Sony EX1 - MXF Questions

MUTTLEY wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:14 AM

Okay, so as brief as possible when I bring in an mxf file it plays great, looks great, hell, it even feels great. BUT ... if I prerender it changes the size of whatever clip I'm prerendering. The project settings are 1,920 x 1080. When the prerender dialog box comes up and I choose Sony MXF and then HD 1080-24p it actually wants to render at 1440 x 1080 and the drop down box under "Custom" is grayed out so I cant change it to the 1,920 x 1080.

Anyone able to follow my way to late and frustrated to make sense post?

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

Comments

megabit wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:35 AM

Sony MXF format (or Sony XDCAM support in general) is not to be used in conjunction with the EX1 clips. Your project setting are OK, but you must render as MPGE2 (Mainconcept) with the size of 1920x1080 explicitely chosen.

MUTTLEY wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:42 AM

Thanks megabit, that was quick! And at this time of night!

So okay, mpg, but there are no Templates for HD 1080-24p, am I missing something? Or do I need to make one? And if I need to make one which should I start with and change? And are there any other things besides size that I need to change to render the Sony EX1 footage right?

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

MUTTLEY wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:46 AM

ack, just tried a little test and it had horrible compression artifacts, square blocks everywhere. I'm missing something here. ANd I did change it to "Best" and "Video Quality" to High.

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

megabit wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:49 AM

Exactly - choose a fully customizable video template, change the settings and save it under some recognizable name for future use.
Remember not only about the size, but data rate as well!

The XDCAM and MXF support doesn't support the EX1 HQ format.

megabit wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:54 AM

This is my template Video setting:

Width: 1920
Hight: 1080
Frame rate 25 fps (YMMV - I'm in PAL land)
Profile: High
Level: High
Video quality: High
Variable bit rate 35 000 000

It works OK.

farss wrote on 12/26/2007, 3:44 AM

Possibly stupid question here, what do you want to render it for?

I guess where I'm coming from is the MC mpeg-2 codec isn't a XDCAM codec, it might be exactly the same...or not. And the word is the XDCAM codec has some pixie dust hidden in it. That could be just marketing hype or not. If not then unless you're doing a smart render (cuts only) I would worry that you're going from one lossy codec to an even more lossy codec...or not.

Would be nice if someone truly in the know were to speak up and give us some pointers. It's great that we can drop the HQ footage onto the V8 timeline but then what do we do with it.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 12/26/2007, 4:06 AM

Possibly stupid question here, what do you want to render it for?

Good question, Bob - I just somehow automatically assumed he is trying to render out while maintaining the HQ source quality (e.g. for BD delivery). The settings I provided work fine for me; the point is that "Sony MXF" template doesn't have adjustable video settings, and I guess defaults to 1440x1080.

mark2929 wrote on 12/26/2007, 5:04 AM

This is bad surely their should be a codec in vegas to render out the EX1 files at 1920 resolution. Surely Sony will update vegas for this?

MUTTLEY wrote on 12/26/2007, 11:27 AM

Thanks again megabit for the late night suggestions, set it to prerender using your suggestions and then gave up for the night. The video does look pretty good.

Bob, as far as what I'm rendering for, well, at this point myself. =)

I have the inevitable bunch of clips that someone ends up with when they get a new camera and wanna play with it. I threw some effects on the clip and wanted to prerender it for the usual reasons, to see it with effects at high quality. Generally speaking it seems to me a bit faster to render or prerender with the same settings as the source media (unless your downgrading of course).

Beyond that, though most stuff will probably be down-resed, I'd still like to render some of this out to the highest quality possible to show clients and potential clients the capabilities of the Sony EX1 either on my main machine or my laptop.

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

P.S. I stand corrected, most of the footage looks great but some clips with more motion (such as a shot of a ceiling fan) still look badly compressed.

mark2929 wrote on 12/26/2007, 1:16 PM

Well a couple of uses I can think of like a high quality master or put back on the memory card. Output it through the SDI out. Or play it through the camera onto a full HD TV. Its a good way to store it on your hard drive. Even if in the end it ends up as 1440 or any lessor format its still going to be better for effects then downconvert. Who knows what the future will bring. I think the ability to render this out at 1920 with the XDCAM codec is a very big ommission.

MUTTLEY wrote on 12/26/2007, 1:24 PM

Agreed Mark. That said I'm simply giddy about the EX1 and fairly confidant that 1920 will be added sooner or later. It's just disappointing that apparently this wasn't foreseen and already addressed.

Tried to call Sony support but it seems they're closed for the holidays.

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

megabit wrote on 12/26/2007, 2:15 PM

P.S. I stand corrected, most of the footage looks great but some clips with more motion (such as a shot of a ceiling fan) still look badly compressed.

Ray, apart from specifying the max bitrate of 35Mbps, it's also important that you set the other two (min and average) high enough - certainly when quality has priority over speed or filesize; maybe even use 2-pass.

MUTTLEY wrote on 1/1/2008, 6:57 PM

Okay, this is driving me nuts. I've tried fifty different ways to prerender and all of em grovel, none of em look near as good as the original footage and some go though the whole process of prerendering but don't actually prerender. It's annoying that I've got this amazing footage that, while it plays back fine if there are no effects, pans/crops, etc. or isn't some of the slomo stuff out of the camera, but if I do anything to it I can't really look at it or show it to anyone without it either looking like junk or completely chugging.

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com