EMC 8 Question

[jjallou]

Does EMC 8 support HDV video?

Looking to edit High Definition DV.

[ggrussell]

Yes it does, but I highly recommend the Deluxe version. Remember there really aren't any HD DVD players except for a few that will play HD DivX or HD WMV discs. When burning to a regular video DVD, HD will be converted to standard definition. There are options to output to HD files.

[jjallou]

Yes it does, but I highly recommend the Deluxe version. Remember there really aren't any HD DVD players except for a few that will play HD DivX or HD WMV discs. When burning to a regular video DVD, HD will be converted to standard definition. There are options to output to HD files.

 

 

I shot some "stuff" (outdoor scenes) in HDV mode and connected the camera to a HD monitor and it looks incredible. I then connected the camera to my 27" analog tv using the S video input and it looked very good.

Currently I don't have a firewire connection to my PC so I conneted the S Video out to my PC and used Roxio 7 (and an ATI All in Wonder 7500) to capture the video. I used the highest quality settings but the video looks a little soft. If I were to use Roxio 8 and edit in HDV then convert to SD how bad (or good) will the video look. I'm trying to maintain how well the camera's S video output looks since burning to HD-DVD is a little far fetched right now.

[ggrussell]

Editing HD video and converting to SD would look better than capturing via the S-video and analog capture. There have been a few people posting here said that it looked really good.

 

Keep in mind, for BEST QUALITY:

Capture via firewire to DV AVI files

Only put ONE hour or less on a 4.7 disc or under 1hr 58min on a dual layer disc.

 

No firewire? How old is the computer? I highly recommend 2Ghz CPU or faster with WinXP and 1Gig of memory with LOTS of hard drive space. You might be able to get away with 512MB of RAM, but I noticed a HUGE difference when I upgraded to 1Gig.

[jjallou]

Editing HD video and converting to SD would look better than capturing via the S-video and analog capture. There have been a few people posting here said that it looked really good.

 

Keep in mind, for BEST QUALITY:

Capture via firewire to DV AVI files

Only put ONE hour or less on a 4.7 disc or under 1hr 58min on a dual layer disc.

 

No firewire? How old is the computer? I highly recommend 2Ghz CPU or faster with WinXP and 1Gig of memory with LOTS of hard drive space. You might be able to get away with 512MB of RAM, but I noticed a HUGE difference when I upgraded to 1Gig.

 

Thanks for the comments......now more questions.

 

PC specs.

2.4Ghz, 512M, ASUS P4PE, ATI All In Wonder 7500

 

I installed a firewire card in the PC and can capture using DV mode from the camera with some aspect ratio issues. The camera I'm using is a Sony HVR-A1u HDV camcorder. I recently shot material in HDV mode. When ingesting into the PC I set the camera to downconvert to DV. When doing this EMC 8 (sometimes on a scene by scene basis) will alter the aspect ratio during capture. If I leave the downconvert option on the camera set to DV letterbox I end up with a letterboxed streched image in a 16x9 frame. If I set the camera to squeeze it will capture a proper 4x3 image but then switch to a squeezed image with grey sidebars (still 4x3) on the next scene change. ???????

 

Ultimatly I would like to ingest HDV into the PC, but when trying to do this I end up with stuttering pixelated video and good audio. My CPU while ingesting HDV runs about 80 to 100%. Will more memory help? Or do I need a newer/faster PC?

 

Thanks!

[ggrussell]

When capturing from teh camcorder, are you trying to capture to MPEG? There is a know issue of the 16:9 flag beign lost. If you capture to DV AVI, you should not lose 16:9.

 

Try first:

Leave the camcorder set to HDV and capture to DV AVI. If that doesn't work, try...

 

Second:

Set the camcorder to down convert to SD DV and capture to DV AVI.

 

NEVER capture to MPEG. You shouldn't have to set the camcorder to 'squeeze' or 'letterbox'. Just keep everything in DV AVI format and you should be fine. of course, you'll need LOTS of hard drive space.

 

Videowave 8 should be able to use either of these files if they are imported correctly.

[jjallou]

When capturing from teh camcorder, are you trying to capture to MPEG? There is a know issue of the 16:9 flag beign lost. If you capture to DV AVI, you should not lose 16:9.

 

Try first:

Leave the camcorder set to HDV and capture to DV AVI. If that doesn't work, try...

 

Second:

Set the camcorder to down convert to SD DV and capture to DV AVI.

 

NEVER capture to MPEG. You shouldn't have to set the camcorder to 'squeeze' or 'letterbox'. Just keep everything in DV AVI format and you should be fine. of course, you'll need LOTS of hard drive space.

 

Videowave 8 should be able to use either of these files if they are imported correctly.

 

 

If I leave the camera in HDV I can't capture because of PC issues. CPU usage is around 83 to 100% with breakup of the video. The HD video I did capture was recorded to a M2T file that EMC8 needed to transcode before it could work with it.

I did import using HDV to DV (downconverted by the camera) without a problem except for the aspect ratio issues. The camera, when downconverting, needs to have something selected either letterbox, squeeze, or crop. I found with letterbox Roxio setups a 16x9 frame (even though it says it's 720x480) and then letterboxes the content within the 16x9 frame streching the video and leaving top & bottom black bars.

In squeeze mode (from the camera) Roxio fills the 16x9 frame and the apect ratio looks correct. While previewing a DVD in DVD creator the result is a 4x3 frame with my video letterboxed (which is what I'm looking to do since I shot the material 16x9). The strange part of all of this is the different displays that Roxio creates when looking at content. Working with 720x480 should show a 4x3 display but I end up with 16x9 in capture mode. Videowave shows a 16x9 frame as well but DVD creator preview shows 4x3 with letterboxed video. I assume this is all done to make the not so tech savey feel more at ease when editing content since the material will all output at 4x3 anyway.

[ggrussell]

In squeeze mode (from the camera) Roxio fills the 16x9 frame and the apect ratio looks correct. While previewing a DVD in DVD creator the result is a 4x3 frame with my video letterboxed (which is what I'm looking to do since I shot the material 16x9).

 

Just a quick explanantion - 16:9 in standard definition is 720X480 'squeezed'. That is how it works. It uses non-square pixels. There is a 'flag' to tell the decoder to 'unsqueeze' during playback. Make sure you set the Videowave project to 16:9.

 

DVD creator? I assume you meant MyDVD 8? As far as MyDVD, you can add a 16:9 file to a 4:3 menu and it should playback as 16:9. The settings in MyDVD will only affect the menu. The 16:9 'flag' is within the Videowave project or the MPEG 2 file if you rendered before using in MyDVD.

 

Please explain the last quotes. When you preview 16:9 in MyDVD, it should be 16:9. Not letterboxed. True 16:9 should be letterboxed by the DVD PLAYER. That way the 16:9 will playback properly on either 4:3 TV sets or widescreen TV sets correctly.

 

 

since the material will all output at 4x3 anyway.

No, if you set Videowave and MyDVD to 16:9, then output should be true 16:9. I can say that it works properly for me.

[jjallou]

Just a quick explanantion - 16:9 in standard definition is 720X480 'squeezed'. That is how it works. It uses non-square pixels. There is a 'flag' to tell the decoder to 'unsqueeze' during playback. Make sure you set the Videowave project to 16:9.

 

DVD creator? I assume you meant MyDVD 8? As far as MyDVD, you can add a 16:9 file to a 4:3 menu and it should playback as 16:9. The settings in MyDVD will only affect the menu. The 16:9 'flag' is within the Videowave project or the MPEG 2 file if you rendered before using in MyDVD.

 

Please explain the last quotes. When you preview 16:9 in MyDVD, it should be 16:9. Not letterboxed. True 16:9 should be letterboxed by the DVD PLAYER. That way the 16:9 will playback properly on either 4:3 TV sets or widescreen TV sets correctly.

 

 

No, if you set Videowave and MyDVD to 16:9, then output should be true 16:9. I can say that it works properly for me.

 

Yes I changed the menu to 16x9 as well.

One thing I noticed while burning/encoding to an iso file was the 4x3 encoding preview with squished (tall & skinny) video in it. The project came out fine however, 4x3 output from the DVD player with letterboxed video.

 

The overall result of the video quality is fairly good. It's not as good as the S-video output of the HDV playback direct to my 27' analog tv though. The rendered DVD is a little soft with some slight lacking detail.

Any way to improve this?

[ggrussell]

The project came out fine however, 4x3 output from the DVD player with letterboxed video.

It should be letterboxed ONLY on a 4:3 TV set. If you have a widescreen TV, then it should fill the screen.

 

The rendered DVD is a little soft with some slight lacking detail. Any way to improve this?

The best quality is achieved by keeping the video under 1hr on a 4.7gig disc (under 1hr 58min on dual layer). Consumer products just can't match the quality of the camcorder when connected directly to the TV because the video is compressed.

[jjallou]

Somehow I missed the minimum specs for HDV capture.

This can't be it since it doesn't mention HD and my PC exceeds those specs but doesn't work.

 

 

# For real-time MPEG-2 capture and burning:

 

* 1.6 GHz Intel® Pentium 4 or equivalent

 

 

I plan on building/buying a new pc but I need to know what specs to meet before I do so.

I would hate to keep buying stuff until it works.

[ggrussell]

I'm not familiar with HD capture, but in general MPEG2 capture is more demanding on the CPU so would need a better CPU. If you are capturing DV AVI, there is no compression on the fly , but it is more demanding on the hard drive system (speed wise).

 

I would think your 2.4Ghz P4 would be fast enough for DV capture. Make sure the hard drive is set for DMA or UDMA.

[grandpabruce]

Somehow I missed the minimum specs for HDV capture.

This can't be it since it doesn't mention HD and my PC exceeds those specs but doesn't work.

# For real-time MPEG-2 capture and burning:

 

* 1.6 GHz Intel® Pentium 4 or equivalent

I plan on building/buying a new pc but I need to know what specs to meet before I do so.

I would hate to keep buying stuff until it works.

 

Well, if you are building a new PC, it is doubtful that you would be putting in a 1.6 GHz processor. Anything under 3.6GHz on a new PC would be a mistake, if you plan to do any video work.