shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

hi there
I am recently shooting music lesson for the internet

can someone tell me what is the best combination of camcorder settings (I am using a Canon HF g10) and render settings?

my canon has a few Mbps settings, and typically I would have skipped the highest (24Mbps) but even at 17Mbps the file will be about 1.2GB for a 10 minutes movie (the average lenght of my clips), and it takes FOREVER to upload...

any help appreciated
Fed

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Are you talking Youtube? If so then imo, 24Mbps is overkill. <10Mbps, or maybe 12Mbps, should be plenty. That's if you're going straight online. If you can do some post production then it doesn't matter what your record at. Then use something much lower when you render. Best way to find out is test it. Shoot some 30 second test clips and upload them and check the quality. GL

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

You didn't say whether you're hosting you own videos or using a service such as YouTube or Vimeo.

That said, as a general rule, I'd shoot in the highest resolution your camera can record in, and render to h.264 (.mp4) progressive. The one exception might be to record in Progessive if you camera has that format as you will encounter fewer issues if you do not have to deinterlace.

Here's some things for you to look at:


HD Video for the Web - Guide for Vegas Users

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Thank you so much Jerry, actually I upload mainly to YouTube

I thought about shooting at 17Mbps or 12Mbps (1920*1080)and then encoding at Sony AVC 10mbps 1280*720 which should be a good compromise?

For instructional videos such as this should I shoot 50i rather than 25p?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

10Mbps 1280x720 Sony AVC should be fine. I'd suggest shooting in 25p - that way you don't have to worry about the trials and tribulations of deinterlacing.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

With the new Vegas 11 you can render and upload to YouTube directly from Vegas, which will figure out the right codec and bps for you. It works a lot faster than rendering it and then uploading with a web browser. And by faster I don’t just mean the time to upload but also the time for YouTube to process it after it is uploaded.

The only problem with it is that YouTube never tells Vegas it has completed the processing, so Vegas will sit there waiting forever and will refuse to quit even when you explicitly ask it to, so you have to tell Windows to kill Vegas. But SCS will probably fix that in 11a.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

well.. the Canon HF G10 shoots 25p in 50i, does this mean I still need to deinterlace?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Federico,

I'm pretty sure if you set up your project properties as shown in the attached image, you should be fine. However, I'd highly recommend a short test with your camera and a test render - just to be sure.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

thank you Jerry, you've been most helpful...still diggin' the documents you pointed me at....
great stuff

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

I tried this, it was easy and fast, quality at the low quality setting was very bad, but the script did terminate itself properly without having to kill.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Then you were lucky. I have used it three times and had to kill it every single time.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Hey guys,
I consider this my good deed for the day.
The following settings will let you upload HD 720p and SD 480p to Youtube WITH NO RECOMPRESSION.
In other words, when you upload, your vid is available as soon as it uploads without waiting for Youtube to recompress it.
You save bandwidth because you only give as much as they will use.
You can upload a Bluray but Youtube will compress it back to this.
You will have to adjust your frame rate to suit of course.
Profile for HD is "High" (didnt show in the pic)
These profiles come from the Sorenson Squeeze profile exchange, even though there seems to be a lot more settings in Squeeze, I transferred as much info as I could and it still works with our limited Vegas render settings.
cheers people.
:)

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

that's an interesting video. one question
is the Handbrake step necessary even with clips shot in progressive?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Hmmm... "necessary is a subjective word".

HandBrake improves upon Vegas in two areas:

1) Deinterlacing (HandBrake allows you to use the yadif deinterlace alogrithm, whereas Vegas is limited to blend or interpolate).
2) Resizing (it utilizes the Lanczos resizing alogrithm, whereas Vegas uses the bicubic or bilinear)

If you're not deinterlacing or resizing then I would think there's not much reason to use HandBrake.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

the reason I ask is that most tutorials (including the video from Vimeo - in the "better video" assumptions it states "720p is currently a better upload medium than 1080i) invite to resize to 1280*720 for Youtube, whereas I shoot in 1920*1080 - I don't understand why, as Youtube gives the option to view videos at 1080 (where applicable).

I wonder than if I should still use method 2 ("better") simply because I need to reside, even if I shoot progressive and not interlaced.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

I haven't kept up with this in recent months, so the following comment may be dated (i.e. wrong), so if others have further info, please correct me.

At one time, YouTube did not do a good job of processing 1080 video see: Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages and HandBrake did a better job at resizing than YouTube. Furthermore, it is easier to stream (i.e. progressively download) 720p and many folks don't have 1920x1080 monitors anyway, so 720p is (was?) a sweet spot for viewing.

Now, all that may have changed recently - so if anyone has more recent info, I'd like to hear it.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

thanks Jerry. if that's confirmed clearly there's merit in still using DNxHD and Handbrake as per method 2.
I think the emphasis (I gather) as key points to get the best are
1) shoot 1920*1080 at the maximum bitrate your camcorder allows (in my case 24Mbits), possibly progressive
2) once in Vegas, disable smart resample (that's me)
3) add "levels" plug in to balance the colours (computer RGB>studio RGB)
4) render to DNxHD intermediate codec using "best" render setting
5) render and resize to 720p using the suggested parameters with Handbrake

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Federico,

Good summary!

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Purely subjective, but I think 720p web distribution is still a sweet spot, even if acquiring in 1080i/p.

Although I have Vegas running on some heavier hardware, for my day to day I'm running a Core2Duo laptop, with a 1280x800 display. 720p looks great on it, for an increase in bitrate 1080p doesn't look any better.

But, even when I jump up to a 24" editing monitor at, um, 1920x1200, 720p still looks great.

Call me crazy if you will, but, even in an era of Youtube and increasing broadband access (urban more than rural), I think a "good enough" resolution of 720p at a relatively lower bitrate is better!

There are more and more 1080i/p (native resolution) projectors out there in home theaters, but I think that is still a small percentage; most are less than 720p.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Seth, I agree with you completely.
Whether I shoot at 1920 or not, I find that 720p is more than adequate for web purposes. In fact, if I know that the job is only for web use, I now shoot (with the Canon XF300) at 720 50p. This format even makes burning a SD DVD so much easier from within Vegas.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

++1. As a viewer I rarely watch 1080p when it's available because of the network load and buffering issues with most video sites. In general, 720p is just right on videos where I need to see a lot of detail like text on their monitor. The times I do watch 1080p are when I have a hardline to my router on my fast system with a 28" monitor. Otherwise, my MacPro likes 720p just fine. Cheers

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

the tutorial assumes you are starting from 1080 60i and asks you to configure AVID as DNxHD 145 8 bit.

but because I start with 25p should I have 3 options at 8 bit: 36, 120 or 185? which is the one to use?

I also assume that working with 25p (in 50i) is the same as 25p for the sake of this tutorial? can anyone confirm?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

If you also want an archive copy I have been saving in DNxHD but in 10bit as the latest build of Handbreak can now use 10bit files.

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

thanks but what is the difference in using 36, 120 or 185? which one should i use?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

The release version of HandBrake only supports 8 bit, the "36, 120 or 185" indicates the bitrate of the render. I would think 120 would be a good selection.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

when I try to create a custom profile with Handbrake, it allows me to use 1920*1080, but will then force change it to 1920*1088 as soon as I load my video (even if I tick off the "keep ratio")

anyone knows why is that?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Yup, it's because HandBrake works best rendering to modulus 16 framesize. That is, 1088 is evenly divisible by 16. If you change the modulus to 8, you can set the width to 1080.

What I'm not sure of ('cuz I've always used HandBrake for resizing and accepted the modulus 16 framesize) is whether it will make any difference in the quality of your render.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Try changing Handbrake's "Anamorphic" setting from "Strict" to "None", and see if your desired size sticks...

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

hi Jerry
strangely I've tried to use this method after using Magic Bullet, and I find that if I apply the Levels plug-in in the way explained by the video, the blacks end up more crushed and there is a lot more contrast than in the original clip, kind of the opposite of what I wanted to achieve using the Computer RGB to Studio...

--edit--
I have done a few extra tests and noticed, as explained in the video, that the "output start" parameter in Computer RGB to Studio plugin is quite key.

with an ungraded clip I find I need to put that output start to 0, as suggested by the tutorial as a correction sometimes needed for some specific camcorders.
for graded clips I noticed, today, that I need to keep it to what the video calls default value for output start, which is 0.063
if I use 0 for graded clips (at least this happens with MBL) the contrast remains too high defeating the purpose...

has anyone noticed that too? it seems the the Computer to Studio doesn't necessarily have one setup for all occasions...or maybe I am wrong?

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

Federico,

I'm don't know much about Magic Bulllet, but I would suggest you make sure that Sony Levels is the last FX in your FX chain. Then use your Video Scope Histogram to adjust the Levels Output Start & Output End to get Luminance into the 16-235 range.

...Jerry

Re: shooting for web - need help with AVCHD
 

thanks Jerry
as always you are most helpful...