Capturing HV20 Footage

[Roland Gatto]

Hey ya'll,

What have you been using to capture HV20 DV and HDV footage? Right now I'm using Premiere Pro 2, but sometimes it has trouble capturing in/out points and it does not use scene detect with HDV.

Any recommendations?

[David Grieser]

Try HDVSplit:
http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm

It detects scene changes and creates seperate files with configurable names.

[Dennis Wood]

I just started using HDVsplit and it works perfectly with the HV20. Splitting scenes properly is critical for 2:3 pull down removal from 24p footage if you're doing this in post. Using After Effects, I had to click the "guess 2:3 pulldown" button when interpreting footage as each clip had a different sequence. HDVsplit will log your clips unattended...very handy.

[Roland Gatto]

yeah i heard hdvsplit is great!

1.) does it have a preview window to view the footage? if not, how do u know what you're capturing?

2.) so hdvsplit removes pull down? what exactly is pulldown and why do you want to remove it?

[David Grieser]

Originally Posted by Roland Gatto

yeah i heard hdvsplit is great!

1.) does it have a preview window to view the footage? if not, how do u know what you're capturing?

2.) so hdvsplit removes pull down? what exactly is pulldown and why do you want to remove it?

1. Yes it has one.

2. No HDVSplit doesn't remove pulldown it cuts the clips accurately so that you can remove the 24p pulldown in programs such as After Effects.

When you record 24p with the HV20 you're actually recording 60i because the HDV standard doesn't allow 24p. This is called 2:3 pulldown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine

[Terry Reilley]

Have any of you guys tried viewing the .m2t files from HDVSplit in Windows Media Player? My aspect ratio ended up all weird. I recorded HDV on my Canon HV20 and the previews looked perfect in HDVSPlit, but when I play the files in WMP 11, the video is not widescreen (looks like 4:3 instead of 16:9) and the people are stretched.

Any ideas? I checked HDVSplit site and no one has reported similar problems.

[Thomas Barthle Jr.]

Terry,

I too have noticed this when playing either M2T files or the Cineform Intermediate. HDV compression uses 1440 x 1080 pixel count (4:3) instead of 1920 x 1080 (16:9). It is probably playing in WMP with a 4:3 aspect ratio, therefore not decoding correctly, I think. Somebody check me on that.

A question for the thread:

I plan on using HDVSplit for capturing and I have VirtualDub for pulldown removal, but I think I read that it CANNOT read M2T to remove pulldown. I use Vegas and the Cineform that comes with, but I don't want to have to convert each clip to Cineform AVI one by one. Is there an open source program that can remove pulldown from M2t clips?

Thanks!

[Patrick Bower]

Canon advertising says "The HV20 captures true 1920 x 1080 High Definition resolution video using miniDV cassette tapes." This is not strictly true, is it? I have the PAL HV20. I have captured my files off tape using Vegas 7 or Cineform Connect HD HDLink. My files are reported as 1440 x 1080 (with a pixel aspect ration of 1.333 to create the 16x9 aspect ratio).
Presumably, it cannot record better than 1440 x 1080, if it is using the HDV specification?

Would it be possible to capture true HD 1920x1080 using the HDMI output? Is there any current hardware/software solution to do this? Has anyone done it, and, is the quality better than off tape?

Patrick

[Robert Ducon]

Yes, when you record footage in any HDV camera, it's recorded as 1440x1080 - this is how the codec stores the image.

With the HV20, Canon is pointing out that their sensor is a true 16:9, big CMOS sensor - most other 3chip camearas have narrower sensors at the same size and use pixel-shifting voodoo to achieve the wide-look. In all fairness, pixel-shifting doesn't look bad - most cameras do it very well. The HV20 just happens to be one that does it the way you'd expect most cameras to do it - and this may be why the image is so good for the amount we're paying: the big 16:9 sensor.

If you Capture live footage straight from the camera's HDMI or Component out ports, you can record the image at 1920x1080. The point here is to bypass the recording of the footage to HDV - playing back HDV and capturing this way will still give HDV quality video in the end.

[Patrick Bower]

Thanks, Robert.
I see on another thread that you have been capturing full HD from the component outputs. Presumably you can record to HDV on tape at the same time? Is the component HD output noticeably better than HDV tape?
Patrick

[Thomas R. Dickens]

All. I shot HV20 at 24p with Cine Mode at the Highest Resolution (1440X1080?). When I capture, I have been getting a "double image" in Video Vegas. I tried HDVSplit. I brought the footage into After Effects and tried many settings. I finally got it to look great, but every 3rd frame is a duplicate. I want to have an output of true 24 frames per second, like film. Finally, I got the image to look great without interlacing, banding, ghost images, of what I can see, but there is still every 3rd frame is a duplicate. When I tried different 3:2 settings the image got messed up again.
Another question, just to confirm: IS there a way to capture true 24p 1920X1080 off of the HV20, instead of the 1440X1080? If so, can someone point me to the specific sites with capture cards/info, etc?
Help,
Thank you!
Thomas

[Mike Dulay]

AE must not be doing as good a job in doing the 3:2 pulldown if you're still getting the interlaced frame. We've been working on a "free" windows process to achieve good pulldown. Using the farnsworth method we've got nice clear 24p in 1440x1080. HDV is non-square pixels, so for final output it gets unsquished to 1920x1080 for players that recognize the bit. Unfortunately most players like WMP seem to ignore this for AVI. For WMV it seems to have it. You can fix the aspect ratio in your NLE before final output then choose a format that supports it (e.g. MP4, MOV, WMV, MPG).

Steve is making a nicer version with Vegas:
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=92893

My current ghetto method:
http://yousillyman.blogspot.com/2007...-hv20-m2t.html
Needs to be updated with vdub 24p scripting.


The only way to get the 1920x1080 direct from the sensor is to get it from live HDMI but it comes with its own issues (look for threads on BlackMagic Intensity). You can get an HDV unsquished version from playing back from tape too but that's not too different from taking the m2t then upscaling it to 1920x1080 in software. In my case I prefer to downscale to 1280x720 but that's just me.

Hope that helped rather than confused.

[Thomas R. Dickens]

Mike,

I followed your instructions to a "T", (I think). Everything seemed to work until the: E) on your instructions (http://yousillyman.blogspot.com/2007...hv20-m2t.html). I only got two fixedaudio.avs files from my four .m2t files that were in the directory. One fixedaudio.avs file was only 1 kb, and the other 0 kb in size.

There were no regenerated video files whatsoever (should there be?)

I went to go to F) on your instructions, running VirtualDubMod. I dragged the fixedaudio.avs file onto the opened window and got the error:

Avisynth open failure:
TFM: d2v file is not a d2v file or is of unsupported format!
(C:\RedRocksDay11\HV20day11a.m2t_fixedaudio.avs, line 4)

So... without the VirtualDubMod being able to open my files, and without all the fixedaudio.avs files, and with no new video files I could not go on to G), etc., on your tutorial.

Can you help me please?

[Mike Dulay]

Hmmm ... you're the second one to have this sort of problem. The original template.avs must not be created correctly for you. Wonder which part isn't clear. I have a hunch ...

for now let's rename your directories to the following:

c:\capture = the directory where you have you m2t files
c:\capture\24p = the directory where you installed go.bat, dgindex directory, virtualdub directory, template.avs)
c:\program files\avisynth 2.5 = the directory where avisynth 2.57 was installed

a) Please make sure that dgindex.exe and its other files are in 24p\dgindex\ ( C:\capture\24p\dgindex\dgindex.exe, dgdecode.dll, etc.).

b) Please go to you plugins directory for avisynth (c:\program files\avisynth 2.5\plugins) and make sure there is a dgdecode.dll in there. If there isn't go ahead and copy it from your "c:\capture\24p\dgindex" directory.

[as is, dump your 4 m2t files into c:\capture, make sure there are no other files mixed in, then run:
cmd.exe -> c: -> cd \capture\24p -> go.bat c:\capture]

If the above worked then you were either missing the .dll files or specifiying trailing \ in your path. When calling 'go.bat', do not put a trailing '\' in your path. In your path the correct way to call it is "go.bat c:\redrocksday11" (good) not "go.bat c:\redrocksday11\" (not good)

c) Go to your 24p directory open up go.bat. Change the contents to this:

FOR %%f IN (%1\*.m2t) DO dgindex\dgindex.exe -if=[%%f] -FO=0 -OF=[%%f_] -AT=[template.avs] -EXIT
FOR %%f IN (%1\*.m2t) DO perl fixavsdelay.pl %%f

d) Make sure that template.avs is inside the 24p directory. (e.g. c:\capture\24p\template.avs).

[as is, dump your 4 m2t files into c:\capture, make sure there are no other files mixed in, then run:
cmd.exe -> c: -> cd \capture\24p -> go.bat c:\capture]

If the above worked, look at the name of your original "capture" directory. If it had any spaces in the name (e.g. "capture me"), it causes problems for go.bat when you use double-quotes. Dgindex fails to create the original xxx_m2t.avs file and thus fixavsdelay.avs has nothing to work on and does a dumb create of a blank _fixedaudio.avs.

[Mike Dulay]

doublepost ...

Also, you may want to consider steve's new process ... http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=94235