MP4 Editing and Rendering

[Sinux]

Hey this is my first post here, and have looked through the forum to make sure my question hasn't been asked and answered yet and didn't find anything. Nor have I found my answer via google. I don't know if my question is noobish or not but I wasn't sure where else to put it.

I recently bought a Hauppauge HD PVR to record TV Shows and Xbox 360 gameplay. It's an amazing picture and it records my gameplay in an MP4 format. Is there an easy way/program to edit my raw MP4 videos? I tried Sony Vegas but it pretty much sucked, and when rendered looks like crap. All I want to do is to add Audio commentary and cut clips if necessary. I do believe MP4 and Mpeg-4 are the same? Any way if anyone could help it would be awesome


Sinuxx

[aedipuss]

hi, and welcome to the forum.

unfortunately mpeg-4 is a long gop, highly compressed final display type format. not an editor friendly one. so the answer is no, there probably isn't anything any better than vegas that a consumer could afford.

if you saved your captures in a more easily editable video format you'd have better luck. another option is to buy a third party intermediate codec that would convert the mpeg-4 source files to a lossless avi. the current favorite seems to be cineform neoscene for HD video work.

[guns1inger]

Vegas Pro has two different MP4 AVC rendering engines. One is very limited, the other gives more freedom. As with most editors, the default templates are very conservative and need to be tweaked to get the best from them. I use Vegas to edit the HD AVC output of a Samsung U10 mini HD camera. The results are not bad after a little colour correction, even on youtube


(I suggest you right-click and select Watch on Youtube, then watch the 720p version)

Another option is to use the debugmode frameserver to frameserve to an alternate H264 encoder.

[Soopafresh]

Give him a pat on the head from Uncle Soopafresh!

[Sinux]

Thanks for everyones help! But the program that came with my HD recorder won't let me record in anything other than MP4, ts, and m2ts. Will I lose quality if I record using another program to record it into a different format, then render it as an mp4? I know the content of my video is more important than quality but I paid 200$ to record in HD that's the only reason I'm pursuing it.

[guns1inger]

Perhaps if you explain in more detail what sort of editing you are planning on doing. If it is straight assembly editing - cutting out commercials, basic scene removal etc. - then the new beta version of VideoRedo might be worth looking at, as it covers those containers and does smart rendering (encodes only open GOPs). if you want to do transitions, titles, overlays etc then you will need to use something like Vegas and will have to learn how to tune the encoder to get the best quality from it.

[Sinux]

All I'm looking for is something simple. I just want to cut spots of videos, add some occasional fading in and fading out, and posibbly adding some commentary. That's really all I'm looking for. And while I think Vegas is cool, it just frusterates me most of the time

Specifically I'll be taking gameplay that I record on my xbox, commentating on it or showing people how to do something in the game, and maybe a fade in and out of the video.