Canon HV20 1080p24 -> 3xDVD Workflow

[johnnytaco]

Guys, thanks for all the tips so far. The info in this forum is awesome. I'm not really interested in HDDVD rips ..yet.., but I was able to take my Canon HV20 footage and convert to HD-DVD that plays on my Toshiba HD-A3. So thanks for all the insight.
I figured I'd share my workflow to save others with an HDV camera some time.

I have been able to burn MPEG2 and H.264 3xDVD using 1080p24 footage that was encoded w/ pulldown to 29.97. Both play well in 1080i glory on my HD-A3.

A fairly simple MPEG2 workflow is outlined in AVSforum here
I don't have the HD power pack plugin for Ulead MovieFactory+ 6, so I use either VideoReDo or MPEG2VCR to convert the m2t's (mpeg2 transport stream) to program stream to be able to drag and drop into Ulead. A note when using VideoReDo is that I had to manually set the bitrate to 30 Mbps so that I would not get any PTS Underflows.
I also had to use HDPatch to fix the bitrate back to 25,000,000 in order to avoid having MF reencode.
The beauty here is no reencoding is required and does a nice job with quick menus. I could use a different tool like Vegas, but would then have to reencode to MPEG2.
I have Ulead output an image and then burn the image using nero 8.


My AVC workflow is as follows:
1) Capture using HDVSplit to m2t files (29.97 with pulldown not flagged properly)
2) CineForm* ConnectHD to convert to CineForm codec as intermediate (performing IVTC to 1080p 23.976fps)
3) Join clips and edit in 23.976 timeline using Sony Vegas** 7 to add transitions, etc.
4a) Render back 1 large avi to Cineform* 1080p 23.976fps
4b) Render wav file
5a) Render 1440x1080 23.98 elementary stream using CineVision 2.0
5b) Transcode WAV->AC3 using besweet
6) Author using Scenarist SCA 4.01 (pulldown on data) - 1440x1080 project - add chapter (scene) points
7) Mux and create ISO image
8) Burn image using Nero 8 (booktype: DVD+R DL)
* The Cineform codec is very good for editing in an NLE and "practically lossless" - however a main reason I use it is the great IVTC also performed on the HV20's 24p footage. You don't have to use an intermediate at all. Don't worry about IVTC if you only have 60i footage. Plus there are other free alternatives for IVTC using avisynth and Huffyuv as a free intermediate.
** plenty of alternatives for NLEs as well, Vegas happens to be 23.976 friendly

(haven't experimented with menus in Scenarist yet)

I normally use Ritek DVD+R DL with variable success in avoiding studdering - but ordered Verbatim DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL to see which media plays best. I did notice some studdering on the Ritek dual layers. Have had no issues with Ritek single layer. Normal DVD burnt to Ritek DVD+R DL have no playback issues - I'm assuming the extra high bitrates are much more sensitive to media quality. Setting the booktype and using a 2.4x burn speed gave me a successful 80min 3xDVD with very little studdering.

This is the capacities at nice bitrates:
80min of H.264 on a DVD9 (VBR: target:15 Mbps, Max: 29.4 Mbps)
40min of H.264 on a DVD5
40min of MPEG2 on a DVD9
20min of MPEG2 on a DVD5

FYI, CineVision H.264 encoding speed on Quad 6600 @ 3.2GHz is about 10fps - really resource hungry!

I believe the HD Pack for Ulead MF+ will enable 2 key improvements:
1) native drag/drop of m2t files
2) reencoding to H.264 AVC in addition to MPEG2

I can only assume the CineVision or Mainconcept codec would be better quality, but I guess we'll have to wait and see over time and some comparisons on codecs.
I also imagine after a while most of the NLE's will wake up and start supporting both HD-DVD and BlueRay - hopefully most of this will be simpler.

[jmelan]

thanks for posting!!

i have a hv20 and hd-a3 as well with a q6600 running at 3Ghz. i'll be trying out the methods you listed in the next couple of weeks.

i was thinking about purchasing ulead mf6+ and the HD pack, but the lack of support for h264 authoring at this point is annoying.

[kito]

Thanks for the info. I hope someone comes out with a consumer priced product that will allow making HD DVD using VC1 rather than MPEG2.

I have a Sanyo HD camera and want to make a HDDVD to play on my HD-A2 player using VC1. As an alternative to ulead movie factory, I am using Pinnacle Video Studio to generate HDDVD discs. This sw also produces HD-DVD discs. I had to play around a bit to get it to output sound on my HD-A2.

Anyhow, I would be ok with this expect its video quality is really poor compared to my source input. I suspect its because it uses MPEG2. I do not know for sure. The documentation does not go into detail about HDDVD and the software settings for HD-DVD disc creation is very sparse.

[awhitehead]

Same thing, but for a Mac:

I also have an HV20, however ended up using Mac lab at school for this, since school has them networked, and pre-set up into a rendering cluster (Oh, and this way I also don't need to worry about any software licenses, etc. since school is fully license compliant)

Macs have Final Cut Studio 2.0 installed, together with iMovie '08 and iMovie HD 6.0.4 (The version you can download from Apple for free if you bought iLife '08, and discovered that you don't like iMovie '08).

My basic workflow is:
1) Create a new HD project in iMovie 6.0.4, and capture the video you want (Using firewire cable).

2) Once done capturing, rightclick (mice in lab are three-button, but you can Control-Click if you have a one button mouse) on the iMovieProject file, and select "Show Package Contents". Navigate to "Media" folder, and you should see the video streams that you captured as a bunch of QT .mov files.

3 (Optional)) At this point I used to open video streams in QuickTime, and crop them to have just the bits I want. Save as Apple Intermediate Codec (1440x1080)

4a (Optional)) At this point you CAN import the streams into iMovie '08, create a new project, and create a quick timeline with cross-fade transitions. Eventually you can click "Share-> Export Final Cut XML" and create an XML file that Final Cut will happily ingest. Then you open it in Final Cut, and export as one complete track.

4b) Now a days I just skip the iMovie '08 stage, and do the video editing (cross-fades, subtitles, other shiny things) in Final Cut. Again, once done, I export it as one complete track again as Apple Intermediate Codec.

5) At this point I decide if I want picture quality over space, or space over picture quality. Basically, if I import AIC QT file into DVD Studio, it will happily author HD-DVD, but it will use MPEG2 as the format. It will be 1920x1080, but I can only fit maybe about 30 minutes on a DVD9 disc.

Otherwise, I can start up Compressor (Again, part of Final Cut Studio), and trans-code the QT AIC file into H.264 720p. This is where a network of MacPros at the lab pays off, since it actually is faster then real time. Why not into 1080p H.264? I can trans-code without any problems, and did so a few times (Compressor even comes with HD-DVD presets), BUT, DVD Studio 4.2.0 doesn't allow me to import H.264 1080i files, while it happily imports and passes through without encoding 720p H.264 files. So basically, I have a choice of MPEG2 1080i that looks gorgeous, but I can only fit half an hour per disc, or 720p that looks less gorgeous, but I can fit alot more per disc. Both work. So the step with Compressor is optional (Note: you can use Compressor to generate AAC audio track, and import that into DVD Studio. It will make the size of the project significantly smaller).

6) Start up DVD Studio, import your source footage, and author HD-DVD as usual.

Currently the long steps are the capture and the authoring. Capture is real time. Authoring can be long if you elect to go with MPEG2, since for some reason, while the transcoding using Compressor is happily clustered, and a lab of~20 machines can all crunch at it at the same time, if I get DVD Studio transcoding, only the system I use is doing the work. In reality, maybe this is just a feature that wasn't configured correctly by the sysadmins at school.

Now, if someone has any experience with authoring 1080i H.264 or VC1 content on a Mac, I'd be most interested in hearing about your experiences.