HD Video

[koffiejunkie]

I'm not really interested in video, so I'm not really clued up in what software to use for different tasks. So this might sound a bit basic.

A colleague asked me if I can transfer some stuff from his HD camcorder (tape) to the computer. Reason being his computer doesn't have firewire. He's got lots of tapes so he doesn't bother generally, but on this occasion someone asked him for the video (a wedding) in computerised format.

Anyway, I fired up iMovie HD ('06, I think), plugged the camera in, hit import, and two hours later I had the whole thing nicely split up in clips. When I looked at the project, I nearly fainted - 60GB! So tried to export it to H264, but to keep the quality the same, I had to push the bitrate up so high, it ended up being the same size. Also just doing the first clip took about half an hour for a two pass for 1m28 worth of video. I don't see this being workable for an hour or two worth of video.

How do you guys manage HD video?

 

[VertigoZA]

AFAIK Uncompressed 1080 HD footage is, technically speaking, around 160MB per sec of footage; So you're already got a hugely compressed file at 11MB/sec. not sure you're going to get it down a hell of lot more than that with "home codecs" ... remember, the reason HD movies come on BLu-ray discs is because they are waaaay to big to fit on a normal DVD.

I could be wrong though, and would be interested to hear what others have to say.

 

[StbA]

I use Visual hub for raw video compression, unfortunately the guy who developed it isnt selling it anymore but you can pick up a copy on the torrent website's.

 

[koffiejunkie]

I should have been more complete. The import took about two hours, but the footage is almost exactly 100 minutes. So you're pretty close either way - exactly 10MB/s.

I'm just slightly confused by this. I have some mkv files that are 1080p at 2.1GB for 40 minutes and 4.4GB for 40 minutes. That works out at 0.875MB/s and 1.83MB/s

The former is recorded digitally at 1080p. The latter is taken from some really old film. Neither show the kind of blocking I was getting and I started off with my lowest bitrate at 3200KB/s

For interest's sake, here's what mplayer show about both (it does not show the video bitrate for mkv - not sure why):

[mkv] Track ID 1: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC), -vid 0
[mkv] Track ID 2: audio (A_AC3), -aid 0, -alang eng
[mkv] Will play video track 1.
Matroska file format detected.
VIDEO: [DX50] 1920x1080 24bpp 29.970 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [liba52] AC3 decoding with liba52
Using SSE optimized IMDCT transform
Using MMX optimized resampler
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 384.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 48000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [a52] afm: liba52 (AC3-liba52)
==========================================================================

and

[mkv] Track ID 1: video (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC), -vid 0
[mkv] Track ID 2: audio (A_AC3), -aid 0, -alang und
[mkv] Will play video track 1.
Matroska file format detected.
VIDEO: [avc1] 1920x1080 24bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [liba52] AC3 decoding with liba52
Using SSE optimized IMDCT transform
Using MMX optimized resampler
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 384.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 48000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [a52] afm: liba52 (AC3-liba52)
==========================================================================

I'm not arguing anything, I'm just trying to understand this.

 

[Synaesthesia]

Use visualhub or Handbrake to compress it down. You might wanna resize it at the same time.

 

[StbA]

What he said ^

 

[VertigoZA]

well there you have it.

 

[koffiejunkie]

I tried Handbrake - it doesn't understand the .mov file (Apple Intermediate Codec). I'll check the torrents tonight for visualhub.

Either ways, for those who know, does FC Express offer better encoding speed?

 

[StbA]

AFAIK no, the compression speed has to do with the codec u use, FC Express just has more tools for transitions and effects.

 

[Synaesthesia]

The Apple video compression software - Quicktime Pro & Compressor are quite slow actually.

 

[StbA]

You watch Macbreak Studio too?

 

[koffiejunkie]

AFAIK no, the compression speed has to do with the codec u use, FC Express just has more tools for transitions and effects.

I used to think that, until (many years ago) I tried out Adobe Premier, and found that compression with Adobe Premier was faster than with other tools, using the same system-wide codecs.

 

[paint_by_numbers]

Have you tried VideoMonkey? http://videomonkey.org/Video_Monkey/About.html

If you need VisualHub then i have a copy. PM me and I will send you a link

 

[phiber]

This sounds like an interesting problem. I think I should get me an HD camera and start playing around!!

 

[StbA]

This sounds like an interesting problem. I think I should get me an HD camera and start playing around!!

Get ready to spend some serious bucks for the Mac Pro hardware

 

[koffiejunkie]

This sounds like an interesting problem. I think I should get me an HD camera and start playing around!!

He he. This episode has put me off video. But I figure since I'm into DSLRs, I'll have 1080p video sooner or later, so I might as well learn how to work with this.

 

[koffiejunkie]

Have you tried VideoMonkey? http://videomonkey.org/Video_Monkey/About.html

If you need VisualHub then i have a copy. PM me and I will send you a link

Thanks. I might get back to you on that. The point of my post, however, is not to find software to do this with (iMovie HD is clearly capable of that), but rather to learn something about the format and how to work with it.

 

[StbA]

Get ready to spend some serious bucks for the Mac Pro hardware

Thanks. I might get back to you on that. The point of my post, however, is not to find software to do this with (iMovie HD is clearly capable of that), but rather to learn something about the format and how to work with it.

Easiest way to work with it and not die of old age is to compress the clips using a top of the range compressor like Visualhub, then assemble the clips you want into a movie in iMovie, then put it on Youtube (iLife 09 only) or create an DVD.

 

[VertigoZA]

I still don't get it. cause iMovie only exports to 720 (HD) which is not the 1080 HD (which I want)

Video formats may well be the only thing more confusing than Audio formats.

 

[koffiejunkie]

That's why I'm using iMovie HD. Apparently iMovie 09 can do it too, but I'm not planning to get that until Snow Leopard is with us (Mac Pack).