AVCHD & Haali Splitter at DVinfo.net

Robert Young · June 20th, 2008, 05:23 PM

I followed Cineform's link to the Haali website to download the splitter. The page is a bit confusing in that it contains extensive info on the "Haali Splitter" but only had a download button for the "Matroska Splitter". Are these one and the same??
Thanks

Pete Bauer · June 21st, 2008, 05:52 AM

Yeah, figuring out the AVCHD workflow via Cineform was a bit of a hassle as it isn't formally documented in the user manual provided as part of the install of current versions of their software. But after digging around the forums and elsewhere a bit I think I have it working properly.

Just download the "matroskasplitter.exe" file and install the software from that executable. Then you can ignore it; Cineform uses it automatically.

Robert Young · June 23rd, 2008, 11:42 AM

Thanks Pete. Now I have something new to tinker with.
Another topic I am having difficulty finding documentation on is the workflow for burning AVCHD to DVD-R to view short projects as HD on BD players.
I would like to take AVCHD clips to Prospect 1080x 1920 60i, edit, transcode the finished CFHD back to AVCHD (Procoder 3: 1920x1080 60i AVCH.264 as .m2ts @ 17mbs VBR) and burn to DVD-R in Encore CS3.
Will Encore accept the AVCHD .m2ts into a DVD project and burn it to DVD-R, or is this going to be a lot more complicated???

John Rich · June 23rd, 2008, 07:53 PM

I just wanted to appologize for not paying attention to the fact that you were using AVCHD when I had previously mentioned a way to burn a Bluray project to a DVD-R disk. When I did it, I converted the HDV from a HV20 using HDLink to a Cineform .avi file, edited it in Premiere Pro CS3 and then let Encore encode it to an MPEG2 file when it created the BluRay project. I believe you have to use the Encore BluRay Project settings to create the BDMV folder to use this.

I suppose you could do something similar and see if it worked. As long as you wind up with a BDMV folder, you might be able to edit the Index file and then use ImgBurn to make the disk (using just a regular DVD burner).
You also should make sure the firmware of your BluRAy player was up to date, since that has been a problem for some players apparently (out of date firmware).
I'd be interested to hear how it works.
John Rich

Robert Young · June 23rd, 2008, 08:30 PM

John
Thanks for your response. As I dig into this I can see that Encore will not do what I need natively. So far, it seems like 2 fairly simple possibilities:
1) Sony has a simple software tool that ships with it's AVCHD consumer cams: "Picture Motion Browser". I gather that it will burn AVCHD to DVD-R and play as HD on Blu Ray player. It's for consumers to easily unload AVCHD clips from the cam and make a viewable HD disk on a typical home computer. If it works for CFHD edits transcoded to AVCHD I'll be home free (I don't need menus, interactivity, etc.)
I'll try that when I get my hands on it.
2) Apparently Nero will burn AVCHD to DVD-R- that will be my second choice, I suppose.

If I make decent headway, and the HD imagery actually looks as good as HDV tape on HDTV, I will post the workflow. If it pans out, it could be more convenient than tape for viewing/exhibiting any HD project less than 30 min in length, regardless of codec of origin (HD, HDV, AVCHD, etc.). I'm also thinking that there may be some way to get 60 min of program on a dual layer DVD-R. That could actually give this idea some legs.
We'll see.

Robert Young · June 24th, 2008, 02:18 AM

O.K, a little more research, a few more posts back and forth with some people and the path to DVD-R "Blu Ray" is becoming more clear.
Apparently the Sony "Picture Motion Browser" software that comes with the little AVCHD cams is a clip browser for viewing avchd files that it converts to m2ts ("Blu Ray mpeg") files for your computer, and also a very simple BD authoring app that will burn Blu Ray mpeg to DVD-R, and play @ 1920x 1080 in BD players. It needs .m2ts files to do this. So, I export my Cineform 1920x1080 60i avi timeline to Encore and let it author a BD Folder, which will contain the m2ts stream of the movie (which when played on VLC Media Player @ full screen, looks quite good- as good as HDV tape on HDTV, I think). The m2ts file is imported from the Blu ray folder into the Sony software and it will author the HD product and burn to DVD-R disk. I should have the Sony software in a couple of days and will confirm this.

John Rich · June 24th, 2008, 05:46 AM

Bob,

I posted this over at the Adobe BluRay forum. I think you should be able to make a fully functional BluRay project with menus that can be burned with a regular DVD burner to a DVD-+R disk using this.
I originally tried Nero to do this, but ImgBurn is much better and quicker.
If you're interested you could check out this tutorial at jmrser.com (at the bottom of the list).
This disk will play on actual bluray players for big screen TV's.
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b...2.obwJiiceW2n@

John

Robert Young · June 24th, 2008, 12:02 PM

Thanks John.
That looks promising as well, particularly the notion of burning dual layer DVD-R. If you could get nearly an hour of HD on a DVD that would be truely useful. I'll have to check out imgburn. It looks like you can create a BD image file in Encore and ImgBurn will write it to DVD-R, playable on BR player. Sweet!

John Rich · June 24th, 2008, 02:37 PM

Bob,
Sorry to repeat, but the BluRay "image" will not play on the PlayStation3, but the BluRay "folder" edited by BDEdit and burned by ImgBurn will play on the PS3 and other BluRay players as well.

Since there are a lot of PS3's around, that should be considered. The editing process isn't that hard or lengthy. If you get a chance check out the tutorial here on how to edit the BluRay folder.
http://jmrser.com/Tutorials.html
I'm still not sure the dual layer technique will work out.
John

Robert Young · June 24th, 2008, 03:54 PM

I will definitely check out the tutorial. The AVCHD cam should arrive tomorrow. My first priority is to check out the camera, then the Prospect HD workflow, then Prospect to Flash, DVD, etc. (with critical comparison of AVCHD against HD & HDV as an aquisition source), and the finale will be to burn HD to DVD-R.
I'm sure there will be many bumps in the road, but I feel that I have excellent resources to get it sorted out thanks to you.

Robert Young · June 27th, 2008, 01:56 AM

Pleasant surprise indeed!!
I shot some test footage with the Sony SR12 AVCHD cam, imported the clips with the Sony Picture Motion Browser software.
Anyway, I exported the edited Prospect 1080x1920 CFHD timeline to Blu Ray mpeg (Adobe Media Encoder), imported into Encore CS3, authored a Blu Ray mpeg2 project, and exported as an image file. I then used ImgBurn to write the image file to DVD-R disk, fully expecting to get no more than a coaster out of it, but to my surprise and gratitude, the Sony BDP-S300 player loaded and played the movie in 1080i without a hitch. Looked good too- I'm thinking as good as HDV tape from much bigger cams.
There was no need to use a BD project folder, edit the index file, etc. The BD player is brand new, straight from SonyStyle.com- maybe there is new firmware that's making it easy, or maybe it's just a difference between BD player and Play Station 3.
In any case, it looks like the workflow from AVCHD acquisition> ingest> CFHD.avi editing> delivery to DVD, Flash, BD, etc., is going to be much more straightfoward than I first feared.

John Rich · June 27th, 2008, 06:18 AM

Bob,
That's great. You can keep the folder editing idea in your backpocket in case you come upon a client with a PlayStation3.

I was wondering why you used the Media Encoder to encode your cineform timeline instead of using the Export - Movie etc. Do you think it works better?

I always thought that Encore CS3 re-encoded all the stuff that came into it anyway. Is that your experience.

I read your thread about interlacing, etc
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=121247 and was using it for my workflow, so I was wondering if you had changed your workflow.

Thanks for your help.
John

Robert Young · June 27th, 2008, 11:56 AM

John
I was just doing a quick test, so it was easy to render BR mpeg straight from the timeline with AME and take it to Encore. You can certainly render the timeline to a CFHD avi movie, import into Encore and let Encore do the transcode. I don't know what will turn out to be the best way to go.
RE: interlacing- the workflow I am using now for HD and HDV is to shoot in 60i, import as 1080x1920 30p CFHD avi in Premiere CS3, Prospect HD 1080x1920 30p project. The final edit seems to travel well to DVD, Flash, iTunes, and now, apparently, to BR on DVD-R.
I will do my first actual project in AVCHD this weekend. We'll see how it all works in the real world.

Robert Young · July 17th, 2008, 11:57 AM

I have a DL burner, and it looks like ImgBurn will support DL, so when I get a longer project I'm ready to try it.
The other interesting info in that thread was to encode the Cineform CFHD avi to h.264 for BR instead of BR mpeg as I have been doing. I noticed that I had various problems with playback when I tried to use data rates higher than 18mbs for DVD-R BR mpeg. It sounds like using BR h.264 @ 20 mbs on DVD-R will work and should encode better imagery. I'll try that tonite.

John Rich · July 17th, 2008, 03:56 PM

Bob,
I missed the H264 part of the thread, so thanks for pointing it out. I've been using the MPEG2 at 20 mbs (the default for me was 15), and so far haven't had any trouble with my disks on my PS3.
However, I'll be interested to hear what you come up with on your test.
John

June 20th, 2008, 05:23 PM	#1
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	AVCHD & Haali Splitter I followed Cineform's link to the Haali website to download the splitter. The page is a bit confusing in that it contains extensive info on the "Haali Splitter" but only had a download button for the "Matroska Splitter". Are these one and the same?? Thanks __________________ Bob

June 21st, 2008, 05:52 AM	#2
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	Yeah, figuring out the AVCHD workflow via Cineform was a bit of a hassle as it isn't formally documented in the user manual provided as part of the install of current versions of their software. But after digging around the forums and elsewhere a bit I think I have it working properly. Just download the "matroskasplitter.exe" file and install the software from that executable. Then you can ignore it; Cineform uses it automatically. __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!

June 23rd, 2008, 11:42 AM	#3
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	Thanks Pete. Now I have something new to tinker with. Another topic I am having difficulty finding documentation on is the workflow for burning AVCHD to DVD-R to view short projects as HD on BD players. I would like to take AVCHD clips to Prospect 1080x 1920 60i, edit, transcode the finished CFHD back to AVCHD (Procoder 3: 1920x1080 60i AVCH.264 as .m2ts @ 17mbs VBR) and burn to DVD-R in Encore CS3. Will Encore accept the AVCHD .m2ts into a DVD project and burn it to DVD-R, or is this going to be a lot more complicated??? __________________ Bob Last edited by Robert Young; June 23rd, 2008 at 02:03 PM.

June 23rd, 2008, 08:30 PM	#5
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	John Thanks for your response. As I dig into this I can see that Encore will not do what I need natively. So far, it seems like 2 fairly simple possibilities: 1) Sony has a simple software tool that ships with it's AVCHD consumer cams: "Picture Motion Browser". I gather that it will burn AVCHD to DVD-R and play as HD on Blu Ray player. It's for consumers to easily unload AVCHD clips from the cam and make a viewable HD disk on a typical home computer. If it works for CFHD edits transcoded to AVCHD I'll be home free (I don't need menus, interactivity, etc.) I'll try that when I get my hands on it. 2) Apparently Nero will burn AVCHD to DVD-R- that will be my second choice, I suppose. If I make decent headway, and the HD imagery actually looks as good as HDV tape on HDTV, I will post the workflow. If it pans out, it could be more convenient than tape for viewing/exhibiting any HD project less than 30 min in length, regardless of codec of origin (HD, HDV, AVCHD, etc.). I'm also thinking that there may be some way to get 60 min of program on a dual layer DVD-R. That could actually give this idea some legs. We'll see. __________________ Bob

June 24th, 2008, 02:18 AM	#6
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	O.K, a little more research, a few more posts back and forth with some people and the path to DVD-R "Blu Ray" is becoming more clear. Apparently the Sony "Picture Motion Browser" software that comes with the little AVCHD cams is a clip browser for viewing avchd files that it converts to m2ts ("Blu Ray mpeg") files for your computer, and also a very simple BD authoring app that will burn Blu Ray mpeg to DVD-R, and play @ 1920x 1080 in BD players. It needs .m2ts files to do this. So, I export my Cineform 1920x1080 60i avi timeline to Encore and let it author a BD Folder, which will contain the m2ts stream of the movie (which when played on VLC Media Player @ full screen, looks quite good- as good as HDV tape on HDTV, I think). The m2ts file is imported from the Blu ray folder into the Sony software and it will author the HD product and burn to DVD-R disk. I should have the Sony software in a couple of days and will confirm this. __________________ Bob

June 23rd, 2008, 07:53 PM	#4
John Rich Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dayton, Ohio Posts: 80	I just wanted to appologize for not paying attention to the fact that you were using AVCHD when I had previously mentioned a way to burn a Bluray project to a DVD-R disk. When I did it, I converted the HDV from a HV20 using HDLink to a Cineform .avi file, edited it in Premiere Pro CS3 and then let Encore encode it to an MPEG2 file when it created the BluRay project. I believe you have to use the Encore BluRay Project settings to create the BDMV folder to use this. I suppose you could do something similar and see if it worked. As long as you wind up with a BDMV folder, you might be able to edit the Index file and then use ImgBurn to make the disk (using just a regular DVD burner). You also should make sure the firmware of your BluRAy player was up to date, since that has been a problem for some players apparently (out of date firmware). I'd be interested to hear how it works. John Rich

June 24th, 2008, 05:46 AM	#7
John Rich Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dayton, Ohio Posts: 80	Bob, I posted this over at the Adobe BluRay forum. I think you should be able to make a fully functional BluRay project with menus that can be burned with a regular DVD burner to a DVD-+R disk using this. I originally tried Nero to do this, but ImgBurn is much better and quicker. If you're interested you could check out this tutorial at jmrser.com (at the bottom of the list). This disk will play on actual bluray players for big screen TV's. http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b...2.obwJiiceW2n@ John

June 24th, 2008, 12:02 PM	#8
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	Thanks John. That looks promising as well, particularly the notion of burning dual layer DVD-R. If you could get nearly an hour of HD on a DVD that would be truely useful. I'll have to check out imgburn. It looks like you can create a BD image file in Encore and ImgBurn will write it to DVD-R, playable on BR player. Sweet! __________________ Bob

June 24th, 2008, 02:37 PM	#9
John Rich Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dayton, Ohio Posts: 80	Bob, Sorry to repeat, but the BluRay "image" will not play on the PlayStation3, but the BluRay "folder" edited by BDEdit and burned by ImgBurn will play on the PS3 and other BluRay players as well. Since there are a lot of PS3's around, that should be considered. The editing process isn't that hard or lengthy. If you get a chance check out the tutorial here on how to edit the BluRay folder. http://jmrser.com/Tutorials.html I'm still not sure the dual layer technique will work out. John

June 24th, 2008, 03:54 PM	#10
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	I will definitely check out the tutorial. The AVCHD cam should arrive tomorrow. My first priority is to check out the camera, then the Prospect HD workflow, then Prospect to Flash, DVD, etc. (with critical comparison of AVCHD against HD & HDV as an aquisition source), and the finale will be to burn HD to DVD-R. I'm sure there will be many bumps in the road, but I feel that I have excellent resources to get it sorted out thanks to you. __________________ Bob

June 27th, 2008, 01:56 AM	#11
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	Pleasant surprise indeed!! I shot some test footage with the Sony SR12 AVCHD cam, imported the clips with the Sony Picture Motion Browser software. Anyway, I exported the edited Prospect 1080x1920 CFHD timeline to Blu Ray mpeg (Adobe Media Encoder), imported into Encore CS3, authored a Blu Ray mpeg2 project, and exported as an image file. I then used ImgBurn to write the image file to DVD-R disk, fully expecting to get no more than a coaster out of it, but to my surprise and gratitude, the Sony BDP-S300 player loaded and played the movie in 1080i without a hitch. Looked good too- I'm thinking as good as HDV tape from much bigger cams. There was no need to use a BD project folder, edit the index file, etc. The BD player is brand new, straight from SonyStyle.com- maybe there is new firmware that's making it easy, or maybe it's just a difference between BD player and Play Station 3. In any case, it looks like the workflow from AVCHD acquisition> ingest> CFHD.avi editing> delivery to DVD, Flash, BD, etc., is going to be much more straightfoward than I first feared. __________________ Bob

June 27th, 2008, 06:18 AM	#12
John Rich Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dayton, Ohio Posts: 80	Bob, That's great. You can keep the folder editing idea in your backpocket in case you come upon a client with a PlayStation3. I was wondering why you used the Media Encoder to encode your cineform timeline instead of using the Export - Movie etc. Do you think it works better? I always thought that Encore CS3 re-encoded all the stuff that came into it anyway. Is that your experience. I read your thread about interlacing, etc http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=121247 and was using it for my workflow, so I was wondering if you had changed your workflow. Thanks for your help. John

June 27th, 2008, 11:56 AM	#13
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	John I was just doing a quick test, so it was easy to render BR mpeg straight from the timeline with AME and take it to Encore. You can certainly render the timeline to a CFHD avi movie, import into Encore and let Encore do the transcode. I don't know what will turn out to be the best way to go. RE: interlacing- the workflow I am using now for HD and HDV is to shoot in 60i, import as 1080x1920 30p CFHD avi in Premiere CS3, Prospect HD 1080x1920 30p project. The final edit seems to travel well to DVD, Flash, iTunes, and now, apparently, to BR on DVD-R. I will do my first actual project in AVCHD this weekend. We'll see how it all works in the real world. __________________ Bob

July 17th, 2008, 11:57 AM	#14
Robert Young Trustee Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Coronado Island Posts: 1,472	I have a DL burner, and it looks like ImgBurn will support DL, so when I get a longer project I'm ready to try it. The other interesting info in that thread was to encode the Cineform CFHD avi to h.264 for BR instead of BR mpeg as I have been doing. I noticed that I had various problems with playback when I tried to use data rates higher than 18mbs for DVD-R BR mpeg. It sounds like using BR h.264 @ 20 mbs on DVD-R will work and should encode better imagery. I'll try that tonite. __________________ Bob

July 17th, 2008, 03:56 PM	#15
John Rich Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dayton, Ohio Posts: 80	Bob, I missed the H264 part of the thread, so thanks for pointing it out. I've been using the MPEG2 at 20 mbs (the default for me was 15), and so far haven't had any trouble with my disks on my PS3. However, I'll be interested to hear what you come up with on your test. John