Hello All,
I have recently edited some video (approx. 1hr20m worth) using canon vixia hf10 camcorders (AVCHD, 17mbps, 1080/60i).
I used the neo 2.5 (neo 2 booster) software to edit, which was very clean and allowed me to edit my AVCHD without having to use an intermediate and exported using their Canopus HQ (Fine) codec.
I now want to create both an HD and SD version. The HD version I'm thinking will need to be 720p as I want to mask any artifacts introduced by the edits/re-encodes and also need to keep the bitrate at around 14mbps if I want to get it all on a dual layer (8.5gb) AVCHD DVD.
The other version will be a standard 480i DVD which will be distributed to most people.
I know all NLE's are terrible at scaling so I was thinking of either using virtualdub or avisynth to do the resizes. But I have never done HD to (lesser) HD or SD so I was wondering what methods would yield the best results. The video is all very clean, shot using tripods on a clear sunny day..it was a WINDY day, however, so there is some motion from clothes flapping/etc.
If I remember correctly for the 720p I'd need to de-interlace, THEN resize. I'm not sure if I could somehow convert the 60p to 30i or exactly how that would work. For the 480 I know i need to de-interlace, resize, then interlace again...finally I'll be encoding back to this Canopus HQ Codec and so far the only advice I've received is to re-import it as a new project in neo 2.5 then encode from there to AVCHD/Mpeg2
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Last edited by greymalkin; 17th May 2010 at 12:21.
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Yes terrible at scaling and deinterlacing.
If I remember correctly for the 720p I'd need to de-interlace, THEN resize. I'm not sure if I could somehow convert the 60p to 30i or exactly how that would work. For the 480 I know i need to de-interlace, resize, then interlace again...finally I'll be encoding back to this Canopus HQ Codec and so far the only advice I've received is to re-import it as a new project in neo 2.5 then encode from there to AVCHD/Mpeg2
What you could do is encode to 1 intermediate , i.e. bob-deinterlaced version of your 1080i60 => 1080p60 in canopus, or codec of your choice), then use that as the basis for the 2 final formats. The 1080p60 version can go straight to AVCHD after a straight resize to 1280x720, but the 480i60 DVD version needs to be re-interlaced and fed to an MPEG2 encoder
For the choice of bob-deinterlacing for the initial step , it will depend on your patience vs. need for quality. Many choices, tempgaussmc_beta1 is probably the best overall in terms of quality, but it does add some processing (like denoising and sharpening) at default settings that you may want adjust, and it's very very slow. Search for some comparision of various deinterlacers, there are many at this site and doom9
e.g. for re-interlacing for 480i60 DVD
AVISource("1080p60_intermediate.avi")
LanczosResize(720,480)
AssumeTFF().SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4, 0, 3).Weave()
Not sure why you would use neo to encode, it's h.264 encoder is really sub-par , and a limited version licensced from mainconcept. Also feeding it back into edius neo would incur and additional colorspace conversion and uncessary quality loss. I would use x264 for the avchd and hcenc or cce for the mpeg2 version. For x264 you could use several gui's like avchdcoder or multiavchd, or if you're into more control over settings megui
Another option for the AVCHD version is to use 1080i60. There are several pros/cons to this, but this discussion is huge, and there are many factors that go into it, and I won't address it here -
thanks poison for the encoder recommendations. I want to get the best quality, so if it takes days I don't really care :P. Time is not a limitation, I've just got to be smart with my HDD space..this is why I went with Canopus HQ rather than uncompressed which would end up being somewhere in the 1TB range!
I'll look up the syntax for this tempgaussmc to make my new "master"
For the "straight resize" to 720p, would I still use the LanczosResize(1280,720), or a different function?
I'll probably try both 1080i and 720p
I definitely don't want to mess up the colors, which happened when I tried a quick and dirty DVD conversion..the end file looked like the white balance got all jacked up. The colors on the source video are beautiful as-is! The only thing I had to do was some light de-noising/brightening on the night shots to remove some of the grain and obviously brighten the image a bit. This was all done before rendering to the .avi (canopus HQ) file. -
For TGMC, You can look at the script, all the settings are listed in the .avsi , but you can do a mini test with default settings at first i.e.
TempGaussMC_Beta1()
There is a slightly multithreaded version TempGaussMC_Beta1mod() and TempGaussMC_Beta2() , you'll need slightly different prerequisite filters for each
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/TempGaussMC
There are differences between resizers as well
Lanczos is sharper and can cause a bit of ringing if you look closely, but I think it is fairly safe for most types of sources. Lanczos4 can cause heavy ringing from oversharpening and shouldn't be used IMO
You could use bilinear which is much softer, it depends on the "look" you are going for. For "soft" anime many people use this.
You can do some "mini-tests" and compare scripts in avsp, for example. (you can compare small tests on different resizers and deinterlacers) , because at the end of the day, there is alot of subjectivity
Some people don't like the default denoising that tgmc uses (you can adjust the settings , of course)
In regards to the levels/colors , i don't use edius, but you have to be sure what colorspace and levels it's using internally. This can be very tricky if you're not familiar with the different colorspaces and what you particular editor is using internally. Because when you convert to YV12 for MPEG2 or h264 , you have to specify what matrix (for hd it's usually going to be Rec.709, Rec.601 for SD) . You also have to be sure how the preview works in edius (is it pc levels or tv levels). Often the preview is not reflective of the levels in the exported format,or what's being used internally. Various editors have many little quirks and intracacies that most users don't know about. Usually the only way in realtime to know you're color correcting is correlating, is to use an external calibrated reference monitor. If you're using a PC monitor most programs will be decompressing to RGB PC (0-255) range, which will look very different when burned to a DVD.
To make this post even more long winded... IIRC The canopus hq codec has some colorspace options, if you choose the wrong one, you can get the levels shift or contrast expansion and blow out your footage. I remember I did some tests and it wasn't very good in terms of quality , you could clearly see dct compression artifacts even on 1st generation. Perhaps they've improved it?
You can double check what levels is being exported by edius in avisynth with histogram() or videoscope() to see if they are legalLast edited by poisondeathray; 17th May 2010 at 15:15.
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hmmm...so if I'm really concerned about generation loss I should probably look into exporting to a different format? I might have to get/borrow a 1TB hard drive!
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Well in my tests, it didn't even seem "visually lossless" (like cineform or dnxhd), even at the highest settings. With visually lossless formats, you can't see the difference even after 5-6 generations even at the lowest settings. You can only see the difference when you pixel peep with difference masks. I could see the artifacts in canopus HQ with just a simple naked eye screenshot comparison after 1 generation. Now perhaps they have improved it, I don't know....
You will be losing unavoidable quality if you use a NLE and color correct. There will be a colorspace conversion YV12=>RGB=>YV12 (for final format like DVD for AVCHD). If you stayed in YV12 space, you could avoid those losses, but no NLE works in YV12 space, and as soon as you add filters like color correction, they ALL convert to RGB. Now you could use avisynth for everything and avoid these losses, but it's not a "real" editor, and tough to use to do any real editing. -
I see...I'm not opposed to completely starting over...the hardest part of my edits so far were getting all the clips sync'ed together..now that I know exactly where they need to lay I can re-create it in no time.
perhaps I should convert my AVCHD files to HuffYuv using the .bat utility and start over/look for a bigger hard drive? -
perhaps I should convert my AVCHD files to HuffYuv using the .bat utility and start over/look for a bigger hard drive?
did you examine the export? like I said, they might have improved things, it might be ok -
I certainly saved my project
I'll check my export options to see if there is something better, but all I saw was uncompressed (which I don't have the space for) or canopus HQ/Lossless. Of course they also have MPEG2 and AVCHD options but they of course look horrible. In the past I've always just exported to lossless so I'm feeling a little lost without having the ability to do it with the HD content :P.
I did try to preview the Canopus HQ but since it's interlaced it's difficult to watch. I partitioned my hard drive and installed nothing but Win7 64 bit and neo 2.5 as my XP install with all the other software/codecs is bloated. For now I just need to take things I've learned about and do some trials. -
why not use canopus lossless then? or does this exceed your storage capacity as well?
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From the edius forum regarding Canopus formats I got:
Canopus HQ is variable bitrate - it will average 120-160 Mbps, or 15-20 MB/sec, but it can be larger or smaller depending on the nature of the footage.
Canopus Lossless is mathematically lossless, but still variable bitrate. The compression rate averages 2:1 at best, meaning a 1080/59.94i signal is approx 1.5 Gbps, would compress down to minimum of 700 Mbps or 87.5 MB/sec
I could get one 55 min portion using Canopus Lossless on 1 of my drives (300-400gb), but wouldn't have anywhere to put the 1080p master. I will try using the HQ (Fine) settings and see if I'm just not happy with the end products..if so I'll look at storage options or pray for avchd stream copy mode in the near future . -
so for the DVD version I ended up using Virtualdub to deinterlace/resize/and do a slight bit of sharpening. I made sure the set the input/output colorspace correctly and the result is very good.
Then I used AVStoDVD because it has the HCEnc mpeg encoder, but for the life of me couldn't make it use it. no matter how many times you go set the video encoding settings it seems to do what it wants to do.
ANYWAYS! My question is this...in order to reencode to Canopus HQ I have to add black borders to make it 720x480 (since resizing the 1080i file gives me 720x405. This of course makes the video 4:3 aspect ratio and when I burn it to DVD and watch it on my upscaling DVD player with my HDTV it's got black borders all around! Do I need to crop off the black borders after I get it to MPEG? Or can I have my authoring application do that? Basically what do I need to do to make it 480/16:9? Finally, I can resize to 480p..does anyone see the benefit of doing that? My upscaling dvd player still shows interlace lines with the 480i version, that's why I was wanting to see how 480p looked once I figure out this aspect ratio thing.
For the HD version, I'm testing compressing it to 13mbps 1080i to see how it looks. If I'm no happy I'll try 720p/60. -
I'm not sure what you're saying. Can't you just resize it to whatever you want? or are you limited in edius? just do everything in avisynth then.
This of course makes the video 4:3 aspect ratio and when I burn it to DVD and watch it on my upscaling DVD player with my HDTV it's got black borders all around! Do I need to crop off the black borders after I get it to MPEG? Or can I have my authoring application do that? Basically what do I need to do to make it 480/16:9? Finally, I can resize to 480p..does anyone see the benefit of doing that? My upscaling dvd player still shows interlace lines with the 480i version, that's why I was wanting to see how 480p looked once I figure out this aspect ratio thing. -
poison...you said it..I did something wrong . when resizing in virtualdub it automatically set the res to 405 to maintin the 16:9 Aspect (in a square pixel world). Canopu HQ realized that wasn't a valid resolution and wouldn't render the video since it wasn't 720x480 (the end file was black video and audio only). My "solution" was to add black borders to attempt to make it work..it did work, but it gave me exactly what I asked for instead of what I wanted..a 4:3 image .
I'll go through the resize again, it really does look beautiful compared to my old SD camcorder now that I know how to keep the colors from getting jacked up. I'll try 480i/p on a few different players to see which I like the best.
I really do appreciate you taking so much time to help with this. I hope you aren't banging your head on the desk.Last edited by greymalkin; 19th May 2010 at 16:22.
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You probably had some setting in the vdub resizer checkmarked incorrectly, there is a way to make it work properly in vdub.
But I would still do everything in avisynth, this way you don't undergo extra colorspace conversions and losses. When you use vdub filters, it will convert to RGB and clip values <16, >235. Canopus HQ is YUY2 4:2:2 so it gets converted to RGB if you use vdub filters. -
ok..I'll definitely use avisynth for my de-interlace/resize and just use the 1080i Canopus HQ AVI for encoding straight to m2ts for my AVCHD Disk version
AVISource("1080i60CanopusHQ.avi")
DeInterlacerOfMyChoiceHere()
LanczosResize(720,480)
AssumeTFF().SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4, 0, 3).Weave() <-- Optional if I want to leave it 480p.
I decided to use xvid4psp to try and just encode the 1080i file to a 13mbps m2ts file to see how it looked. I chose a 20 minute clip with the most motion/scene changes and 14 hours later it actually looks pretty good! I'll do an A/B comparison tonight against the original m2ts file from the camcorder to see if it screwed up the colors. I can tell it's a liiiiittle softer, but overall the image quality is quite good (ie no artifacts I could see). So It looks like I'll stick with 1080i for the AVCHD disk and then do the avisynth deinterlace/resize and HCEnc (set to 16:9 AR) for the DVD version.
I'm hoping xvid4psp doesn't also mess up the colors or it's back to the command line for me :P.Last edited by greymalkin; 20th May 2010 at 09:26.
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some deinterlacers work in yv12 only (e.g. tempgaussmc_beta1) , so if you use one of those, don't forget to use interlaced=true from your edius export
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
#DeinterlacerOfChoice
60i is legal for both DVD and blu-ray/avchd (30 frames/s or 60 fields/s , 1920x1080i60 for blu-ray/avchd and 720x480i60 for DVD) . I wouldn't make a 480p DVD from your 60i source, because you'd lose 1/2 the temporal information (60p isn't legal for DVD at any resolution, but 1280x720p60 is legal for AVCHD/blu-ray)
If you use xvid4psp you would have to adjust the settings to make it avchd compliant - I don't think it has a compliant profile. Blu-ray/avchd imposes certain restrictions on GOP size, b-frames, ref frames, buffer values among several other things. If you want easy to use, avchdcoder or multiavchd should have compatible settings already dialed in -
doh! good advice! it looks like they use the x264 encoder so as long as I keep the quality I'm happy. This whole colorspace thing is a pain!
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I agree!
But they really do accumulate with rounding errors. Going in/out of your NLE multiple times isn't a good idea
Here is an illustrative example of 3 rounds of RGB=>YUY2 (and back to RGB for the screenshot) conversions. Make sure you look at full size, or even zoom in. Look closely at the lines in between colors. This was "lossless" compression, so compression losses would be additive to this . Now on live action or "normal" material it should be less visible to the naked eye than a test partter, but it's still better to avoid colorspace conversions -
understood. I'll just use my NLE for the cuts/layer edits, then send the output 1080i file straight to AVCHDCoder for the AVCHD Disc.
For the DVD I'll figure out my AviSynth Script and feed that into HCEncGui and end up with a pristine 16:9 MPEG ready for authoring. -
none of the free tools
multiavchd allows for simple menus, xmb style menus, and even motion thumbnail previews
for "semi-advanced" encore and dvda is a step up and allows for motion menus , encore even does pop up menus
for "advanced" , Scenarist, or blu-print, but they are very $$$ -
sweeeet..I've got Encore CS4 at my disposal..so I think I'll be all set...
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just be aware, encore doesn't support avchd on dvd5/9 media (dvda does) , so you would just make it as a blu-ray and re-author the folder structure in multiavchd (no-reencoding)
pass-thru works (i.e. no re-encoding) with x264 streams in encore if you are using the blu-ray compliant builds, if you use compliant settings. The streams have to be imported raw , no container (i.e. .264) , because placing in a container can screw with the buffer values. For example, tsmuxer does this (overwrites buffer values)
if you are using <15Mb/s , you can use 2sec GOP's which will significantly help compression and quality over the standard 1sec GOP's.
ie. use --keyint 60 instead of --keyint 30
Also you don't need slices (you can use High @ Level 4.0, instead of L4.1), which also helps efficiency
I'm not sure what settings avchdcoder or multiavchd use by default, but if you need more reference on "compliant" settings check here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533Last edited by poisondeathray; 20th May 2010 at 11:50.
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alright..multiAVCHD is a winner! It encoded the original 1080i Canopus HQ 10 hours faster than xvid4psp (4 hrs. vs. 14!) And I don't see a difference between the 2. I used 13Mbps, 2-pass VHQ. I forgot to set the 2 sec GOP's..I realized that when I was looking at the mile of switches on the x264 argument and say keyint was set to 30. If this is just going to help the file size to be smaller then I'm really not worried about that..if it would make a big quality difference then I might go back and give it a shot. I set the profile to 4.0 but I noticed there was a "force 4.1 flag" option still checked..should that also be unchecked? Now that I have a blu-ray/AVCHD Disk compliant file I'll take it into Encore and see if I can make it with menu's.
I tried to get it to make the HD DVD structure using the same settings but the file stayed red indicating I wasn't doing something right :P. I noticed there's also an option now for SD-DVD so I might feed it my (now corrected) 480p file and see how it turns out. I'm getting there!Last edited by greymalkin; 21st May 2010 at 10:23.
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I'm glad you chose multiAVCHD for the task.
[x] Force level 4.1 option is just a FLAG so it should not really matter. Still it is better to have it unticked, because multiAVCHD never goes for level 4.1.
The long gop option would probably give you better quality, but not that you'd notice when using 13Mbps bitrates
HD-DVD won't do you any good. It is for HD DVD players like Toshiba A2/A3 and has nothing to do with Blu-ray/AVCHD or SD-DVD.
SD-DVD works quite well, too - but multiAVCHD won't create a menu for this mode.
***
Have in mind that multiAVCHD does all that deinterlace/resize/interlace things depending on the input and the output. It is not using the best/slowest filters, but the quality is good imho.
Dean
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I forgot to add that in SETTINGS tab there are x264 configurable options, so user can override multiAVCHD's presets with anything one likes.Last edited by multiAVCHD; 21st May 2010 at 10:53.
Laugh and the world will laugh with you. Cry and you will be alone -
thanks multiAVCHD and thanks for putting together all these tools in a nice package that would otherwise be very confusing!
Yep I realize 13mbps isn't very high for 1080i but I am trying to fit 1h20min on a dual layer DVD and the x264 encoder actually does a great job! obviously it's a little softer but since the original HD footage was super sharp it sort of looks a little more "natural" now.
I was trying the HD DVD option because I happen to have a good old Toshiba A3 and wanted to see how it looked on there just for grins. Are there completely different settings I need to use for this? I'll still be feeding it my 1080i AVI (canopus HQ) file.
Thanks again for the great tool! -
You misunderstood me. I meant that 1s/2s GOP wouldn't matter that much with bitrates as HIGH as 13Mbit, which it quite enough for a really great quality
About HD-DVD... Go to the [transcode] window and select "Create HD-DVD title". It will force 1920x1080@23.976. Then you can use [HD-DVD] button and you'll get your ready-to-burn to DVD folders, which your Toshiba will accept.
Btw there is a "Sharpen" filter in the [transcode] window, so you can use it... Still I believe that the less filters you use, the better the quality will be.
Don't worry about the 'red-title-name'. If you hover the mouse you'll see that it is marked as non-compliant because of the codec your source uses. Once you transcode - it all will be okay.
DeanLast edited by multiAVCHD; 21st May 2010 at 13:09.
Laugh and the world will laugh with you. Cry and you will be alone -
ok first of all..I did the A/B comparison of my original m2ts files against the ones I had edited, exported to canopus HQ (Fine), then recompressed to 13Mbps h.264 using multiAVCHD. I put both m2ts files on the timeline in a neo 2.5 project and did fades back and forth after sync'ing them up. I stretched the video window out to cover almost the whole screen and I couldn't tell a difference between the 2! very happy with the results so far.
Although multiAVCHD creates the AVCHD Disk structure flawlessly, I'm still not having success with creating the HD DVD. It always fails when hddvdmuxer kicks off. When I go check the HD DVD folder structure, the first .EVO file is there weighing in at 1gb, and theres another .evo file that's 0k..so maybe when it's trying to combine the audio with the video is where it fails. The original audio is 2 Ch LPCM 48khz.
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