load. So I removed it and Womble wouldn't recognize the video at all. I spent a couple hours going back and forth on this and then ended up re-installing CCCP to get Haali working again with Womble.

Back to the same problem though, so re-installing didn't fix anything ... merely all of this confirmed that Womble is leaning on Haali Media Splitter to read the VC-1 encoded TS files. I'm still trying to figure out how to either use a different reader/splitter or otherwise let me dork around with the settings on the current one.

[ADigitalMan]

Could it be that Womble is using Haali which does the frame skipping, whereas VLC is using libdvbpsi?

[jagabo]

I don't think it's as simple as Haali vs VLC's internal splitter. It looks like there is some kind of miscommunication between the splitter and the decoder, possibly further complicated by something else in the system. Have you tried enabling ffdshow's VC1 decoders? Haali (v. 1.9.42.1) + ffdshow plays smoothly here.

[ADigitalMan]

Installed ffdshow and enabled VC-1 codecs. Question: I have the option of libavcodec or wmv9. Which should I use?

Edit: I seem to be getting similar results with either.

[jagabo]

Both libavcodec and wmv9 gave smooth playback for me.

[ADigitalMan]

Here's a fresh sample: http://rapidshare.de/files/48925941/ADM-Test-20100101a.mpg.html

This one had some skipping, but it didn't seem to be the same, so I don't know if it was just the processor having trouble keeping up vs the regular pattern we had before. It's not as smooth as the "good" sample so I'm curious if it's still broken or if this is simply a case of my system on this file.

[ADigitalMan]

I burned to BR-RE and it was herky-jerky on the TV so this is still an issue.

What I wonder now is whether or not I have the whole ffdshow and haali properly configured. Not sure how to tell beyond what I've done.

Both fire up in the system tray when I start Womble, so I know it is invoking them. ffdshow's tray icon gives me options for ffdshow Video Decoder and for Haali Media Splitter (AR).

When I select the ffdshow Video Decoder option, I'm given a window with a list of all kinds of codecs. Here is an export of all my settings:

(removed to make the post sensible)

[jagabo]

One thing I do know about Microsoft codecs -- they tend to skip frames when the video gets too high for the selected bitrate. A 24 fps video will drop down to 12 fps (ie, skip every other frame) when this happens. I don't have the VC1 file you posted earlier but I don't seem to recall it having that problem.

About all I can suggest at this point is you try remuxing into different containers, or converting to a AVI with a lossless codec, and see if you can get any of that working better.

[ADigitalMan]

I'll try converting to lossless HuffyUV. I know when I export to that format through Wombles Export to AVI feature I get the same results. I tried previously to convert the original streams to huffyAV and THEN load into womble but it wouldn't read. I've learned a lot through this process in the past few days and think I can get it to read now via having those codecs enabled. I'll try that.

Thanks for all your continued help. I'll let you know if this approach works.

[ADigitalMan]

I swear this project is cursed. Perpetually one step up and one step back.

I converted one of the TS files to HuffyUV/AVI using RiverPast video cleaner pro and when I play back the resulting file, it's at half-speed. Womble loads it now, but sees the speed as being half of what it should be.

Settings in RiverPast are as follows:
Output Format = AVI
Video settings: ffdshow Video Codec, Original size, Original Framerate, Offset 0, Speed 1.
No thumbnail, no watermark.

[jagabo]

I don't know anything about Riverpast, but I downloaded your original "good" sample again:

http://rapidshare.de/files/48917764/manin_video_fixed_goodsnippet.ts.html

and VirtualDub was able to open it and convert to HuffYUV AVI without any problems -- except for the large file size.

Note, don't worry about the playback speed of the HuffYUV encoded video in a media player or editor. The file is just too big to get smooth playback. That won't be an issue when encoding.

[ADigitalMan]

Thanks for all your help. Womble just kept butchering my video so I punted, downloaded the trial version of Vegas, recut the whole thing from scratch and re-exported. Vegas uses the same ffdshow/haali combo and didn't goof up the video so it's gotta simply be with Womble's handling of it. Very disappointing as I've been a proponent of Womble for years. Alas. Looks like Sony's going to get some more of my cash this year, 'cause the result was great.

Thanks for helping me as much as you could.

[greymalkin]

I never thought Womble was anything more than an SD MPEG2 editor? Does it advertise stream copy for HD sources?

[JimmyS]

I never thought Womble was anything more than an SD MPEG2 editor? Does it advertise stream copy for HD sources?

I use MVW regularly on 720p and 1080i captures from my ATI TV Wonder 650 card. It functions the same with HD files as it does with SD files. I had tried another capture program a while back that captured all the streams from a given channel as a single .TS file and MVW worked fine with those as well. All that was needed was to select the desired video and audio stream in the files properties.