Cinelerra and HVX200

[Ivan Castell]

Hi,

(Note: I already posted it here in ubuntuforums, but it seems more suitable to post it here as it's more NLE users intended forum)

I'm using cinelerra for the last 2-3 months for NLE, mainly DV for the time being. I'm working on a AMD64 intel HT 3.2GHz, 1GB RAM.

2 SATA HDD:

* HDD A (160 GB):
- Ubuntu (ext3)
- Windows Xp (ntfs)
- Home (ext3)

* HDD B (160 GB):
- swap
- video (fat32) - only for editing.

I know that I should use another filesystem for the video partition, but I did it when I was a window user and ntfs write in ubuntu wasn't as safe as it is right now.

Before I've been working with Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. I've swtched to Ubuntu 2 years ago and I'm really happy about my move.

I'll love to have some feedback about cinelerra users, because there's some stuff I was used to, or I want to do, and I'm not quite sure how to do it or if I'll able to do it. I'll really appretiate some discussion.

First: I'm planning to shot in october with the panasonic HVX200, that works with P2 cards. In the case I'm not able tog et that camera, I'll probably use a DVX100. I'll love to use my cinelerra to edit it but:

1) MXF format (native format for the HVX200 P2 cards) isn't supported in cinelerra. I've tried yesterday to convert some mxf into something that cinelerra can handle, but I didn't achieve.

I've used the sample P2 card image provided by raylight here.

Then I've used mxflib to extract the raw stream from the mxf wrapper. According to the author, the utility MXFsplit "can extract essence from any Generic-Container based wrapping". As I didn't manage to compile mxflib on my linux, I've used the win32 binaries via wine.

Using mxfsplit, I can extract the video from the mxf provided in the VIDEO folder. My ubuntu think it's a Generic DV file. No player seems to detect it (mplayer, xine or totem). Avidemux thinks it's a mpeg file an try to index it, and it fails.

Well, trying to import it directly into cinelerra doesn't crash. IN fact the stream is imported but only squares and lines with no sense show up.

So, 3 questions arises:

- Did MXFSplit fails to extract the raw content or it's just a matter of using other parameters?
- The content is extrated correctly but it's my ubuntu that can't read it.
- The content is really some squares and lines with no sense.

In any case, I'll love to convert it into something that cinelerra can handle, ideally some lossless (because DVCPRO HD is not supported by ffmpeg right now).

2) Apparently DVCPRO HD is a 100MB/s compressed file, so is not as CPU demanding as HDV. Will my system be able to handle it for simple editing (not rendering or post-processing): cuts, transitions, etc...?

3) If not, how difficult is to work via proxy files? I could downconvert the HD stuff into DV, and then edit my movie. Then "replace" the downconverted files with the HD sources files, to the final render. Is there some tutorial and/or howto?

4) The whole idea is to work with my linux. i'm planning to get some ram if needed. In case I finally shot with the HVX200 and still unable to import my footage into cinelerra, I could always capture it via windows or Mac (Final Cut Pro), but in something that cinelerra could read (h264 lossless maybe?).

Thanks a lot.

[Marcus van Bavel]

You'll have to use Raylight to convert MXF's to Raylight AVI's or if that does not work with Cinelerra, use DVFilm Maker to convert to uncompressed AVI or quicktime.

Raylight and Maker will run under XP or Wine. Raylight also has a command-line interface available that runs under linux.

[Ivan Castell]

Originally Posted by Marcus van Bavel

You'll have to use Raylight to convert MXF's to Raylight AVI's or if that does not work with Cinelerra, use DVFilm Maker to convert to uncompressed AVI or quicktime.

Raylight and Maker will run under XP or Wine. Raylight also has a command-line interface available that runs under linux.

Raylight standalone Avi's didn't work neither under cinelerra or using virtualdubmod (it crashes). I've used Dvfilm maker demo to convert the mxf to uncompressed Avi and it works.

In the mean time I've just know that mplayer has a built int mxf demuxer, so you can playback it. If mplayer can do this, then mencoder can convert it to something else.

Downloading more mxf samples from here:
http://www.freemxf.org/samples/index.html

And it plays directly in mplayer (it's mpeg2, DV muxed in a mxf file).

The P2 sample doesn't work because it's using the panasonic DVCPROHD codec, and there's no way to decode it in linux, so mplayer doesn't recognize the format and doesn't play it, so no way to convert it.

So, under linux there's no easy way to convert P2 footage and edit it. You'll have to use a commercial solution (raylight) under wine.

[Ivan Castell]

Well, in fact uncompressed AVIs converted from mxf via DVfilm works under totem, xine and mplayer, but cinelerra doesn't identify video. It's imported as audio only. Weird.