HowTo Edit Premiere HD Streams

[DreckSoft]

Till now I used the following way

1. Capture Premiere HD using AltDVD in encrypted form
2. Decode TS using Offline Descrambler (online descrambling takes to much CPU)
2a. (Optional) Scan the stream with TSPE. Editing doesn't work but scanning for errors does (sometimes)
3. Demux the video with xport (no TS tool can handle the streams since they don't start with an I frame and there's usually additional garbage at the beginning) and audio with ProjectX (so I'll get an error log for free).
4. Convert 264 raw file to AVI with AVC2AVI
5. Cut the AVI in VirtualDub
6. Sync the Audio
7. Mux AVI + Audio tracks with MKVMerge into MKV

Since exactly the time Premiere switched to MECM (modified encryption) that doesn't work anymore. I don't think it's really the encryption but more likely they switched to different encoders at the same time.

Since then the audio is never (!) sync. If it fits at the beginning its off at the end and vice versa. Some frames look interlaced in the AVI and VirtualDub crashes very often.

Now I'm running out of options. Muxing the 264 directly into MKV doesn't work (same problem: audio async), muxing into MP4 plays the video in slow motion, remuxing the MP4 to MKV doesn't work (MKVMerge / GDSMux crashes). Of course keeping the video in AVI doesn't work either.

Could it be that they're transmitting some strange version of H264 no program can handle? Any other ideas? I don't think all my streams are faulty since before the change more than 90% where perfect. My harddisk's kind of full right now...

[hms]

The closest to success I got was the following method:
1. demuxed ts stream with mencoder both raw video and audio
2. encode audio with BeLight to AAC
3. muxed raw .264 video and mpg4 audio with Yamb forcing 59.94 fps and playing with different audio delays

I could not get sync perfect but close and at least I got a compliant .mpg4 video file that can be cut in Cut_Assistant using the MP4Box option....

[DreckSoft]

Reencoding anything is not an option. Besides I don't know any Receiver which is able to decode AAC and I don't want to use 6 channel analog output.

[bob0r]

.ts to .mkv works flawlessly with gdsmux.exe that comes with latest Haali Media Splitter, from mkv you can do whatever you want.

TIP: you can "CUT" the .ts in gdsmux.exe directly, to save a certain selection directly to .mkv
(On the video, right mouse > preview; here you can make a selection)


And yes Premiere-HD is funking around with protection and attack patches do disable illegal viewers!

[hms]

bob0r:
can you provide a sample command for gdsmux?

EDIT:
OK: drag video into gdsmux

[DreckSoft]

That doesn't work either. GDSMux recognizes the content as 720x480 4:3 MPEG2 and 2ch MP2 (1 Audio only) and preview doesn't work. I think a lot of problems are because of the garbage at the beginning of the file but there's noting I can do about that.

[hms]

.ts to .mkv works flawlessly with gdsmux.exe that comes with latest Haali Media Splitter, from mkv you can do whatever you want.

TIP: you can "CUT" the .ts in gdsmux.exe directly, to save a certain selection directly to .mkv
(On the video, right mouse > preview; here you can make a selection)


And yes Premiere-HD is funking around with protection and attack patches do disable illegal viewers!


Thanks!
Works for me but my stream is not a Premiere_HD:
But the navigation in preview is crude...

@DreckSoft: Did you right click on the video?

[DreckSoft]

I've got it working now. First I cut the beginning and end with TSPE (have to uncheck decode video otherwise it doesn't work) - this removes the garbage at the beginning (and sometimes at the end). The I'll remux with TSRemux (GDSMux still doesn't like the output of TSPE) and then to MKV with GDSMux.

Now I'll have to try if I can get an external audio sync...

[DreckSoft]

Hm, doesn't work properly either. The resulting File is not seekable.

[rexrex]

Hi, I tried something a lil different, but also had problems:

-Captured TS with dvbviewer (DVB-C)

-Cut it with H264TS_Cutter

-Demuxed ac3 with ProjectX

-Put TS in MKV with gdsmux

-Changed option in haali media spliter to always 25 output (fake 24 bla)

-Loaded MKV and AC3 in staxrip and did a 1-pass encoding, perfect.

Two pass encoding wasn't possible, don't know why... ;(
I also wasn't able do demux the ac3 from the mkv file which gdsmux createtd, any idea?

[bergi]

This way it was working 5 days ago and everything is sync:

- Record TS with PAT and PMT
- Find cut points with TSPE
- cut with bergtscut
(- check stream with xport and ac3cutter for errors)
- Remux with gsdemux


@DreckSoft
If you can't decode the video in TSPE try a different decoder. FFDShow can't decode all types of H.264 frames, I think this causes some problems.

[DreckSoft]

I couldn't find any option to select the used codec. I already disabled H264 support in ffdshow - doesn't help.

DGAVCDec says the stream uses interlaced PAFF (which is not supported by DGAVCDec / libavcodec). Could this be the source of all problems. It seems NO muxer can handle this kind of stream.

I tried again on a recording, just demuxing the audio and remuxing. I synced the audio to the beginning but it's ouf of sync at the end again (with no change to either audio or video). when i load the file and the dvd version in virtualdubmod (using avisynth) the frame difference between beginning and end is 185frames, which seems to be about the same as the audio delay (~7,5sec).

Does anyone know a program which handles such streams correctly???

my harddisc gets fuller every week :-((((

[NanoBot]

Hi,

my method to edit Premiere captures is similar to the method used by bergi:

Record the TS
Make sure that the PAT and the PMT is included in the stream

Edit the stream
Search the cut points with ts_packet_editor and check them with MPC using the test button for both the cut in and the cut out point, because the internal preview from ts_packet_editor is not accurate enough. Configure MPC not to use its internal TS import filter and use Haalis splitter instead, because the internal splitter of MPC might have problems to identify the video type on the test clips. If neccessary, reconfigure Haalis splitter (in its property window options / input) to a bigger number of TS packets to scan to correctly identify the video type. I use 45000 packets at the moment, which works fine for premiere streams.

Remultiplex the TS into a matroska container
Use graphedit with "Haali simple media splitter" and "Haali matroska muxer" and select the desired filenames for input and output files. Of course the input and output files should ne located on different physical drives because this works much faster then using a single drive. Connect the corresponding pins and assign the appropriate descriptions and languages to the streams in the property window of the muxer. Then play your graph, when it finishes your mkv file should be complete.

Optional use MKVToolNix to add additional audio streams, subtitles or chapter informations to the stream.

OS platform: Windows XP Pro SP2

Software involved:

AltDVB 2.2 or DVBViewerPro 3.8
TS_Packet_Editor
Media Player classic
Graphedit
MKVToolNix

DirectShow filters involved:

Haali Media Splitter
Cyberlink or CoreAVC h.264 decoder filter ( I prefer cyberlink cause I own a 8600GTS, so I have full h.264 acceleration in the GPU :) )
AC3Filter

Since the change of the h.264 encoder used by premiere a few month ago, this method works perfect for me with any streams from them I recorded. Streams from the older encoder make problems when trying to use full GPU decoding, but thats another story.

C.U. NanoBot

[DreckSoft]

I can't get ts_packet_editor to display any video.

I finally found a muxer which can handle the streams. Unfortunately it's extremely expensive commercial software and is no real solution.

Current way:

1. Record using AltDVB
2. Decode using OfflineDescrambler
3. Demux using mplayer (video) and ProjectX (audio)
4. Put .264 in AVI with AVC2AVI
5. Cut AVI
6. Export cut .264 using GraphEdit (AVISplitter => Dump)
7. Mux A+V into TS using MP2TSME (no, I cannot provide a download link, sorry)
8. Remux using TSRemux (MP2TSME output is way to large)

But now I can't convert it to MKV (TS hat to much overhead and I don't like the format). GDSMux stops after a few MB, so does GraphEdit with HaaliSplitter => HaaliMuxer. FileSource => ElecardDemultiplexer => HaaliMuxer does never finish. FileSource => Nero Splitter => HaaliMuxer produces invalid MKV (Video Size is set to 1934x1088 resulting in a crash of the player application). Remuxing the invalid MKV isn't possible either (MKVMerge stops with return code 3)

[crypto]

@DreckSoft
What are you going to do? I know, you want to edit the stream, but what is your target format/container?

TS again? Then you can use tsconverter to cut. The actual packets are untouched.

Reencode? Then load the h.264 avi into virtualdub add the AC3 track, do your cuts and encode.

[DreckSoft]

Just TSConverter wouldn't help cause I usually add audio tracks from the dvd. Also TSConverter keeps crashing when loading a .ts file. Not sure why, I think I had it running once on Win 2000 but since I reinstalled my PCs with XP it always crashes. Till now I didn't need it cause I could cut in VDub.

I really don't know what to do now, currently I'm thinking of just deleting all Premiere recordings, I just can't spent so much time on this in the future.

It seems that I'll have to wait till more programs can handle H264 correctly.

[DreckSoft]

TS is not an option, the results are stuttering all the time.

Btw: I found the reason for the TSConverter Crash: It was the NVidia Filter (Demux I think). I uninstalled PureVideo and now loading a file works. However the program crashes when I hit the play button. On my premiere recordings the video size/fps isn't recognized (but crashes occur on all files). This is most likely due to the garbage at the beginning of the file.

Edit: The crash when trying to play was CLDemuxer (PowerDVD). Now I can open TS files, but currently can't get any picture from the premiere recordings. Trying...

[crypto]

...This is most likely due to the garbage at the beginning of the file.
You can repair the TS structure with TSRepair (http://dvbportal.dyn1.de/forum/index.php?topic=747.0). It resyncs TS packets at 188 bytes/packet

[DreckSoft]

I'll try it, thanks!

I've changed my settings to include PAT in recordings and disabled the option "Synchronize with first valid audio or video PES" in Offline Descrambler and now cutting using the preview function in GDSMux works! The resulting MKV is seekable but not playable (stutters). Remuxing the MKV with MKVToolnix work if i DON'T use a timecode file (if I do, audio gets async!). The results plays nearly perfect.

There is still something very wrong with H264 parsing in MKVToolnix. It seems to work only with "simple" H264 files which are not using any advanced feature such as switching between progressive and interlaced.