Some Settings Qs

[tom 1951]

I am converting a pile of Sony Video8 (yes old old) tapes to mp4's. No DVD burning.

 

I am using a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro laptop with Win 10

 

Feature Description

Intel M-5y71 CPU @ 1.20 GHz 1.40 GHz

Bus architecture • LP-DDR3

• PCI Express bus

• DMI

Graphic Chipset • Intel BDW GT2

Display • 13.3-inch

Standard

memory • LP-DDR3 (max 8 GB)

CMOS • 256 bytes

SSD • 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB

 

S-video output

 

I am unclear on several setting in the product.

 

File --- > Pref

 

When should these be set .......for example, the HW / SW rendering ...at the start of the recording, or the export ? I want (I think) to use SW rendering but every time I check it has been set to HW. It is not clear to me when it should be set ....or why it does not "stick"

 

What is the "Menu aspect ratio"

 

On export

 

I am choosing H.264

I have all enhancements selected.

Color correction took 50 sec on the 10 min test segment

I choose a 10 min test segment and ran at 720 then 480

The 720 took 33 min to process (HW vs SW?) the 480 15 min

The file size was VERY close to the same.....within a few kb

The exported video "size" (x by y in inches) was the same on the PC and played via HDMI to the TV or as a file on the BluRay.

The 720 seemed a bit "clearer"

 

So, if I care about the time ...... 480 vs 720 is faster

Don't understand when in the process to choose the SW / HW ....

 

Thanks ............

[Jim_Hardin]

Under Preferences, Software render should 'stick'! But Hardware should not be a problem and will be faster... We have seen cases where hardware produces a sort of swimming motion whenever the camcorder was panned in a scene. If you are not seeing this, go for the hardware setting

 

Menu Ratio on applies to a menu screen which only applies to a DVD output. So if you are producing a file, it isn't even going to be there.

 

When you use an enhancement it has to be applied to ALL frames and that takes time! There are 30 (29.97) frames in each second of a movie. So you are examining, processing and saving 30 separate pictures for every second of your movie.

 

QUALITY is what you care about! Never get hung up on file sizes or processing time. Timewise, you can always turn it on and walk away. Computers don't care if they run overnight.

 

Other thoughts on quality. Maintain the highest! You are starting out with lower quality and it will not suffer any degradation from there. You can't make it better beyond color or brightness but even those can erode sharpness when applied. So keep the 720 X 480 for camcorder/VCR tapes and keep the Quality slider up to produce about 8 to 9,000 kbps. Higher won't do any good for SD sources.

 

Aspect ratios. Users often will complain of black bars either on the sides or on the top & bottom. They see these on their products but have never notice that all commercial movies don't fit any TV screen and all of them have black bars Ignore it!

 

Sometimes you will see a side to side stretched picture. This is because the source was shot using an anamorphic widescreen format. TV or VCR of past were equipped to handle this sort of format. We can deal with that if you have the issue.

 

Give those things a try and let us know how you make out.

[tom 1951]

Jim--

 

Thanks, you weer RIGHT on.........

 

I am winding my way through 40 + Video8 tapes and 40 more VHS tapes !!!!

 

One follow up Q:

I am not doing any fancy editing, music, transitions etc. I will want to trim out any blanks and split the files into segments........any suggestion on a Win10 app that I can use that provides these functions ........easily ?

[Jim_Hardin]

EVD 3, what you have.

A link to splits & trims is HERE

 

Try this stuff with a COPY of a file - don't risk your work while learning

 

Let us know how it is coming.

[tom 1951]

EVD 3, what you have.

 

A link to splits & trims is HERE

 

Try this stuff with a COPY of a file - don't risk your work while learning

 

Let us know how it is coming.

 

 

 

 

 

Soooo,,,, you are right, but here is my problem:

 

I wan to edit each raw mpg, trimming any unused video and splitting out any separate segment. I as I use the editor, I have to export any segment right then and process, not want I want to do ........I'd rather do the trimming to each file, then do the post processing / enhancing

 

If I could first edit the mpg into the segments, the apply the enhancements / export, that would be ok, but it seems that I have to export on every segment / edit which is not ideal.....

 

Lastly, because I want to apply the enhancements across ALL the files...........is there any way to batch process............ point to a directory, apply all the enhancements (noise, stability, color) and have the app apply to files?

 

Thanks ............

[Jim_Hardin]

Not aware of editing software that does batch jobs???

 

Likewise, as good as it sounds, not many software that lets you pick and export a part of a clip from the file you have in the editor. There are some but not by Roxio.

 

One thing that might help would be to do all of the enhancements to all of the clips before you start any edits (manually batch process).

 

Before you dive into the deep end of enhancements consider this. Enhancements often degrade a clip.Using Denoise flattens a clip. It takes out pixels so detail is lost. Stabilize deletes the edges (cropping) and then expands the remaining image which makes the original pixels bigger - jaggy edges on straight lines. Brightness/Contrast/Saturation all have a price too.

 

Burn some short test clips, using the Trim Markers to split the clip. Use the enhancements on one split but not the next and see what they look like on the big screen.

 

I have done some 8mm movie film transfers and often find that NO enhancement works best even though the originals were deteriorating from the time and storage conditions. (still have some of mine to do from the early 60's)