Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions

[Bruce Schultz]

I just received this neat little camera and I'm trying to figure out the particulars of the MTS files that it shoots. I'd like to edit the 3D in 3D Stereotoolbox but when I look at the files they are not separate files or side by side as I expected.

Anyone with 3D editing experience with these types of files who can educate me as to how to break these files into component parts and adjust convergence please chime in and help out. Are they muxed permanently or can they be adjusted?

[Frank Stearns]

My understanding is that only Sony Vegas Pro version 10d can edit these files.

[Tim Dashwood]

Bruce, can you please shoot a very short clip and send it to me for analysis. I don't have one of these cameras yet but I assume they are using MVC, which we don't have a means to demux yet.

The JVC TD1/HMZ1 seems to have the option for MVC or AVC side by side.

[Charles W. Hull]

I wonder if Cineform Neo3D could deal with the files? This could be worth an inquiry to Cineform, or perhaps post the question on their dvinfo forum. This may be an expensive solution unless you are aready into Cineform processing but their 3D tools work very well.

They normally start with the two separate tracks, convert them to Cineform AVI (or MOV) and then do the mux. I don't know if they can start with a file that is already muxed. I think they can handle MTS files okay but I don't know about muxed MTS.

The TD10 looks very interesting - anxious to hear more about the results.

[Tim Dashwood]

I don't think any 3rd party software can deal with demux of MVC yet. I just sent David Newman an email and notified him of this thread so maybe he can shed some light on it.

When the consumer divisions of JVC and Sony put MVC into the cameras I don't think they intended anyone to actually edit it, just drop it on a blu-ray or PS3 for 3D playback. Now that the professional divisions have adapted the design it becomes the preferred way to go for full raster left and right.

[Frank Stearns]

There are several people that I know about who have this camera and are editing the MVC files using Sony Vegas Professional version D.

[Pavel Houda]

Peter Wimmer has a MVC to AVI prototype converter here: http://www.3dtv.at/Downloads/MVCConverter010_en.msi . It will produce two AVI streams from the MVC (MPEG stream or MP4 file) and it will not work directly on MAC, but it is a step to separate the two streams out of the single MVC stream. The AVI streams can be subsequently converted. This converter currently is at beta level. The converter only works under windows. Some additional information from Peter:

"The MVC to AVI Converter converts MPEG Transport Streams (*.mts, *.ssif) or MP4
files containing 3D video data encoded with the H.264 MVC codec to two
uncompressed AVI files, one AVI file for the left and one for the right view.

Click 'File|Add Files' to add an MVC file to the batch list, then click
'File|Start Conversion' to convert all files in the batch list to AVI format.
The AVI files are stored in the same folders as the MVC files. The 'Left' or
'Right' suffix is added to the AVI filenames.

The audio track is only decoded if the ffdshow Audio Decoder is installed."

[Bruce Schultz]

Sorry guys I didn't mean to abandon this thread - just been caught up in massive production overload. So this turns out to be a bit of a curiosity. I'll post a clip in a day or so Tim and others can take a look at it - on the road right now.

[Steve LaPierre]

Originally Posted by Bruce Schultz

I just received this neat little camera and I'm trying to figure out the particulars of the MTS files that it shoots. I'd like to edit the 3D in 3D Stereotoolbox but when I look at the files they are not separate files or side by side as I expected.

Anyone with 3D editing experience with these types of files who can educate me as to how to break these files into component parts and adjust convergence please chime in and help out. Are they muxed permanently or can they be adjusted?

Originally Posted by Bruce Schultz

Sorry guys I didn't mean to abandon this thread - just been caught up in massive production overload. So this turns out to be a bit of a curiosity. I'll post a clip in a day or so Tim and others can take a look at it - on the road right now.

How are you getting the video off of the camera? This camera and the ability to edit its video came up before, Alister Chapman posted about it on Jan 6th of this year and I think there maybe another thread as well. Anyway my question is whether you are recording to the "soldered" flash memory or using a removeable SD card for example. I was hoping that by using the removable media the file format would be more universally editable as compared to downloading from the internal storage.

[Tim Dashwood]

The recording medium is irrelevant. I'm not sure if the Sony TD10 has an option to record a simple side-by-side in AVCHD, but if it doesn't then it seems only Sony Vegas is currently supporting ingest of MVC.
The JVC TD1(consumer) and HM-Z1U(pro version) give you the option of full raster MVC or side by side AVCHD.

[David Newman]

Tim is correct that there are limited options for post production work with these new MVC formated 3D cameras. We are now in discussion with three vendors of H.264 decoders, all with upcoming MVC support. We currently (not shipped) have support for progressive MVC sources only, yet the first Sony cameras are interlaced. I understand that the Sony camera software does support splitting the MVC stream into two standard AVCHD streams, which can than be loaded in Neo (via FirstLight) for batch conversion in a CineForm 3D file -- still that is a kludge. We believe will have full MVC support for M2TS and MP4 wrapped media in the August-September timeframe based on the reports we get from the codec vendors. If a decoder component is available sooner, we make our upgrades very quickly, so fingers cross.

[Pavel Houda]

New link for MVC splitter under windows: 3dtv.at - MVC to AVI Converter Editions & Prices

[Bruce Schultz]

We are using the Sony TD10 as a "D" camera on a 3D shoot now. I'll get Tim a clip to analyze and I'm going to give the software that Pavel suggests a try also.

Will post results as soon as I can.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

Has anyone tried Stereosplicer?

StereoSplicer

In working with the Fujifilm W3 3D camera I used this to separate the streams into individual AVI's and then converted to a format FCP could work with. The W3 had MPO and AVI 3D files. Might be worth messing around with.

Can anyone post a short clip from there Sony TD10 with native folder structure. Just has to be 5 or 10 seconds. Enough to try and over come the challenges.

My Sony TD10 has shipped from Sony and should be here any day now.

This is just like when HDV was first introduced.

[Bruce Schultz]

We used the Sony TD10 as a "D" camera on the Indy 500 3D shoot, so I have some MTS files from it that I'm trying to "break open" to get discreet L and R files for NLE editing.

So far I've tried the following;
PMB software - comes with the camera and has a hard time recognizing footage even when it sees the camera plugged into the computer. Seemingly worthless, I am unable to determine what if anything this POS software does.

MVC to AVI converter - doesn't seem to know what to do about this footage. Says it's processing it, then gives error message: "Main Concept Adobe2 H264/avc video encoder is not compatible with the video format" I've installed FFSHOW etc, but I guess I still don't have the right codec installed to make this work.

Sony Content Management Utility - downloadable from the Sony site, it does pull in the footage, but doesn't seem to want to do much of anything with it.

Sony Vegas 10.0D - Finally I see two video tracks on a timeline with the audio in between. Not knowing much about how to use this program (FCP user that I am) I can't see how to export these tracks separately into L and R files as it appears I should be able to.

Anyone with some good knowledge of how to do this? It seems like it might be the final step towards generating file streams that can be converted to be used in another NLE like FCP.

Suggestions welcomed. I can post a short clip for analysis if someone instructs me the correct way to do so on the forum.