Apple/HDV editing stuff and links

[Heath McKnight]

Solutions, links, questions and answers about Apple and HDV editing solutions go here!

(Note: I'm sure many of you know most of this, but it's probably good to have it all in one convenient place.)

Before you do anything, surf over here, if you've never been (I FINALLY did!). Not much to see, but it shows that Apple (cough, cough!) can find out about licensing HDV for, well, helping us Apple Heads out:

http://www.hdv-info.org/

1. Well, Heuris' package looks nice, but at nearly $5,000 (!!!), it's a rip-off. I'd rather buy the AJA Kona HD/Io (SD) cards combo pack for the same price!

http://www.heuris.com/MPEGProducts/I...lkit/index.htm

It does have some steps, not unlike some of the stuff Mullen and Mogg mention (of course, I'm not talking only about HDVCinema or Paul's solution). Here's a link to the list, as I don't want to have (c) issues with Heuris:

http://www.heuris.com/MPEGProducts/I...t/features.htm

2. And of course, our own Steve Mullen offers his solution here: http://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c/

Now, I'm hoping someone can take over with links to other solutions, because everything else is PC-based (Vitrual PC, anyone, or will I crash my G5?). Paul, et al, can you put up links in a post and maybe some instructions on how you figured out how to edit HDV on the Apple?

Also, to create clickable links, make one of these:



Note: DON'T put a space between the lfirst "]" and the next "[" like I did. Then, put the website url in between there. It will make a link for people to click on.

heath

[Chris Hurd]

Good idea, Heath, and we'll try to get the Aspect HD guys back in here.

[Heath McKnight]

I'd like to keep this thread open to the solutions. If Paul, Eric, etc. can post up their solutions with instructions, that would keep it in one place.

heath

[Paul Mogg]

Here's some interesting information from the moderator over at the ffmpegx forum, who I've ben trying to cajole into supporting HD encoding in ffmpegx, which he says he will do, but I have no timeframe on this, to quote from his post......



"I should mention .. main concept will be releasing thier stand alone encoder for both macs and linux - prob. by the end of the year . it encodes to HD and also transport streams (mpeg audio only - for now) .."
_________________

"it (MC for MAC and linux) was anounced at several trade shows and info on it is on several german web sites....

it is already on the mac if you bought adobe premiere for mac and main concept is releasing several of their products already on the linux platform ..."

[Darren Kelly]

I had a conversation with Main Concept, and it is not expected to be released for the MAC anytime soon. Look to 2nd Q of 2004.

DBK

[Paul Mogg]

...another one bites the dust!

Thanks Darren

[Heath McKnight]

Paul,

Can you please post up your solution with all the steps. Keeping it unified is the way to go, all the edit solutions for Apple.

That way, it's in one place we can all check.

Thanks,

heath

[Eric Bilodeau]

My "alternative" is described very thoroughly at lumiereHDV: http://lumieremedia.com/hdv/viewtopic.php?t=8 . It is not a solution, rather an alternative, much like HDV cinema exept for the fact that my alternative does not provide a way to get back to the camera (only HDV cinema does but with the use of either a PC or virtual PC).

[Heath McKnight]

You need Virtual PC and Womble, I believe, to go back to the camera (and I think DVHS).

heath

[Paul Mogg]

Editing JVC1OU footage on the Mac

1) Import footage into the Mac from the camera via firewire using the Apple utility called "DVHScap" that is available free from the Apple website as part of the "Firewire SDK18" package.

2)"Demux" the .m2t files captured from the camera (that are in MPEG2 Transport Stream format) to MPEG2 Program Stream, using the shareware utility called "mpgtxwrap". This results in an .m2v file (video) and an .mp3 file (audio)

You now have a choice to make. Do you want to end up with a final master file in the original MPEG2 TS (Transport Stream) format? (for which there is currently no complete Mac-only solution). Or do you want to end up with a master file in some other Quicktime HD format like Pixlet?

3) If you don’t want to end up back with an MPEG2 TS file, you can simply use the shareware utility called MM2C (which itself uses Quicktime conversion) to convert your .m2v files directly to another Quicktime codec that you CAN edit with FCP, and use iTunes to convert the .mp3 file to an .aiff file . I currently am using the new Quicktime codec called “Pixlet” which plays very well on the new G5 dual 2ghz machines, and is fully editable in FCP, though it doesn’t allow real-time effects while editing. I don’t know how it performs on slower machines.
There are other codec choices that may be equal or better than Pixlet, but I haven’t tried them personally.

4) If you are concerned about the possible loss in quality inherent in editing a compressed video format in FCP, you can decompress all of your .m2v files to uncompressed video using MM2C by choosing “none” for the Quicktime convertion options. (this takes masses of hard drive space) You can then do a “Proxy” or “Offline” edit of that uncompressed material in FCP. All this means is that you simply make a copy of all of the uncompressed material you plan to edit, in any format you choose that is acceptable for editing in FCP (including DV or Pixlet or OflineRT). Then, once you have finished editing in that format, you effectively “swap out” all of the edited (DV or Pixlet or Offline RT) material in your timeline, for the uncompressed material sitting on your hard drive (which would normally be un-editable due to it’s sheer size). You then just tell FCP to render it all while you take a short vacation in Hawaii. Eh Voila! You have an uncompressed HD master sitting on your hard drive, which you can then convert to whatever other formats you choose.

5) If you DO want to end up with an MPEG2 TS file, and have a PC connected on a Network with your Mac, it is possible to get your edited final file back to the original MPEG2 TS format that it started out life as, (it is currently not possible to do this only on the Mac) but this requires you to buy extra software on the PC, specifically a low-end editor called “Womble” ($120 www.womble.com). This editor will actually edit the MPEG2 TS files just as they, in their native format, in a very simple way, though I’ve so far found this program to be unreliable for editing. If you’ve already got a fast PC setup, you may well just choose to go with a complete PC based editing solution such as Aspect HD or Vegas Video, which from all accounts sound very complete solutions.

[Heath McKnight]

Paul,

You rock. Now, about DVHSCap, do you recommend that or the virtual DVHS? Or am I off my rocker again?

heath

[Eric Bilodeau]

You should try the DC30+ lossless codec instead of "none" in the QT compression, much less disk space! ( http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/dc30xact.html )

Paul's alternative is prety much the same as mine (since this one has been a joint development of many people on the DVI forum over the last months), on the link I gave though, there are different compression schemes and their byterate (not bitrate) to give an idea on QT codecs possibilities.

[Eric Bilodeau]

virtual DVHS is more reliable, sometimes DVHScap bugs (loss of signal, camera not recognised). Also virtualDVHS allows batch output to camera of m2t files.

[Paul Mogg]

Thanks Eric, that lossless codec sounds very useful, I'll have to try it. Yes none of this is a big secret, it's just standard offline editing, that's why it always bugged me a bit that Steve Mullen made it out to be more complex, and a unique invention.
The one very valuable piece that Steve Mullen's package did provide was a re-worked version of a shareware MPEG2 encoder called Mpeg2enc, which Steve re-compiled to be able to encode HD on the Mac (though I haven't tried it and reports are mixed as to whether it works), though the guys over at ffmpegx forum who wrote this, tell me this is a fairly simple change that they plan to make themselves shortly.

Anyway, this enables you to get to MPEG2 PS (program stream) on the Mac, but not to MPEG2 TS (transport stream), and the only way I know to do this, is on a PC using Womble. There are of course a couple of solutions for all of this on the Mac, notably Heuris and one other, but they both cost in the $3,000 to $5000 range, which is fine if you have the cash.

The other point is, that if you've got to go to the PC anway, to do PS to TS conversion, you may as well do your encoding to HD MPEG2 PS on the PC, using the $60 Tmpgenc shareware encoder, which basically eliminated the need for Steve's package alltogether.

One other possible option for encoding on the PC, that I haven't tried, is that Womble says it accepts Motion Jpeg files as input, so it will theoretically also encode to HD resolution MPEG2_TS from that format, which you could output from FCP, it's worth investigating.

[Heath McKnight]

<<One other possible option for encoding on the PC, that I haven't tried, is that Womble says it accepts Motion Jpeg files as input, so it will theoretically also encode to HD resolution MPEG2_TS from that format, which you could output from FCP, it's worth investigating.


__________________
Paul>>

Man, Paul, I want to try that! But without the camera...Okay, I'll shut up about that now! It's being used for good things!

heath