Lossless joining of SVMS MP4 rendered video

Viddy wrote on 7/12/2013, 5:37 AM

Hi all

I have been using SVMS from version 9 right through to latest version 12. I think it's an amazing product for the money and I know that I push it to the hilt sometimes with my editing.

A lot of my video projects get very complicated, with lots of audio tracks, text overlays, graphics, video effects etc. I am always aware that the longer a project gets the more it is asking of SVMS to work smoothly and also it takes longer to load as the project grows in complexity and length. I normally try to keep my projects to a max of about twenty minutes, and then I render that video as a finished piece.

I have experimented in the past with merging projects into a new one - but have never found it to be one of SVMS strengths. I have also experimented with joining, say three 20min rendered videos into one but all the methods I have tried have varying levels of success. I have not found anything that does exactly what I want.

At the moment I always work with 1280x720 PAL 25fps, 48,000 audio. I favour SVMS v12 Main Concept renders (MP4 (AVC/AAC) for my finished work.

What I would like is (if it's possible) to know what utility there might be that would allow me to join/stitch two or three 1280x720 MP4 videos together WITHOUT re-encoding the files. The utility would have to do this without any weird artefacts, glitchy playback etc.

I realise that I could render out from SVMS in an uncompressed format (AVI?) and then pull those pieces back into SVMS to join and then render out the whole thing to MP4. However, the file sizes involved and the effort required put me off doing that.

In the past (mainly when I used to work with HD WMV files), I did use several "lossless" video joiners but I found that they all had their issues. For example, a tool might appear to have done the join faultlessly and without any extra encoding... but then you might try that video on another video player or software video streamer etc, and then discover a glitch or something.

I was wondering if anyone on here has a tried and tested utility that will totally seamlessly join two or more PAL 1280x720 25fps MP4s into a single file with no tampering of the originals. i.e. no re-encoding etc.

I have often thought it would be a nice feature for SVMS to allow you to render several projects (assuming they all had the same settings etc.) into one single rendered video. I guess this might be a Sony tool that sat 'outside' of the main program?

Failing that - how do others manage larger video editing projects in SVMS? Are there any wizzo tips for this type of problem?

Thanks in anticipation of a fantastic solution to my query!!!

Al

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 7/12/2013, 8:45 AM

Nested Projects are a feature of Vegas Pro. You can download a 30 day trial to test drive.

Smart rendering AVC/h264 is not currently supported in any version of Vegas. VideoRedo and TSDoctor are two applications that should do this.

DOS concatenation of AVC is not very effective; although it may play, the GOP indexing gets messed up, something the two applications I mentioned take care of.

Viddy wrote on 7/16/2013, 3:23 AM

Hi - many thanks for the reply.

The 'nested projects' in Vegas Pro seems to be the ideal solution, but unfortunately I can't afford to make the upgrade to Vegas Pro and SVMS does all I need for my general video editing.

I looked at the two programs mentioned but I am not sure they are what I want. As I mentioned, in the past I have found cheap or even freeware video tools that could stitch WMVs, MPEG2s, AVIs and even FLVs etc without re-encoding but there doesn't seem to be a quick and easy solution for MP4 joining (which are pretty much the only types of rendered videos I produce these days).

I guess that if I can't find a software utility that can stitch MP4s together seamlessly and without encoding, I might need to consider the rendering out of my projects as uncompressed AVIs. At least I know that I haven't lost any quality when I pull the uncompressed AVI's back into SVMS and can join them on the project timeline and then render out as MP4s. At around 5Gb per minute of video though, I was hoping to avoid that rather massive file management aspect.

Slightly off the subject - I am impressed at how quick the uncompressed AVIs can be rendered out from SVMS, quite amazing really. I guess there's actually less work for SVMS to do with uncompressed frames than when it has to optimise and process the compression for each frame when producing MP4 videos.

Regards
Al

musicvid10 wrote on 7/16/2013, 7:34 AM

If you've got the drive space to do uncompressed AVI, go ahead.

MPEG-2 will smart render in Vegas, so you could use MXF or XDCAM as your intermediate and save a lot of space.

Did you test VideoRedo TV Suite? It's pretty nifty.

Markk655 wrote on 7/16/2013, 6:54 PM

I'm not sure about mp4, but Nero can stitch together AVCHD using Nero recode.

Viddy wrote on 7/25/2013, 3:05 AM

Thanks to everyone who replied - much appreciate your help.

In answer to Musicvid10 - I didn't actually download and try VideoRedo TV Suite - I looked at it but decided that it was functionally biased to features that I don't really need and so I could not see me wanting to buy the program.

Nero seems to recode so that might not be ideal.

I reckon that, with the popularity of MP4 and it becoming almost the defacto format for modern high quality computer video, that more programs and utilities will appear over the coming years (just as they did when MPEG2 was all the rage - at one point you couldn't find much at all to mess around with MPEG2 video but that soon changed).

In the meantime I think my best option is to consider exporting my 'sectional' projects as uncompressed AVIs and then pull them back into SVMS12 to join them together and finally render out as one long MP4 video. It adds a bit of work but I find that, although they are massive, the uncompressed AVIs render out extremely quickly from SVMS12 - much quicker than MP4 renders. I also know that doing things this way ensures that I end up with totally pure MP4 videos from SVMS12 which I am always very pleased with. I can just delete the huge AVIs when I am done with them.

Thanks again

Viddy

musicvid10 wrote on 7/25/2013, 8:39 AM

That's a fine approach; however many of us don't have the space for uncompressed AVI intermediates, esp. for 2-3 hr. projects. Besides the mpeg-2 options I mentioned, lots of folks use DNxHD or Cineform for their intermediates. They are made for the job, and they work in about 1/10 the space. Also, there is the disadvantage in your workflow of small color shifts going from YUV->RGB->YUV. Better, I think, to stick with one colorspace throughout your workflow.

Viddy wrote on 7/25/2013, 9:10 AM

Hi

Firstly I hadn't appreciated the colourspace issue - thanks for mentioning that. On the few occasions I have so far utilised AVIs I have not been aware of any problems with colourspace but will have a look more carefully to see if I can detect shifts in colours etc.

I must admit I am not familiar with DNxHD at all. Cineform I have heard of but am again not sure of how it works etc. When I have looked into some of these new terms I am also seeing references to 'Smart Rendering' - but have never dabbled with that either so it looks like I might be missing out on quite a number of options. Maybe I have a lot to learn in the 'intermediates' world...

Reference DNxHD — are you saying that you would, for example, do some editing on the timeline in SVMS and then render that out to DNxHD, then use the DNxHD videos to import back into SVMS and join up? Or am I not grasping this technique?

I notice that the codec for DNxHD appears to be free - but quite what I am supposed to do with it is a bit of a mystery.

This is all very interesting though and I am intrigued as I had never even heard of this DNxHD, smart rendering etc.

Viddy