Best Format For HD with an Avellink Player

tnw2933 wrote on 2/17/2005, 10:17 AM
In November I purchased a Soiny HDR-FX1 camcorder. I have a home theater with a 16:9 screeen that is 76 in. X 43 in. and displays the image from a Runco 980 Ultra overhead projection set. Until recently I had no way of viewing my HDV footage from the Sony HDR-FX1 other than hooking the camera into my Home Theater system via its component output. However I recently purchased the Avellink Networked Player and a Buffalo(http://www.iodata.com/usa/) G54 wireless airstation which allows me to stream my projects from my computers upstairs to my Home Theater System downstairs. All of the equipment is working great, and now I am in the process of figuring out how to render my projets in Sony Vegas 5.0d to get the optimum resolution on this large screen.

Here is what I have found so far and I would love to have suggestions from anyone on what to try next:

(1) Captured project in Sony Vegas 5.0d using Cinneform ConnectHD with simultaneous conversion to Cineform avi clips. Edited in Vegas and rendered out as HD .wmv file. This plays fine on the Avellink player as long as I don't use 5.1 surround sound in the V9 codec since the Avelink player (at this time) cannot play back 5.1 .wmv files. The resulting video is a little less detailed than I would like, but overall looks close to what I get on the component output of the Sony HDR-FX1 itself.

(2) Same as (1) above but rendered to Divx HD using the Mr. Divx HD Profile provided with the Mr. Divx software. Plays fine on the Avellink player, but is slightly softer ,i.e. less detailed, than the wmv V9 file described above.

(3) Rendered Project described in (1) above as a HD avi file in Vegas 5.0d. This produced a huge (14 GB file) for the 16 minute HDV project. It played fine in Windows Media Player 10 and really looked sharp and lots of detail, but it would not play on the Avellink player.

(4) Used Nero Ultra 6.0 to recode (3) above to Nero Digital HD. Does not play really smoothly in Nero Showtime 2 even on a dual 3.6 GHz Xeon workstation but does look as good as the wmv V9 HD file in (1) above. The Nero file will not play on the Avellink player.

(5) Tried to recode the 14 GB avi file in (3) above to Divx-HD using Mr. Divix software, but I received an immediate "cannot encode this file" from the Mr. Divix software. I have contacted Mr. Divx Tech Support but I have received no answer.

Basically I am trying to determine the very best procedure for converting my Vegas HDV Project to a file that the Avellink player can play. I am seeking the optimum resolution and sharpness. Any suggestions for other things to try?

Thanks in advance for responding.

Tom

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 2/17/2005, 10:46 AM
At the moment, the WMVHD is the best option for output to the Avelink player. I don't think that Avelink will have a firmware upgrade for the Nero stuff, but it would be nice. The Nero AVC certainly looks much, much better.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 2/17/2005, 11:27 AM
Very imteresting post. Thanks for sharing.
Xander wrote on 2/17/2005, 12:23 PM
I render my HDV using the standad Vegas 1080i MPEG-2 at 19 Mbit/s. I burn this to a DVD which I insert into the Avellink Player. It plays back directly from the DVD. You will need a good wireless connection if you plan to stream video, i.e. the wireless speed needs to be higher the the video rate.
tnw2933 wrote on 2/17/2005, 1:00 PM
Spot, Liam_Vegas, and Xander:

Thank you for responding.

Spot, I have about come to the same conclusion as you that the WMV9 codec is the best for rendering to a high definition file that I can play back on the Avellink player. Spot, I have heard you say before that the Nero Digital codec is better than wmv, but so far I have not had a single Nero Digital File that I have created from HDV footage via Recode 2 work well in even Nero's own player (Showtime 2). At this time I am not enamored of Nero's software.

Xander, that is an interesting idea of rendering to a 1080i mpeg-2 file and playing back that on the Avellink player. I don't know why I have not yet tried that, but I will. It will be interesting to see how this compares in sharpness and detail to the HD-wmv file.

I am not having any prblems streaming video from either my 2.8 GHz P4 or my Xeon dual 3.6 GHz machines upstairs to my Avellink player and home theater system downstairs. We just replaced our old Linksys wireless system (5 years old) with a new pair of Buffalo G54 airstations (one upstairs and one downstiars set up as a bridge to the Avellink player) and HD-wmv files, HD-Divx files, and high resolution JPEG's all stream flawless over this wireless network. Connecting via a laptop downstiars right beside the Avellink player shows that we are getting 100% signal strength and the full 54 Mb/sec transfer rate. This is more than fast enough for streaming these video formats.

Tom
Liam_Vegas wrote on 2/17/2005, 1:09 PM
Hmmm... according to their web site they say the max bit-rate supported on DVD's is only 10Mb/s - so that is very interesting that you get it to work with a 19Mb/s DVD.

Spot|DSE wrote on 2/17/2005, 1:13 PM
I keep hearing probs from various users w/the Nero Showtime, I'm wondering if there are hardware/software conflicts? More to come from them, hopefully soon. I've streamed it, and played it off of beta versions of the settop DVD players, looking forward to those hitting the states very soon too.
tnw2933 wrote on 2/18/2005, 6:36 PM
I would like to add a few more conclusions to the information with which I began this thread. I attempting to find the best format for rendering FX1 projects in Vegas 5.0d for playback on the Avellink Player, I tried rendering with the Divx Fusion codec which gave an encoder error every time I tried to use it. Finally, I tried rendering the project to a 1080i (1920 X 1080) mpeg2 file. To my delight, the entire 17 minute project rendered in less than 2 hours, gave a file of approxiamtely 1.5 GB, and produced an extremely sharp and detailed picture when played back on the Avellink player and viewed on my 76 X 43 in. screen. Although I could not A/B the original footage via component output of the FX1, I felt that this mpeg2 file's overall image quality was close to if not identical to the original image played back by the FX1. For this rendering session I used a single pass. Next time I shall use two-pass rendering, but I doubt I am going to get much better than the image quality that I am now seeing on this file. Rendering to a 1080i (1920X1080) mpeg2 file is superior to any other format that I have seen other than a Pro wmv V9 file (which does not play back the audio on the Avellink Player) and the mpeg2 is fully equivalent in image detail and overall quality to the wmv V9 file.

Tom