HG10 MTS file for 24p analysis

[David Newman]

Mike,

Thanks for your detailed investigation. I looked into why you had issues with the CineForm conversion, which is designed to save you all this headache. It turned out your sample image was quite difficult for the automatic pulldown detection to extract on the fly. The CineForm algorithm is designed for live capture from HDMI or HDSDI source, where camera compression doesn't get in the way--if this was a live source you wouldn't have had this issue. Even to a compressed file, under normal shooting conditions done of this would come up (as it doesn't for Les's clip), but now we have a test case we can directly address the issue.

The CineForm Pulldown detection is constantly looking for 24p cadence, even of sequences that have changing cadence the CineForm algorthim will adapt to fine the new cadence. The cadence repeat happens over 5 frames, so the cadence is typically found after 5 sometimes 10 frames, from the start of the clip or the point of change. In your sequence the cadence was found a frame 50, that is long time, although every frame after that is correct. When using the Elecard decoder on the same sequence, the cadence was found on frame 38, still not fast, yet it demonstrates how the source decoder can impact the testing. Once we determined the issue's cause, the cadence was detected on frame 10 (as it should be.)

Here is the sequence : http://www.miscdata.com/downloads/00...00-001-new.avi

Add this is the updated pulldown detection component : http://www.miscdata.com/downloads/CFVideoChange.zip
Unzip add replace this component in C:\Program Files\Common Files\CineForm. Then restart HDLink and convert again. This patch will be standard in the next build.

[Mike Slavis]

David,

Thanks for the info, and the updated file. Glad I could help you improve your pulldown detection routine. :) I will test this myself on my test files again when I come back around to that.

Meanwhile, here are a few other items I've learned while continuing to test...

1) DO NOT USE COREAVC 1.6. They "upgraded" from 1.5 to 1.6 a few days ago, I downloaded it to try it out and found there was no longer a "No Deinterlace" option in the codec. Go figure. I actually have 2 tickets in to their tech support, FYI, and since they're relevant to using WME on the HG10 files I figured I'd put the results here.
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I purchased the CoreAVC codec to allow me to work with the .MTS files from my Canon HG10 AVCHD camcorder. The codec has been excellent with one problem, which is fairly major (for me). I am currently using Windows Media Encoder 9 to recode the .MTS files to .WMV files (WME9 is using the CoreAVC codec to read the .MTS, verified via graphedit). However, I can not specify a Mark In/Out time in the "Sources" tab after specifying an .MTS AVCHD file as input. It gives me an error "Invalid Pointer" = 0x80004003 whenever I change the Mark In or Out time.

Is this a configuration issue, or something that can be fixed?
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Thank you for writing to the CoreCodec Support Group.
While we would like to help you this feature that you hare having a problem with has nothing to do with the CoreAVC decoder. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Hi, just upgraded from 1.5 to 1.6 and noticed there is no longer an option for No Deinterlacing in the config box. Instead there are Weave, Blend, Bob, and Hardware. Does one of these correspond to NO Deinterlacing? I need no deinterlacing so I can properly IVTC 24p from 60i (Canon HG10 camcorder output).
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Thank you for writing to the CoreCodec Support Group.

That feature is being re-added in the next version. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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2) The files straight from the camcorder always have a "Top" orientation for IVTC. Mostly it seems to be BCTop, but it does vary. However, I've now tested over 15 files and noe of them have ever been "Bottom" oriented. That cuts the possible keys for IVTC down from 10 to 5 (at least for .MTS file straight from the cam), which is a big help.

3) The Ulead software can be used to clip sections from an .MTS file from the camcorder. Tell it you want to create an AVCHD DVD, then import and clip your footage, choose Export Selected Clips -> Fast Export AVCHD Compliant Video. This will save the footage as an .M2TS file, which is a straight clipped "copy" from the original .MTS (no recompression) and retains the 24p in 60i telecine which can be fed to WME for "manual" pulldown detection and encoding. This helps when you have a large "waiting" period at the beginning of the clip and you want to start off with some action. A note on this, I have not extensively tested to see if 2) from above applies. These clipped files may have the pulldown cadence "Bottom" oriented. More testing will confirm/refute this.

4) It has been the case EVERY time that in a section with any motion, the properly IVTC'd .WMV file created from WME has had the smallest file size. This would make it easy for me to batch-drive WME, except for some programming faux pas' on the part of the WME / CoreAVC team. Which brings me to:

5) I can't get WME to batch process my files for proper pulldown detection/IVTC. Here are the factors working against it

5a) CoreAVC Mark In/Out - WME will not accept Mark In/Out when using CoreAVC. In the user interface of WME I am "getting around" this by choosing "Limit by Duration" in the Output tab to test-encode the 1st four seconds of video using the various pulldown keys and eyeballing for the smallest file size, which I then use to encode the entire file. CoreAVC says this is not their problem, although I don't buy it.

5b) Scripting Time (Mark In/Out) - My attempts at using a VBScript and driving the WME script (WMCmd.vbs) to do the various keys on the first 4 seconds of a file, grab the lowest file size output and reencode the entire file using it are failing because the "Time" parameter of the WME Script is failing (it is eguivalent to the Mark In/Out times of the interface) - See 5a). Also, I cannot use my "workaround" from 5a) because the WME programmers did not put an equivalent command for "Limit by Duration" into the scripting engine.

5c) No option to close WME when starting from command line - I tried abandoning scripting and running the WME interface from a command line, but while I can do this like "WMEnc.exe /start MyProfile.WME" (this will use the "Limit by Duration" information saved in the .WME), the encoder stays open after encoding, making it difficult to know when to shut it down and start the next one up. I'm currently stuck here, and looking for ideas.

Thanks,

mike@slavis.com

[Amit Mantri]

Mike, wanted to say a Huge thank you for all your work here. Thanks are due to Les Dit also.

I was sitting on the fence about HG10 vs HV20, It's my first camcorder ever and I really wanted to skip tape and go HDD, but not if the 24p stuff was "unusable" as per some sites and also I needed to get it done on a home-user budget (read - can't sneak the cost of Neo HDV past the wife :) so all your work helped me finally take the plunge and I got the HG10 last week. I love it so far and am working on getting WME to encode the files correctly for play on PC.

BTW, I got v1.6 of coreAVCPro (which has no deinterlace option) and am waiting over a week for their tech support to reply to me providing me with a link for v1.5 download so i just tried setting the deinterlace option to "hardware" in v1.6 and WME (when set to deinterlace IVTC with BC Top) seems to have done the job right when testing with Les Dit's original file (I don't see any combing). I have an ATI 9550 graphics card and it's deinterlacing setting is set to "weave" (can't seem to turn it off there either) so am not sure if that is being used but the WMV file created seems to be ok anyway.

Keeping the MTS files as archives and creating WMV files for distribution to friends and family is what i'll be doing for now. Also am going to give authoring HD DVD to regular DVD-Rs a try (http://avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705146) and then maybe get an XBOX 360 or a cheap HD-DVD player... :)

[James Neal]

Originally Posted by Mike Slavis

Here are the files for you to check out, if you like. Again, these are on my personal FTP server, which is serviced through a cable modem (limited upload speed) so you must be patient. Also, I'll try to keep them alive as long as I can but can't guarantee they won't disappear some time.

Mike, any chance I can get the PDF & WME files from your post?