The video thread

[Joseph Clemson]

4 hours ago, MDM said:

 

I might be misunderstanding the problem but can you not convert to something like MP4 and import that into DaVinci. You can then transcode it to ProRes in DaVinci. 

 

Given that each act of transcoding may introduce degredation into a file that has already been natively stored in a lossy format (on tape or memory card) by the camera, the ideal would be to convert in one operation to a codec better suited to editing, i.e. DNxHD or ProRes, while maintining as much quality as possible. The final delivery is another transcode after editing to a delivery codec acceptable to the agency(ies) concerned. It's this first step of converting M2T files (of which I have a large collection) into DNxHD which I need to solve, so I can do a minimum amount of grading in Resolve to make these old clips (or some of them) saleable. 

[Joseph Clemson]

4 hours ago, MDM said:

 

I've got some coming up but not sure where I am going myself to be honest. I am still experiencing Long Covid and full day weddings are very arduous so I am thinking of how to work that (shorter packages?). I am also considering wedding video but I need to get a portfolio first. I hope I might get a chance to shoot some video at the upcoming weddings. 

 

I did shoot a wedding as a favour for my favourite nephew. The editing took me weeks to do! Afterwards I looked into entering the wedding video segment to replace the declining stock photography. Once I realised the hassle of getting permissions, releases and additional fees for filming the 'performers' (officiant, organist, choir, hotel MC), the licence need to distribute copies of your video if it contains copyrighted music...  This is before I counted the potential hassle of messing up the shooting of someone's BIG day. Ideally too you need more than one camera/operator to give you alternative shots and a backup if a camera goes wrong (one did for me!) Getting good quality sound recordings from every participant. The list of things to be done seems never ending. I decided that at my time of life and in my state of mind, I needed a job shooting weddings like I neeed a hole in the head. 🙂

[John Mitchell]

6 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

I did shoot a wedding as a favour for my favourite nephew. The editing took me weeks to do! Afterwards I looked into entering the wedding video segment to replace the declining stock photography. Once I realised the hassle of getting permissions, releases and additional fees for filming the 'performers' (officiant, organist, choir, hotel MC), the licence need to distribute copies of your video if it contains copyrighted music...  This is before I counted the potential hassle of messing up the shooting of someone's BIG day. Ideally too you need more than one camera/operator to give you alternative shots and a backup if a camera goes wrong (one did for me!) Getting good quality sound recordings from every participant. The list of things to be done seems never ending. I decided that at my time of life and in my state of mind, I needed a job shooting weddings like I neeed a hole in the head. 🙂

 

Uh-oh. We seem to have a tech language barrier. My Sony a6000 uses a proprietary (I assume) format called AVCHD, which Shotcut can open, so I'm using it for editing. A scroll thru the 'last footage sold' forum posts at P5 suggests that MOV is the most common format, if that means anything.

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

Given that each act of transcoding may introduce degredation into a file that has already been natively stored in a lossy format (on tape or memory card) by the camera, the ideal would be to convert in one operation to a codec better suited to editing, i.e. DNxHD or ProRes, while maintining as much quality as possible. The final delivery is another transcode after editing to a delivery codec acceptable to the agency(ies) concerned. It's this first step of converting M2T files (of which I have a large collection) into DNxHD which I need to solve, so I can do a minimum amount of grading in Resolve to make these old clips (or some of them) saleable. 

 

 

I wonder if there is still some confusion in terminology here. My relatively limited understanding of video file formats is that there are container formats (e.g. mov) and codecs (ProRes in its various flavours and DNxHD of which I know nothing much), complicated further by the fact that some are intermediate and output codecs (most of the ProRes variants) and some are input codecs (ProRes Raw). When I shoot ProRes Raw with the NInja V, the files produced are .mov files. I import these into Final Cut and can choose which ProRes format to transcode to. When I output them, again I choose the ProRes format depending on desired quality and they are output as .mov files which is what shows in the file system. So in other words, they never appear as ProRes in the file system as they are contained in the .mov files.

 

I explored this a little using another very useful Apple app called Compressor which is part of the Final Cut family and can convert to a very large number of different formats. I was able to convert a .mov file to M2T (which I have never heard of before today), then import the M2T file into Compressor and finally output it as ProRes in a .mov container. This can then be imported into Final Cut and edited as desired which was basically what I was testing. 

 

So I am guessing that it must be possible to do the same with one of the free converters for Windows mentioned above - import the M2T, convert to mov and then import into DaVinci. 

 

I am happy to do one or two for you in Compressor if you like. Output would have to be ProRes. 

 

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

I did shoot a wedding as a favour for my favourite nephew. The editing took me weeks to do! Afterwards I looked into entering the wedding video segment to replace the declining stock photography. Once I realised the hassle of getting permissions, releases and additional fees for filming the 'performers' (officiant, organist, choir, hotel MC), the licence need to distribute copies of your video if it contains copyrighted music...  This is before I counted the potential hassle of messing up the shooting of someone's BIG day. Ideally too you need more than one camera/operator to give you alternative shots and a backup if a camera goes wrong (one did for me!) Getting good quality sound recordings from every participant. The list of things to be done seems never ending. I decided that at my time of life and in my state of mind, I needed a job shooting weddings like I neeed a hole in the head. 🙂

 

Yes video would bring up a load of other issues I guess given that one could be recording copyrighted music. I might well stick to stills. I will have to have a chat with my videographer buddy to see what he does.

 

 In my photography contract I place the onus on the couple to tell guests that they are likely to be photographed and that I need to be informed of any objections in advance. Occasionally some people do not want their kids in images on the web but the vast majority of people don't mind. If I want to use kid photos as part of my portfolio, I usually offer a print or two to the parents.  

[Joseph Clemson]

20 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Uh-oh. We seem to have a tech language barrier. My Sony a6000 uses a proprietary (I assume) format called AVCHD, which Shotcut can open, so I'm using it for editing. A scroll thru the 'last footage sold' forum posts at P5 suggests that MOV is the most common format, if that means anything.

 

Hello John, I'll say at the outset that I'm not familiar with AVCHD and I'm too tied up at the moment to research it properly. You can certainly open it in Shotcut or Resolve, but whether it is the best format to be editing it in I am by no means sure. 

 

A brief lesson (look it up in more detail for a proper understanding): Video files come in some kind of container (.MOV, .AVI, .MP4 are examples), sometimes called a format. Within these containers the video itself is encoded/compressed according to the system employed by a CODEC (Coder/Decoder). Different codecs compress in diferent ways and are better suited to different purposes. Container filess such as .MOV may be used wth many different codecs. 

 

Video captured by a camera wiill already be compressed by the codec specified by the manufacturer, balancing quality with memory space and playback quality. The is a little like a JPEG produced by the RAW data capture by a still image sensor, it is a lossy format and some degredation of the image occurs.  If you then edit that file while in its compressed format, the act of editing can introduce further degredation. The final act of exporting the file in yet another container/codec combination specified by the video agency can degrade it further (a little like editing and resaving a jpeg multiple times).

 

The ideal, as I understand it, is to take your file from camera (which you may have little control over) and transcode it using a codec which will not degrade the image in the proces of editing - Prores and DNxHD are often recommended for this. Once all editing is complete it is necessary to transcode again using a container/codec combination which is acceptable to the agency. This usually balances file size (to reduce storage costs) with editability quaility for the purchasers.

 

The key to unerstanding all this is to have some idea of the role of video container files and the assoicated codecs. There are lots of explanatory articles on the web, here is one which I think does a reasonble job of explaining the subject.

[Phil Robinson]

2 hours ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

I did shoot a wedding as a favour for my favourite nephew. The editing took me weeks to do! Afterwards I looked into entering the wedding video segment to replace the declining stock photography. Once I realised the hassle of getting permissions, releases and additional fees for filming the 'performers' (officiant, organist, choir, hotel MC), the licence need to distribute copies of your video if it contains copyrighted music...  This is before I counted the potential hassle of messing up the shooting of someone's BIG day. Ideally too you need more than one camera/operator to give you alternative shots and a backup if a camera goes wrong (one did for me!) Getting good quality sound recordings from every participant. The list of things to be done seems never ending. I decided that at my time of life and in my state of mind, I needed a job shooting weddings like I neeed a hole in the head. 🙂

Not really a technical question regarding video, but is it morally acceptable to have a favourite nephew?