Update: The Rendering Situation

Ugh.

I believe I mentioned in my last post how I hate Canon's lie about 24p video. I mean, it IS 24 fps video, but in a 60i stream wrapper. This is not only a pain in the ass, but requires you to remove pulldown to get true 24p.

Since yesterday, I played around with Premiere Pro CS4 and After Effects CS4, and have come to two conclusions: 1) Yes, it's just as painful to new users as I remember, and 2) I'm not getting the results I needed. This, after rendering twice in After Effects (Premiere won't natively handle the pulldown for some reason, so I have to export the project to After Effects, run it's 3:2 pulldown removal guesswork, and then either export back to Premiere or render from After Effects. Not seeing the point in exporting a second time, I processed the render through AE after matching the product settings to output an uncompressed .avi. Problem is, and for some unknown reason, this was just a video file, and processed an accompanying audio file as a separate .wav. What the hell is the point of that?

Kind of fed up, I went online to see if there were any tutorials on how to both remove the pulldown and export a complete and lossless file back out. Not really having any luck, I did stumble upon a suggestion on a random site (sorry, didn't save the link) that pointed to the TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 program as a pulldown removal solution comparable to the $129 Cineform Neoscene. While I was unable to procure a copy of Neoscene, I was able to get TMPGEnc (retail $99).

Program in hand, I did a quick search for 24p pulldown removal settings on Google, and stumbled across this site:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=1417

Even though this pertains to the Canon HV20, the file systems and capture settings are close enough to the HF20, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Using the instructions listed in the first post (Exporting to uncompressed .avi instead of the lossy 1440x1080 MPEG-2 outlined) I was amazed that it only took about 20 minutes to re-encode. Opening the new file, I genuinely had a tremendous grin on my face.

Not only is the footage identical to the original file, but there was no ghosting to be scene. I verified through import into Premiere and Vegas that the file was, indeed, natively 24p. Now the thing is, when you transfer files from the HF20 to the computer, because the 24p is in a 60i wrapper, there is no ghosting. When rendering after editing, however, it doesn't matter if you use 60i as the output or 23.976 fps...ghosting is prominent. The only fixes, as I said before, are to remove pulldown outside of the program or to just shoot in 60i from the beginning.

TMPGEnc allows me to remove the pulldown efficiently (we're talking 25 minutes for a 10 minute video here...efficient enough for me), then export to either a lossless format or something of an intermediary for easier editing. In a word: perfect. The results are pretty amazing, and the best part is that the output files are comparable in size to my input (in this case round-about 2GB). This allows me to gauge both disk-space necessary as well as if my publication carrier of choice (in this case, Youtube) will allow the video. Just what I was looking for, essentially.

So it seems that this chapter in the never ending battle of noob-production has come to a close. Now I need a Blu-ray burner, a decent shotgun mic, an adapter for additional lenses (as my pal Bob pointed out), and...there was something else. Hmmm....I know! A plan for actually filming my ideas!

Yeah, you can tell I sweat the small stuff, can't you?

And so ends another exciting installment of "Justin Gets His Shit Together." Tune in next week, where we find our hero pursuing a big person job, paying off his small mountain of debt, and generally learning to become a productive, functioning member of society!

Bitch ya later, folks.

Rendering video is a son of a bitch!

Another day, another rant.

Yesterday, I finally posted the long awaited (or, since no one cares, randomly new) camera reviews and an overview of my Asus EeePC 1000HE netbook. Again, since no one cares, I'll leave it up to you to view the Youtube videos.

Anyway, the two camera reviews were uploaded directly to Youtube (the Powershot SD780 IS review was shot with the HF20 and vice-versa) and varied in terms of processing time. Since the HF20 review was shot in 720p/30fps .mov, it uploaded an processed fairly quickly. The Powershot review was uploaded in 1080p mode in "24p," my framerate of choice, in .mts format. This one took longer, one because the file was bigger and in a less accessible format, but also because everything about the file was larger/more complicated. Nevertheless, they both posted without a hitch.

The Asus review, however, was not so lucky. Due to my own idiocy, I over-ran the time on the review by about 6 seconds. This wouldn't normally be a big deal, but considering Youtube is a bitch about that 10 minute rule, it wouldn't do. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just throw it in Vegas and do a quick edit/render."

No problem indeed.

The editing wasn't an issue. My system (2.66GHZ Core 2 Quad 8200 with 6 GB DDR3 1600MHZ RAM running Windows 7 Ultimate) can handle the AVCHD files natively with no hiccup. My Vegas Pro 9.0 is the 64-bit version, so I eke out a bit more optimization from the cores. Like I said, the editing wasn't an issue. And the PROCESS of rendering wasn't an issue either, as the system was more than capable of performing the task.

Problem is, I had to render it (18 minutes for a 10 minute clip) SEVEN TIMES to get an acceptable file.

That's my problem with any editing, and I'm new to this so it might just be my noobosity checking in. But why in the hell can't I load in like files (or even trim ONE file) and have the output match the input? I had to test tons of different output render settings (tried MediaConcept .mp4...shit. Tried uncompressed .avi...shit. Even tried .wmv...shit) with no luck. Frustrating/time wasting to say the least.

Here's how I finally got a decent output file, and this was only after scouring/begging on the internet for hours:

1) Re-started the whole project as new.

2) Set project settings to 1920x1080 at 23.967 progressive scan

3) Loaded .mts file in

4) Edited it down

5) Chose render as, with the following settings:

Sony AVC, .mp4, 1920x1080, CABAC encoding, 20000000 bit-rate, best render settings, default audio.

Took 23 minutes to render. When it was finally done, I checked the file really quick just to see if the quality was bearable, then I loaded it into Youtube. Twelve hours later, it finally processed and I realized that, while the tolerable, the video quality left much to be desired. The main issue was the ghosting (watch the video and see the part where I wave my hand really quickly over the netbook towards the beginning of the video itself...blur and ghosting like a bitch). The quality itself isn't bad, but the ghosting ruined it for me, and I couldn't fathom what the issue was.

Enter: Eugenia.

Here are three links I found to be insanely helpful, and if you are encountering this problem with any of the Canon AVCHD camcorders, I suggest you check them out.

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/11/09/exporting-with-vegas-for-vimeo-hd/

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/07/16/sony-vegas-project-properties-with-hv2030/

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/01/04/canon-avchd-24p-pulldown-removal/

If you're not interested in reading those posts, I'll summarize.

Basically, the problem isn't with Vegas per-se, but with the footage itself. What Canon says is 24p isn't ACTUALLY 24p at all, but an odd restructuring of 60i. It looks like 24p in raw footage, but Vegas doesn't recognize it as such.

Now there are a couple of fixes for this. First off, I could just shoot footage in 60i from now on, but that isn't what I really want. I want that 24p, that filmic quality. So that option isn't really an option. The next fix is to remove the pulldown from the footage, which results in an honest to God, genuine 24p image. Problem is, this can get expensive.

For people without FCP or a Mac for that matter, the best, and one of the only options for pulldown removal and intermediary footage is Cineform's Neoscene program. The program is available from Cineform's website for $129. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but my normal *ahem* "sources" are fresh out of legitimate Neoscene programs. The trial is free, but lasts 14 days, which is a stop-gap solution more than anything.

There ARE freeware methods, but reading the tutorials makes it more trouble than it's worth. You would have to download somewhere around 10 different programs and codec packages, essentially render the video from the get-go, and RE-RENDER after editing, and even then the results aren't stellar.

Yet these two options are the only way to avoid ghosting when using Vegas.

Solution: Adobe Premiere CS4 and Adobe After Effects CS4.

While I wanted to avoid the Adobe suites (a little too daunting for me, at least from my limited use of Photoshop), it seems as though the CS4 suites not only handle AVCHD natively, but allow for 24p pulldown removal natively as well. This not only cuts down on time, but also the hassle of jumping through numerous hoops to get a working 24p render.

So, to summarize, it isn't really a Vegas issue, but an issue with the setup of the Canon AVCHD camcorders. To lie and tout true 24p is wrong (with a little workaround, it is true, but not out of box), and the fact of the matter is I shouldn't HAVE to remove pulldown. That said, a suite that is otherwise comprehensive, like Vegas, should include native pulldown removal, or at least a downloadable codec/plugin to add such functionality.

Haven't had a chance to do anything with the Adobe programs yet, but I'm off tomorrow so I'll be sure to tinker with it. Needless to say, it's been a huge hassle so far trying to get non-ghost images from my final renders, and I'm hoping the benefits of Premiere/After Effects native abilities outweigh my personal aversion to the software itself.

Who would have thought that my biggest problem wouldn't be the on-system editing of raw AVCHD and instead some bullshit pulldown issue?

So it goes, so it goes.

More to come.

Canon Vixia HF20 Review

Also as promised, the long awaited Canon Vixia HF20 review. If you wait a little while, Youtube might get around to processing the HD stream, though it isn't really necessary.

Canon SD780 IS Review

As promised, a quick video review of the Canon Powershot SD780 IS. If you wait a bit, you can get the HD option on the Youtube stream, but it isnt entirely necessary.

Not at all what I intended

So even though I was planning on doing a Steel Panther write-up, today felt as though it were constantly in my way, so I'm going to switch gears for a second.

Today was one of those days that I really, really hate. I woke up tired, which happens to the best of us, but I was also a bit sick-feeling, which is never good. After trying, and failing, to wake up, I finally got myself going and started getting ready for work. As a precursor, it has been stated by my boss not once, but numerous times, that on Mondays it isn't necessary to show up at 7 a.m. anymore since our weekly manager meetings now fall in the middle of the day. That said, I still try to get to work somewhere around that 7 mark, if only not to lose out on any hours. Today, for instance, I managed to get to work at clock in at 7:18...not ludicrously late by any standard, but again, I was told it didn't matter.

So I walked in this morning, clocked in, and headed to the front of the store, where it looked like most of the managers were moving/prepping for a new fixture. Almost immediately, I was told that I had "missed" the meeting...the same meeting that we've had mid-day for the past couple of months. My store manager proceeds to playfully berate me, listing the litany of problems with my tardiness. I know it was slightly kidding, but it irked me nonetheless, but that was just the start of it.

Lately I've been keeping an eye on and maintaining the graphic novels at the store. I've used some unconventional sorting methods, but things have been looking great and staying that way. And sales are up, so that's always good. So coming in today, after being off all weekend, I noticed that not only was the section wrecked, but it also looked a lot more bare than when I left the store Friday night. Curious, I asked the other managers if anyone had maintained or returned anything from the section over the weekend (this would be odd considering it's usually too busy Saturday and Sunday and I had just pulled all the returns last week) and no one remembered anyone processing anything out. After finishing up the fixture moves, I decided to take a look around.

The hold shelves had nothing comics related, so I moved on to the return shelves. Same situation. I checked the return logs to see if anyone processed out any returns over the weekend. Nothing. Completely vexed, I decided to re-maintain the section and try to pinpoint what was M.I.A.

All sorted, I went through and wrote down everything I knew had been there on Friday. There were plenty of titles I remembered seeing, but didn't see now. Using that list, I cross-referenced with the computer system to see what had sold, and to my utter amazement NONE of the 65 titles had sold. Some showed one copy on hand, some showed multiple copies, but NONE of them were on the shelf. Conclusion: we got robbed blind, yo.

Considering this is kind of a big deal, I let my boss know and he kind of just shrugged it off. That would've been an odd reaction, but the fact that he then proceeded to tell me that there were more productive ways to spend my morning sent me from confused to just generally pissed off. For about two months, I've been the only one keeping up with that section (a notorious cluster-fuck if there ever was one), and all of that work has given me a sense of responsibility over it. So when it gets messed up, or depleted, due to some jackass five-finger-discount shopping, I'm naturally ticked off. Add to that the fact that none of my superiors or contemporaries seemed to give a shit, and I was pretty livid.

Already irritated, I proceeded to do what I had initially intended with my day, which was finish the audio move. This proved far more frustrating than I had hoped, due in large part to the company's bad habit of planning something without thinking about measurements or logistics.

Regardless of my irritation, I got it done, just in time for lunch. My wife had a job interview today, and she showed up just as I was heading outside. Apparently the interview went great, but unfortunately I took out some of my frustration on her. Truth be told, there were some things she should have asked in her interview (hours? benefits? requirements?) and didn't, which irritated me even more. But ultimately it wasn't worth fighting over, and I really wish I hadn't lashed out at her over something so trivial, but alas...that's how it goes some times.

After lunch, I was going to try and look at some camera footage to see if I could pinpoint the dickweed who had stolen all the comics, but instead, what did I do? I sat in a meeting. Yes, a manager meeting. The same manager meeting I was told I missed that morning. The same meeting I got grief over. Blah.

Clocked out at 3:30, went home and was still in a bad mood. Fought with wifey a bit more, brooded a bit, and shot some of those video reviews I had promised in the last post. Tried to upload them to Youtube, but got an error, and then found out Youtube was down for maintenance. Fan-fucking-tastic. Then I found out that a video converter I downloaded was a trojan, so I spent the better part of an hour scanning and getting rid of that shit.

Now I'm typing this, and I'm calmed down, but this was just one of those exceptionally shitty days that comes around every-so-often. Hopefully tomorrow won't suck quite as much, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've gotta finalize the taxes and try to re-upload those videos, so that's it for now.

Keep an eye out for the videos and updates to come. Maybe even a Steel Panther write-up sometime between now and infinity. Stay tuned!

New camera, Fort Howard, Picasa and more!

It's been a while. I was supposed to update this regularly, like how I was also supposed to do a daily, or at the very least bi-weekly, vlog series. Ah well.

Anyway, I had sold my two Flip cameras a couple months ago in favor of a Canon HF20. I had shot a couple of videos on Youtube with it, and promised to do a video review, but never got around to it. I WILL do it at some point, I've just been lazy as of late. In short, the camera rocks, having excellent video quality and all the features needed to actually do some semi-professional looking videos. The only downside, especially considering I sold the two pocket Flips, is that even though I have a true performance camcorder, I have no real portable option. The HF20 is small, to be sure, but it's not like I can fit it in a pocket like I could with the Flips. I was looking into rebuying one at some point and was anticipating their next upgrade, which I knew would be coming up soon.

A couple of days ago, Best Buy leaked some images on Engadget with what's being called the "SlideHD" and frankly...I wasn't very impressed. It doubles the storage of the latest minoHD from 8 gigs (2 hours)to 16 gigs (4 hours), but that was never an issue considering the battery only lasted two hours anyway. Additionally, they added a flip up screen which looks like it has no real practical purpose. Adding to the negatives against it, it looks like the thing is going to cost $280...ridiculous for a pocket cam, especially one thats only 720p at 30fps.

Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed in the newest offering from Flip/Cisco, so I checked out what good old (read: shitty) Kodak has been up to. Looks like their newest offering, the Kodak Playsport ZX3, is just a waterproof version of the Zi8. This isnt a good thing. The Zi8 had some major problems, none of which have been really fixed at this point. Believe me, I know: I owned three of them before giving up on it. So the Playsport wasnt an option either.

When I got the Flip, I gave my wife my Sony Cybershot T500 (I think it was the T500...it was thin, had a touchscreen...too lazy to check now). It was a nice little camera, but the video was lacking and I never really found myself taking a ton of still photos. Since then, I haven't necessarily had the urge to take stills, but there have been a couple occasions where a good point-and-shoot would've come in handy. Without a pocket camcorder OR a point and shoot, my ability to shoot anything on the fly has been severely lacking.

Enter: Amazon. Since I had bought and reviewed the Canon HF20 on there, they had recommended me the Canon S90 point-and-shoot. I had seen a review of this particular camera on Gizmodo before, and it got some pretty glowing comments for it. Problem is, even though it was released last year, it was still almost $400. And, it only takes stills.

While I was looking at the listing though, I saw the Canon SD780 IS, a point and shoot that takes 12.1 megapixel stills AND shoots the typical 720p 30fps video that all the pocket cams manage. Color me intrigued. I read some reviews, both on Amazon and elsewhere, and everyone seemed to love it. An independent vendor had listed it new for $130, and I had about $75 in Amazon gift certificates, so I thought "why not?" and bit the bullet.

I'm glad I did.

While I plan on doing a full-blown video review later (I will this time...I promise), I thought I'd leave a few thoughts on here. First off, this thing is small. Not typical point-and-shoot small...it's the same dimensions as a credit card, barring depth. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel too tiny in the hand though, and fits in my pocket with my cellphone without even trying. The build quality is exceptional, as everything is made of metal parts with a powdercoat black finish. Feels sturdy and not at all fragile. A main selling point for me was the fact that even though the camera is incredibly tiny, it still has the same awesome Digic 4 processor that Canon has been using in a lot of cameras as of late. Thus the images are stunning, not DSLR stunning mind you, but more than exceptional for a camera of this size. Included in the tiny package is a 3x optical, 5x digital zoom lens, which is more than enough for the type of shots I'll be taking with this thing. With manual ISO, scene, coloration, and facial recognition settings, they also manage to cram a ton of features that are normally relegated to much more expensive and much larger cameras.

Beyond the excellent still shots, the main reason I even looked at this thing was the video option. To tell you the truth, it's a mixed bag. On one hand, the actual video clarity, in both fully lit shots and low light, exceeds that of the Flip/Kodak cams. Could be something to do with the lens, or the image processor, but it really does blow them out of the water. That said, this thing won't replace a dedicated camcorder of any merit. There's lots of grain in low light, though not as bad as the aforementioned two. Colors are great, but some details are lost in bright light/darkness. The main issue I have with the video has nothing to do with the image, but the sound. The microphone does a really good job of picking up sounds in all directions...but it's almost TOO good of a job. You hear the internal camera noise in every video; sometimes it's low, sometimes it's loud, but it's always there. With no external mic input like the Zi8, you really cant remedy this, which is a shame. The Flip has the best microphone of the pocket cams, and the SD780 IS doesn't really challenge the crown here.

It's a real shame the video experience isn't exactly as good as I was expecting, but for something of this size, and for the price I paid, it's really just nitpicking on my part. If this was a video camera only, I'd be kind of pissed, but seeing as it takes some truly awesome stills, it more than makes up for any shortcomings. And it's tiny. Really. This thing is small as hell. It's awesome.

So I got the thing yesterday, and did some toying around with it, but today was when I got some real testing done. Sunday's are "Family Fun Day" where my wife, my daughter, and I usually do something fun as a family. Sometimes it's going to the movies, sometimes it's sitting around playing games, and sometimes we just go somewhere. Today, we decided to go to Fort Howard, considering it was so gorgeous outside.

Now, I've been to Fort Howard before and it's...well...it's a park. In Dundalk. It's not great, it's not bad, it just is. That said, I think we had a really great day. The weather was, as I said, beautiful, and the breeze coming off of the water was refreshing. We stopped at a deli, got some sandwiches and snacks to take with us, and had a picnic on one of the tables in the park. We walked through the old forts/dungeons, wandered out onto the pier, and swung on the swings in the playground. All the while I was taking stills, shooting video, and generally trying to get in as many kind of shots as I could. After about two hours, we left and came home to clean up and relax.

After lounging around for a bit, I uploaded the pictures from the SDHC card onto the computer. Before we looked at them, I downloaded the latest version of Picasa, which I hadn't gotten around to since I got the newer computer.

As one of my previous posts mentioned, I'm now a full-blown Googlyte, using just about any Google software I can get my hands on (Blogger, Youtube, Gmail, Wave, Reader, Voice, Android, iGoogle, Chrome), and I do it only because I can painlessly share information between all of them. I can upload Youtube videos directly to Blogger. My Gmail contacts sync to my phone. I get Voice notifications in Gmail. Reader has changed how I browse the web daily. iGoogle consolidates everything to my home page. I am in LOVE with Google, and I'm not ashamed. Hence, Picasa.

I've used Snapfish and Flickr in the past, as well as Photobucket, but I've never really fallen in love with any of them. Picasa is different. Not only does it automatically add new photos to my database, but I can do basic photo tweaking (red-eye reduction, cropping, etc.) within the program seamlessly. It auto-detects faces in photos (even faces from picture frames in the background...which is insane) and auto-suggests name tags based on facial recognition within my contacts. I can create subfolders, upload to my web albums, upload directly to Facebook and Blogger, and search my photos/videos by name-tag or geo-tag. In short, it does what any good Google program does: it consolidates and streamlines my pictures/videos with all of my social networking and productivity suites. It's perfect for the kind of person I've slowly become, and I think it's actually going to fuel my picture-taking and video producing by proxy.

So after all of that, we got ready again and headed over my in-laws house for dinner and a movie. Considering I had already seen the movie my daughter picked, I took my netbook (Asus 1000HE with 2GB RAM upgrade) with me for some more updating. Since I got my new desktop, I loaded Windows 7 on the netbook and it runs like a breeze, but since I did a clean install, I lost all of my files/programs/settings. I haven't gotten around to reinstalling all of my programs and setting up things like bookmarks again, so I took the opportunity to get some of that done. I re-did my Chrome bookmarks, reinstalled CDisplay, Debut, uTorrent, Openoffice, VLC Media Player, and most of my Popcap/low-spec games, and set-up a Thor theme of wallpaper backgrounds. In short, it has become a severely less-powerful extension of my desktop experience, which I can live with quite nicely. Still got my Netflix, still got my Youtube, still got my .cbr comics, so I'm really good to go.

Afterwards, we went home, tucked the daughter in, and we've been watching Ninja Warrior as I typed this. All in all, a really good weekend. One thing I didn't write up was Friday's Steel Panther show, but I think I'll do that tomorrow. Right now though, I'm a bit tired, so I'm probably going to hit the hay.

More updates later, I promise.

Final Fantasy XIII - Impressions at 4 hours