Amateur Recital Video Editing

Ron Evans · June 17th, 2011, 08:30 PM

TMPGenc is straight forward not sure what you are doing. Start new project>Source> Input file>Format> select DVD standardMPEG file preset( select NTSC, prioritize: quality, Aspect ratio: 16x9,rate control VBR, audio: Dolby Digital)> Select> adjust ", set bit rate,( you will see how the bit rate effects the disc fill on the bottom scale)( VBR is 2 pass and the time you stated is about correct for 2 hour file I normally set the 8000kb/s limit too, I normally press the arrows on the average bit rate box until the disc is at about 4G fill on the scale )>Press OK . On this page I set DC precision to 10bit and motion search to highest. Select ES seperate video and audio> encode.Select where the file is to go.> Start.

TMPGenc will set field order correctly for NTSC so do not touch. I normally choose separate video and audio files as most authoring programs prefer this form. 2 Hour program should have an average bit rate around 4000.

These instruction are for TMPGenc 4Xpress but they are much the same for T5 other than the motion search is now under the advanced settings or can be set as computer performance "slow".

Ron Evans

Brad Ridgeway · June 18th, 2011, 09:34 AM

I think I've determined that TMPGenc doesn't read my Cineform files correctly because I am not seeing anything but black screen in the preview window. It doesn't give any errors and appears to be encoding, but it's not reading the file correctly. I can open and play the Cineform files with Windows Media Play, but VLC media player says No Suitable Decoder Module.

Ron Evans · June 18th, 2011, 11:27 AM

When you open the file in TMPGenc does it recognize it correctly? If you press Cut-edit can you scroll through the video? If you can do this then TMPGenc is recognizing the file and will be able to decode it. YOu will not see anything in the preview window when it is encoding unless you have specified ShFT+Ctrl+P when you are on the final window and start encoding. Its the button on the right.

Ron Evans

Brad Ridgeway · June 18th, 2011, 12:17 PM

TMPGenc allows me to to load my file as the video source just fine (no errors) but when I choose preview it shows just a black screen with no video. It shows the correct number of frames, length, etc, but just a black screen. Screen shots are attached. I'm stumped. I was really hoping to use TMPGenc for encoding before authoring the DVDs. For some reason TMPGenc is seeing the Cineform files properly. I can load other AVI files into TMPGenc with no problem and be able to preview them, but not these Cineform files.

Ron Evans · June 18th, 2011, 12:40 PM

On your TMPGenc T5 preferences , click on AVI and it will list all the codecs. Is Cineform there? My T5 shows Cineform HD Codec v 5.1.4 ( CFHD) . Do you see the video in the Cut-Edit window?

Ron Evans

Ron Evans · June 18th, 2011, 01:16 PM

I have attached the full sequence in T5. Hope this isn't too big.

Ron

Brad Ridgeway · June 18th, 2011, 02:13 PM

Thanks Ron...

I downloaded a different version that what you are using. I have the following...

I will see if I can download a trial version of the Authoring Works and see if that works for me.

Ron Evans · June 18th, 2011, 02:23 PM

Try Masterworks 5 which is what I took the pictures from . It is very similar to version 4. Authorworks is the complete authoring program.

Ron Evans

Brad Ridgeway · June 19th, 2011, 10:30 AM

Masterworks 5 worked GREAT! Thanks Ron for the help.

Ron Evans · June 19th, 2011, 06:35 PM

Good . When you 've played with the defaults you may want to look at the help file a little and familiarize yourself with the filter section. Of particular interest is the re size filter which is always active. If you are downsizing square pixel input you should uncheck the " keep aspect ratio" box for 16x9 as this will avoid side bars when played on a PC. Something I didn't want to confuse you with on your first try as it all still works.

Ron Evans

Brad Ridgeway · June 19th, 2011, 07:59 PM

Ok... I'm not so pleased with my first attempt at resizing the video to DVD format. I am rendering out of Vegas using Cineform (YUV 4:2:2) and then using TMPGEnc for the resize. The picture quality is pretty poor and I'm thinking that maybe 2 hr and 20 min is too much to try to compress onto one DVD. Do you guys think it is the quantity causing the poor quality or could it be something else? I'm experimenting now with only putting 1 hr and 40 min onto a DVD to see how the quality compares. If it improves, this project is going to become a 3 disc set instead of just 2 discs.

Ron Evans · June 19th, 2011, 08:20 PM

At 2 hours 20 mins the quality will be less. What are you comparing the quality against. To the original HD it will always be poor even if you only put 1 hour on a DVD at max SD DVD quality. How does it compare to a VHS tape or a cheap commercial DVD? What are you watching it on?

Ron Evans

Brad Ridgeway · June 20th, 2011, 09:11 AM

Not really comparing the quality to anything specific. Watching on a Vizio 32" plasma from a "cheap" DVD player doesn't look too bad from about 10 feet away, but up close the faces of the dancers are pretty fuzzy. I made another DVD with 1hr 40min on it, but haven't got a chance to review it yet to compare to the previous.

Ron Evans · June 20th, 2011, 09:36 AM

Unless you playback from a Bluray/upscaling player the resolution could be less than 1/4 of the original so up close will be fuzzy as you are depending on the TV for the scaling which will likely not change the resolution just scale to the pixel dimension. ie 720x480 of the SD to likely 1280x720 for you 32" plasma. A cheap commercial DVD might just look the same. Simplistically where you had 4 distinct pixels in your original as square box you now have 4 pixels all the same for the SD image displayed with simple scaling. It can of course look even worse. This is the problem of watching any SD image on a HD TV. Poor encoding makes the issue even more visible. The farther away you view the screen the better it looks as unless your playback system upscales your watching a SD image.

Upscaling players do make a big difference. On my 240hz Sony LCD playback from a Sony Bluray player the SD DVD's look good from 12'. Not as good as the Bluray but to most people are close enough. Playback to my 26" Viewsonic LCD doesn't look so good at all !!!

Ron Evans

Brad Ridgeway · June 20th, 2011, 01:08 PM

The 1hr 40min DVD doesn't seem to have any better quality than the 2hr 20min DVD when watched on my plasma TV. I am going to try playing back with other DVD players and other TVs to see the differences.

I think I got used to seeing so much of the footage in HD during editing that I am a little disappointed when seeing it in the SD format. I just ordered a Blu-Ray burner and I am considering offering the customers a Blu-Ray version. As of right now I have about 60 orders for the 2-disc DVD set and don't expect to get any more because everything was advanced sales. I think that upon delivery I will include a note in the DVD packaging that a blu ray version could also be available for about $10 each. I've already covered most of my costs with the DVD sales so I just need to try to recover the costs of the BR discs and part of the burner. I'm not sure how many peole would even consider the BR option as I myself do not even have a BR player.

My question now becomes if I do decide to offer a blu ray version, how does my work flow change from what I doing for the DVD version? Will I still need 2 BR discs as I did with he DVD? The DVD disc1 is 2hr 20min and disc2 is 2hr 7min. How will the quality of the blu ray discs compare to my original AVCHD footage? Is this even a good idea or should I jsut deliver the DVDs as is?

June 17th, 2011, 08:30 PM	#61
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing TMPGenc is straight forward not sure what you are doing. Start new project>Source> Input file>Format> select DVD standardMPEG file preset( select NTSC, prioritize: quality, Aspect ratio: 16x9,rate control VBR, audio: Dolby Digital)> Select> adjust ", set bit rate,( you will see how the bit rate effects the disc fill on the bottom scale)( VBR is 2 pass and the time you stated is about correct for 2 hour file I normally set the 8000kb/s limit too, I normally press the arrows on the average bit rate box until the disc is at about 4G fill on the scale )>Press OK . On this page I set DC precision to 10bit and motion search to highest. Select ES seperate video and audio> encode.Select where the file is to go.> Start. TMPGenc will set field order correctly for NTSC so do not touch. I normally choose separate video and audio files as most authoring programs prefer this form. 2 Hour program should have an average bit rate around 4000. These instruction are for TMPGenc 4Xpress but they are much the same for T5 other than the motion search is now under the advanced settings or can be set as computer performance "slow". Ron Evans

June 18th, 2011, 09:34 AM	#62
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing I think I've determined that TMPGenc doesn't read my Cineform files correctly because I am not seeing anything but black screen in the preview window. It doesn't give any errors and appears to be encoding, but it's not reading the file correctly. I can open and play the Cineform files with Windows Media Play, but VLC media player says No Suitable Decoder Module.

June 18th, 2011, 11:27 AM	#63
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing When you open the file in TMPGenc does it recognize it correctly? If you press Cut-edit can you scroll through the video? If you can do this then TMPGenc is recognizing the file and will be able to decode it. YOu will not see anything in the preview window when it is encoding unless you have specified ShFT+Ctrl+P when you are on the final window and start encoding. Its the button on the right. Ron Evans

June 18th, 2011, 12:17 PM	#64
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing TMPGenc allows me to to load my file as the video source just fine (no errors) but when I choose preview it shows just a black screen with no video. It shows the correct number of frames, length, etc, but just a black screen. Screen shots are attached. I'm stumped. I was really hoping to use TMPGenc for encoding before authoring the DVDs. For some reason TMPGenc is seeing the Cineform files properly. I can load other AVI files into TMPGenc with no problem and be able to preview them, but not these Cineform files. Attached Thumbnails

June 18th, 2011, 12:40 PM	#65
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing On your TMPGenc T5 preferences , click on AVI and it will list all the codecs. Is Cineform there? My T5 shows Cineform HD Codec v 5.1.4 ( CFHD) . Do you see the video in the Cut-Edit window? Ron Evans

June 18th, 2011, 01:16 PM	#66
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing I have attached the full sequence in T5. Hope this isn't too big. Ron Attached Thumbnails

June 18th, 2011, 02:13 PM	#67
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Thanks Ron... I downloaded a different version that what you are using. I have the following... I will see if I can download a trial version of the Authoring Works and see if that works for me. Attached Thumbnails

June 18th, 2011, 02:23 PM	#68
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Try Masterworks 5 which is what I took the pictures from . It is very similar to version 4. Authorworks is the complete authoring program. Ron Evans

June 19th, 2011, 10:30 AM	#69
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Masterworks 5 worked GREAT! Thanks Ron for the help.

June 19th, 2011, 06:35 PM	#70
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Good . When you 've played with the defaults you may want to look at the help file a little and familiarize yourself with the filter section. Of particular interest is the re size filter which is always active. If you are downsizing square pixel input you should uncheck the " keep aspect ratio" box for 16x9 as this will avoid side bars when played on a PC. Something I didn't want to confuse you with on your first try as it all still works. Ron Evans

June 19th, 2011, 07:59 PM	#71
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Ok... I'm not so pleased with my first attempt at resizing the video to DVD format. I am rendering out of Vegas using Cineform (YUV 4:2:2) and then using TMPGEnc for the resize. The picture quality is pretty poor and I'm thinking that maybe 2 hr and 20 min is too much to try to compress onto one DVD. Do you guys think it is the quantity causing the poor quality or could it be something else? I'm experimenting now with only putting 1 hr and 40 min onto a DVD to see how the quality compares. If it improves, this project is going to become a 3 disc set instead of just 2 discs.

June 19th, 2011, 08:20 PM	#72
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing At 2 hours 20 mins the quality will be less. What are you comparing the quality against. To the original HD it will always be poor even if you only put 1 hour on a DVD at max SD DVD quality. How does it compare to a VHS tape or a cheap commercial DVD? What are you watching it on? Ron Evans

June 20th, 2011, 09:11 AM	#73
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Not really comparing the quality to anything specific. Watching on a Vizio 32" plasma from a "cheap" DVD player doesn't look too bad from about 10 feet away, but up close the faces of the dancers are pretty fuzzy. I made another DVD with 1hr 40min on it, but haven't got a chance to review it yet to compare to the previous.

June 20th, 2011, 09:36 AM	#74
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing Unless you playback from a Bluray/upscaling player the resolution could be less than 1/4 of the original so up close will be fuzzy as you are depending on the TV for the scaling which will likely not change the resolution just scale to the pixel dimension. ie 720x480 of the SD to likely 1280x720 for you 32" plasma. A cheap commercial DVD might just look the same. Simplistically where you had 4 distinct pixels in your original as square box you now have 4 pixels all the same for the SD image displayed with simple scaling. It can of course look even worse. This is the problem of watching any SD image on a HD TV. Poor encoding makes the issue even more visible. The farther away you view the screen the better it looks as unless your playback system upscales your watching a SD image. Upscaling players do make a big difference. On my 240hz Sony LCD playback from a Sony Bluray player the SD DVD's look good from 12'. Not as good as the Bluray but to most people are close enough. Playback to my 26" Viewsonic LCD doesn't look so good at all !!! Ron Evans

June 20th, 2011, 01:08 PM	#75
Brad Ridgeway Regular Crew Join Date: May 2011 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 108	Re: Amateur Recital Video Editing The 1hr 40min DVD doesn't seem to have any better quality than the 2hr 20min DVD when watched on my plasma TV. I am going to try playing back with other DVD players and other TVs to see the differences. I think I got used to seeing so much of the footage in HD during editing that I am a little disappointed when seeing it in the SD format. I just ordered a Blu-Ray burner and I am considering offering the customers a Blu-Ray version. As of right now I have about 60 orders for the 2-disc DVD set and don't expect to get any more because everything was advanced sales. I think that upon delivery I will include a note in the DVD packaging that a blu ray version could also be available for about $10 each. I've already covered most of my costs with the DVD sales so I just need to try to recover the costs of the BR discs and part of the burner. I'm not sure how many peole would even consider the BR option as I myself do not even have a BR player. My question now becomes if I do decide to offer a blu ray version, how does my work flow change from what I doing for the DVD version? Will I still need 2 BR discs as I did with he DVD? The DVD disc1 is 2hr 20min and disc2 is 2hr 7min. How will the quality of the blu ray discs compare to my original AVCHD footage? Is this even a good idea or should I jsut deliver the DVDs as is?