Deshaking 1080 50i HDV and EX1. John Meyer please.

Malcolm D schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 11:37 Uhr

I am trying to deshake 1080 50i HDV files and would appreciate recommendations on settings from more experienced hands.
I have installed New Deshaker which I assume effectively replaces the original Deshaker. I am using Vegas Pro 8.0c but also have 7.0d available.
As I don't have Cineform I have been rendering to uncompressed. Is this the best option for HD or should I use Huffy or something else?
The only issue is that it comes out extra wide screen as it seems to have the HDV PAR applied 1.33:1. This is easy to fix but leaves me wondering if my methods are the best. I also shoot with the EX1 but have not tried this yet.
The guide by John Meyer was written for DV so I am hoping to get some tips on how to work with HDV. Is there an update?
Maybe John could come out of the shadows and provide some advice as I know he has an FX1.
It is now more than 5 weeks since John posted here and I for one miss his valuable knowledge and contributions.
It is a great shame that we lost his input because of a troll and that some could not resist feeding the troll.
I respect the fact that his contributions were purely of a professional/technical nature and he never involved himself in the bickering that is often evident here.
I would like to see him return for the benefit of all.
If not, does anyone know of any other forum he participates in?
Malcolm

Kommentare

LoTN schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 15:42 Uhr

I agree with you. It's sad John Meyer is gone.I really liked is great advice and expertise.

Regarding Deshaker, I processed a bunch of HDV directly out of an A1 camcorder. The footage was very shaky and I finally got some acceptable results. At least, it looks less worse... :-))

For pass 1

Set PAR to 1.33 HDV
Set video type to interlaced upper field first
Set rolling shutter compensation amount to what is required for EX1 (for the A1 I discovered that the 82% value provided by Gunnar Thalin is wrong. the A1 needs the same as HC1, i.e. 88%)
You may tweak other settings, like for DV/SD.

For pass 2

I am used to follow a trial and error process until I am satisifed with the result. I never use edge compensation.

I still have to try with the same footage as deinterlaced HDV. For a complete comparison I would deinterlace using Vegas, Virtualdub and Mike Crah's plugin within Vegas. Unfortunately I actually have no time for experimentation..

musicvid10 schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 16:06 Uhr

Just because John Meyer has not posted in a few weeks, don't assume he is gone.
He has often dropped out of sight for a while, only to emerge with a great new solution that none of the rest of us would have even thought of. I appreciate him even more that way.

My impression is that he has many irons in the fire. However, as you have done, one of the best ways to get him to poke his head in is to use his name in a topic title.
;?)

PerroneFord schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 16:41 Uhr

We've talked about this quite a bit, and I know I've posted settings and examples for excellent results.

I can't say about your HDV stuff because I move everything to square pixels so I don't have to fool with this PAR garbage. It just confuses everything.

LoTN schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 17:25 Uhr

Square pixels for Gunnar's plugin. I wonder why I never thought about it before...

Laurence schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 17:46 Uhr

Anyone using this in Windows 7 64bit? I'm not having any luck so far (using the 32 bit version of Vegas).

LoTN schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 17:51 Uhr

Yes I use Deshaker + Vdub on Seven 64 but not the plugin either with the x64 or x32 binary version of Vegas.

Laurence schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 18:00 Uhr

When I run the script I get the following error:

Error during script execution at line 1, column 3: Variable 'MZ' not found.

LoTN schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 18:15 Uhr

Hmmm, interesting...

MZ is the string equivalent of what IT specialists call the magic number. This behaviour is like if Vegas didn't recognize the DLL as being a dynamic link library and tries to interpret it as a text script...

Which version of deshaker plugin do you have ? Where is it installed ?

Laurence schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 18:20 Uhr

OK it's working now. I had installed the latest version of Deshaker and VirtualDub from their respective sites. I went back and replaced them with the older versions in the download and now it works.

Laurence schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 18:41 Uhr

Ooh that's nice. I just installed it and got it working because I needed it for some handheld indoor stuff. It was in a church during the service and I didn't want to deal with the tripod.

All the edges look great and it's so nice not to lose the resolution from having to zoom in.

I used Cineform compression for the VirtualDub return. Have any of you messed with sending the video from Vegas to VirtualDub using Cineform as well?

amendegw schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 19:50 Uhr

"Error during script execution at line 1, column 3: Variable 'MZ' not found."
Laurence, read this thread in detail: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=698295&Replies=13

Good Luck!
...Jerry

Edit: Whoops! I should have read further in this thread - I see you got it working.

Laurence schrieb am 12.04.2010 um 21:48 Uhr

Now I'm having the same issue as Malcolm. The script screws up the aspect ratio of HDV. The render comes back squished vertically but with square pixels. Is there any way around this? None of my experiments seem to help.

Laurence schrieb am 13.04.2010 um 02:30 Uhr

OK I have it working now. What I'm finding is that setting the aspect ratio in the Cineform codec to "auto" is what isn't working. If I set it to either 1.33 or 1 (depending upon what is needed in that template) then the correct aspect ratio will make it through the transfer from Vegas to VirtualDub and back at the correct aspect ratio.

After I figured that out I was having another problem where the color levels were going from sRGB to cRGB after they came back from deshaking in VirtualDub. Setting the codec to work with RGB levels on both the encode and decode seems to fix this.

Malcolm D schrieb am 13.04.2010 um 20:02 Uhr

Thank you lotn for the settings.
Laurence, I don't use Cineform. Is the ability to set PAR and color space in the codec unique to Cineform?
Does anyone else have advice on the use of suitable free codec for HD and settings?

farss schrieb am 13.04.2010 um 21:31 Uhr

"Does anyone else have advice on the use of suitable free codec for HD and settings?"

Well an uncompressed AVI file at a PAR of 1 will work in anything and is as goof proof as it gets. File size is HUGE of course, supports an alpha channel, it is absolutely lossless.

The 8 bit Sony YUV codec (AVI) works in everything I've thrown it at including FCS. File size is big, about half uncompressed.

Either of those alternatives are the best for an angst free experience. HDD are cheap.

Bob.

Laurence schrieb am 14.04.2010 um 02:12 Uhr

Hard discs may be cheap, but fast throughput is not. With Cineform or mxf you can do a couple of streams off any 7200 rpm USB 2 drive. With uncompressed you need a raid system to get decent preview performance with a couple of streams of video.

farss schrieb am 14.04.2010 um 07:52 Uhr

"Hard discs may be cheap, but fast throughput is not. With Cineform or mxf you can do a couple of streams off any 7200 rpm USB 2 drive. With uncompressed you need a raid system to get decent preview performance with a couple of streams of video. "

With uncomp HD you need a very capable RAID to get playback of one stream!
My understanding though was the topic was using an intermediate codec to feed into a 3rd party application for processing, not editing. Start doing compositing in After Effect and any hope of anything realtime goes out the window anyway. Same with deshaking, that isn't a reatlime process, playback performance is largley irrelevant. What is relevant is compatibility and getting as perfect an image into the pipeline as possible.

Bob.

Laurence schrieb am 14.04.2010 um 12:00 Uhr

Cineform Neo Scene is http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/599323-REG/Cineform_N2041DL_Neo_Scene_for_Windows.html$100 at B&H[/link]. To my eyes it looks as good as uncompressed. It doesn't take very much hard disk savings to justify the price. Instead of a raid system, you can work quite nicely from an external USB drive. You can pass the video back and forth between Vegas in this format. You can immediately play the deshaken timeline. I really can't see the logic in using uncompressed when there is this other relatively inexpensive option.

farss schrieb am 14.04.2010 um 12:50 Uhr

"I really can't see the logic in using uncompressed when there is this other relatively inexpensive option. "

If you need to do a lot of bouncing between apps then Cineform is a no brainer. Most of my work is 1920x1080 and I could borrow our Prospect4K licence and it is a great codec. Thing is for the work I've needed to bounce in and out of AE and the one time I wanted to deshake some footage uncompressed has been quick and easy to use.
Current project I'm rendering 1920x300 RGB + Alpha out of AE as uncomp. Each element is 15 seconds long and I'm comping it back into the EX footage in Vegas after taking a reference frame out of Vegas into AE.
On the other hand if I was taking many minutes out of Vegas into a 3rd party app I'd be using Cineform in a heart beat.

Bob.

Malcolm D schrieb am 20.04.2010 um 09:12 Uhr

Laurence said
'the color levels were going from sRGB to cRGB after they came back from deshaking in VirtualDub. Setting the codec to work with RGB levels on both the encode and decode seems to fix this.'

I am having the same problem but I can not see how to fix it.
I am using Outbound Template HDV 1080-50i intermediate.
Compress 0
Compress Inbound
Renderer Main Concept MPEG-2
Template HDV 1080-50i
This fixed the PAR issue but I still have the sRGB to cRGB issue.

Can you or anyone tell he how to fix it?
Thanks
Malcolm

Laurence schrieb am 20.04.2010 um 13:40 Uhr

I don't know how you'd fix this with uncompressed. In the handoff chain there is a sRGB to cRGB conversion happening somewhere that I don't understand. I am setting up Cineform to compensate for this, but I don't know how you'd do it otherwise.

There are a lot of us using this script. There must be some other solution as only a minority are using Cineform for this. I can't believe that this color change wouldn't be a problem for more than just the two of us.

Malcolm D schrieb am 20.04.2010 um 19:27 Uhr

Thanks Laurence
I think I'll start another thread about this.
Malcolm