XDCAM EX Convert to WMM or anything or rewrap??

[bhr856]

I believe I have a similar problem as discussed in this thread.

A very nice parent taped our high school dance performance so that our juniors and seniors can use it for their portfolios and college applications as 10 of the dances were choreographed by students.

When he dropped off the flash drive with the raw footage yesterday, I didn't think there would be a problem making a DVD out of it for people... boy was I wrong... I can only view the footage in VLC Player, and in that it is choppy. In QuickTime I can only hear it. RealPlayer wouldn't even open it.

I tried to convert it using a paid program (couldn't open it) and Handbreak (opened it but when it, it converted only gave me a black screen and the audio).

When I looked at the specs for one of the videos in QuickTime, it said the format is: XDCAM EX 1080p 30 (35 Mb/s VBR) 1920 x 1080, Millions 16-bit Integer (Big Endian), Stereo, 48.000 kHz, Movie FPS 29.97, Playing FPS 29.97, Data rate 35.50 mbits/sec

I am on Windows Vista with 32 bit and I use Windows Movie Maker to edit the video.

Would this ffmpeg be able to help me? If so, please help me out and let me know, step by baby step, what I need to do to be able to convert 17 files and keep them in HD?

Also, when I tried to go to the home folder (C:\Documents and Settings\your name) as mentioned in the other thread, I get an access denied error... I have a folder (C:\Users\Your Name) that I can get into no problem. So if I do need to get into the other one, I will need help with that as well.

Thanks so much in advance.

[_Al_]

Try VLC player, convert your footage to TS wrapper. Use this tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7kSVCSJiaU&t=2m6s

Check boxes to keep original video and original audio.

[poisondeathray]

Does WMM support transport streams?

Which HD formats does WMM for Vista support ?

Is using a better editing program an option ?

[aedipuss]

maybe more than one problem there. there shouldn't be any c:\documents and settings\ folder. that is some made up directory - virus maybe?

you should fill out your computer specs in your profile, it may be your computer is too old/slow to play the video properly. for editing and encoding to another format sony vegas pro or vegas movie studio would be a good start as xdcam ex is a pro/semipro cam format.

p.s. welcome to the forum!

[Ai Haibara]

Isn't that what was used in XP? (I remember it, somewhat, but I don't have an XP system up and running at the moment to check.) Anyway, it's what DarrellS recommended in the thread linked to in the OP - using that directory (and his Computer Details list XP, so...)

[bhr856]

1. I have no clue, I don't know what a transport stream is

2. They say it can take

MPEG-2 video file that has a .dvr-ms file name extension or

WMV Video files, but that it prefers, WMV files.

3. I could use another editing program, it is just that WMM is the only one I currently have and as I'm not being paid to do this, I really don't want to spend too much (if anything) on a new program to edit this together.

[aedipuss]

this o.p. lists vista as the o.s. and the documents and other important folders are in c:/users/user_name/ - the other one was added. you could try right clicking on the folder properties/security/ and try to change the permissions and ownership of the folder and contents.

if i remember correctly sony has 30 day demos of vegas available

[bhr856]

Thank you all, I was writing while you were all posting more... here is more information about my system, please let me know if you need anything else:
Windows Vista, 32 Bit, AMD 64, achlonx2 dual core processor, Nvidia Gforce 6150SE video card, 3gig memory.

[edDV]

Thank you all, I was writing while you were all posting more... here is more information about my system, please let me know if you need anything else:
Windows Vista, 32 Bit, AMD 64, achlonx2 dual core processor, Nvidia Gforce 6150SE video card, 3gig memory.

XDCAM EX will have usually have an MXF container. Is that what you have?

XDCAM video is MPeg2. Vegas Pro will import it directly.

Otherwise you can use VLC to remux XDCAM EX to a TS (m2t) container for more general support.

I can't find an EX sample at the moment.

You could consult with the cameraman about getting an m2t or MPG container version.

[bhr856]

this o.p. lists vista as the o.s. and the documents and other important folders are in c:/users/user_name/ - the other one was added. you could try right clicking on the folder properties/security/ and try to change the permissions and ownership of the folder and contents.

if i remember correctly sony has 30 day demos of vegas available

I found this online about the document/settings folder and Vista. Does that help exlpain and mean I'm ok, because it is all Greek to me...

[usually_quiet]

1. I have no clue, I don't know what a transport stream is

2. They say it can take

MPEG-2 video file that has a .dvr-ms file name extension or

WMV Video files, but that it prefers, WMV files.

3. I could use another editing program, it is just that WMM is the only one I currently have and as I'm not being paid to do this, I really don't want to spend too much (if anything) on a new program to edit this together.

A transport stream is a type of container file format for audio and video, and often uses .ts for its file extension. The video inside is most often either MPEG-2 or H.264.

What is the file extension for the raw footage supplied to you, .mp4 as in the link to the other thread? Also, what format do the students want you to use for the clips featuring their performance that you will distribute to them? [Edit]Is it to be a DVD playable on a regular DVD player, or a data DVD?

[aedipuss]

sony hd movie studio platinum is about the lowest priced editor that would accept it. regular hd movie studio doesn't work on xdcam ex.

demo here - http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/moviestudiope

what it's limitations are i don't know.

[aedipuss]

this o.p. lists vista as the o.s. and the documents and other important folders are in c:/users/user_name/ - the other one was added. you could try right clicking on the folder properties/security/ and try to change the permissions and ownership of the folder and contents.

if i remember correctly sony has 30 day demos of vegas available

I found this online about the document/settings folder and Vista. Does that help exlpain and mean I'm ok, because it is all Greek to me...

ahh. was the computer upgraded to vista? then the old folder may have been left there from xp and yes that would be ok.

[edDV]

There are several MXF readers and converters listed in this wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_Exchange_Format

XDCAM EX native editors

Sony's XDCAM MXF is supported by Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro via XDCAM Transfer and MXF4Mac, Autodesk Smoke, Avid, Dalet, Front Porch Digital, Harris, mxfSPEEDRAIL, Omneon, Quantel, Rhozet, Sony Vegas Pro, Sorenson Squeeze Telestream FlipFactory, Thomson Grass Valley GrassValley EDIUS and K2

[bhr856]

What is the file extension for the raw footage supplied to you, .mp4 as in the link to the other thread? Also, what format do the students want you to use for the clips featuring their performance that you will distribute to them?

usually quiet, thank you for the explanation!

the file extention is .mov, which I thought would have opened so easily, is not.

as for the files for the students, in Windows Movie Maker you the output is WMV 1080p and if that would not work for anyone I could convert that to another format for them depending upon their needs.

[_Al_]

Maybe author of that video load it in FCP or something and got mov out of it ?

How many audio tracks you can see in VLC (audio/audio track) ?

[edDV]

the file extention is .mov, which I thought would have opened so easily, is not.

This means these are not native camera files but an edited conversion probably from Final Cut*. They could be Prores422, AIC or other. Use mediainfo and post the text data.

Ask the cameraman what they are.

* Premiere and Vegas can also output MPeg2 or h.264 in mov container.

[poisondeathray]

XDCAM-EX can come in MOV, MXF or MP4 wrapper .

Most NLE's will accept one or more of the variants natively, and there are free utilities from Sony that convert between them as well

Regardless, the limitation here is WMM , it won't accept any of them And since the OP isn't going to use anything else , he needs to convert to something WMM will accept

WMV is a lossy conversion and will take extra time, but if that's the only thing that works in WMM for HD formats... you have no other choice . I don't use WMM and don't have Vista, so I don't know if there is a better choice

I can write you up a ffmpeg batch file if you want

[poisondeathray]

1) Download ffmpeg, place ffmpeg.exe in same directory as MOV files to be converted

2) Open a file in notepad in same directory, type the following, save it, rename extension from .txt to .bat

I arbitrarily picked "qscale 2" which is a quantizer or quality factor. Lower values give higher bitrate, higher quality, larger filesizes. If files are too big, you might want qscale 3 or 4 for example

for %%a in ("*.mov") do ffmpeg -i %%a -qscale 2 %%~na.wmv
pause

3) Double click the .bat file


Before you go converting everything , and wasting time, test it out on a folder with 1 or 2 small files first. Try importing in WMM. This works on some MOV wrapped XDCAM-EX files I had laying around, but there are some XDCAM variants that might give problems so report back if you have an issue

This uses MSMPEG4 variant of WMV, compatible even on legacy systems back to Win95. But you can also try WMV2 by specifying WMV2 explicitly

for %%a in ("*.mov") do ffmpeg -i %%a -vcodec wmv2 -qscale 2 -acodec wmav2 %%~na.wmv
pause

[bhr856]

here is a screen print

[bhr856]

XDCAM-EX can come in MOV, MXF or MP4 wrapper .

Most NLE's will accept one or more of the variants natively, and there are free utilities from Sony that convert between them as well

Regardless, the limitation here is WMM , it won't accept any of them And since the OP isn't going to use anything else , he needs to convert to something WMM will accept

WMV is a lossy conversion and will take extra time, but if that's the only thing that works in WMM for HD formats... you have no other choice . I don't use WMM and don't have Vista, so I don't know if there is a better choice

I can write you up a ffmpeg batch file if you want

poisondeathray....
I see you have already written a script and I will try that so thank you very much and I'll let you know how that goes...

But... my biggest problem here is that I can't even watch the files at all. If I could just convert them to another HD format that I can actually watch them in that would be a step in the right direction.

I'll check back in as soon as I try the script you have written for me.

[bhr856]

poisondeathray....

the good news first, I could make the BAT file work and I could import the final video into Windows Movie Maker and I could see video.

Now the bad news, I tried with both at qscale 2 and 4 and the video is very, very SLOW and the music is slow/choppy in WMM.

The other good news was that I could see the video in fairly good quality in VLC. It didn't look as good as I had thought it would though, but at least I could FINALLY see it!!!

Here is a list of the original files sizes I am working with if that will help... The one I am testing is highlighted, 4_01

[poisondeathray]

Are your listed computer specs ok?

You need decent specs to play HD in sync. Maybe that's why VLC was choppy as well?

Are you saying converted file plays worse in WMM than VLC ?

Did you try the other commandline with WMV2 instead ?



As a small test to rule this out you can try encoding to a lower resolution - if it plays better, then it's most certainly a CPU "horsepower" issue

You can convert part of a file to test by using -t 00:00:00 ; it's in hours:minutes : seconds . So if you used -t 00:01:00 it would only encode the 1st minute. This way you can do mini tests faster instead of waiting to encode the whole file

You can resize the clip by using -s parameter for scale . For example -s 854x480 would give you those dimensions

SO try this on 1 file and see if it plays back ok

for %%a in ("*.mov") do ffmpeg -i %%a -vcodec wmv2 -qscale 4 -s 854x480 -acodec wmav2 -t 00:01:00 %%~na.wmv 
pause

[bhr856]

okay,

the first bat file... that one does play choppy in VLC

the second bat you wrote, with the time limit function for only a minute... that one does NOT play choppy in VLC, it plays very smooth yet it might seem just a bit grainy, I'm not certain as it is hard to compair to the original one as I can only see that one in fragments.

the second bat you wrote still will not play in WMM, HOWEVER.... I did take the file and put it in my normal conversion program and converted it to WMV file and then imported it in WMM and that WORKED. So then, I took that same .bat file and took out the time limitation and did the entire file and ran it and converted it as well and imported it into WMV and that worked as well.

When I tried the same thing with a video used from the FIRST bat file, I could not import the file in to the conversion program. It starts to load and then bombs out. The same thing happened when I tried to do that with the original file.

However, when I did an upload the test videos to YouTube it only shows a max of 480p for both the one I did straight from the .bat and the one I converted to wmv as well.

thoughts???

[poisondeathray]

The last one was resized to 854x480 (standard definition), and used wmv2 video & audio - if that played smoothly in VLC, that suggests your computer is too slow. You will have to find a resolution that you are comfortable with or upgrade your hardware . The resized version was only meant to test playback cadence & smoothness, nothing about quality . Maybe something in between like 1280x720 would work for you

Why does it not play in WMM - I have no idea . You can try using MSMPEG4 again , instead of WMV2, but only with resized video . Just take out the -vcodec and -acodec arguments . You can use lower qscale as well

for %%a in ("*.mov") do ffmpeg -i %%a -qscale 2 -s 854x480 -t 00:01:00 %%~na.wmv  
pause

However, when I did an upload the test videos to YouTube it only shows a max of 480p for both the one I did straight from the .bat and the one I converted to wmv as well.

The 1st and 2nd bat files should give 1920x1080 . The resized version in post #23 should give 854x480, because it's resized (to test your computer). SD resolution doesn't take as much CPU power

You can check info about the videos like resolution by using mediainfo (view=>text)

[bhr856]

poisondeathray....

You have been amazing. I've told my dad everything. I'll give the stick of the files to my teacher and explain the problem to her and see if there is any computer at school I can use that is better than the one I have here at home.

Thank you again for being so kind to me and going over everything in such detail.