I have a bunch of Kodak HD digicams lying around (they cost just $100-$150 these days), but I don’t really use them because they are so slow to edit. You see, on the PC side, editors use the Quicktime engine to decode the MPEG4-SP format. On the Mac side these files are re-encoded during import to a friendlier format, so it’s not a big deal there, but on the PC side it is, since Quicktime for the PC is very slow. Not only that, but under Sony Vegas, using these MPEG4-SP MOV files via the Quicktime decoder is crashy.

So obviously, I needed a way to losslessly re-wrap (NOT re-encode) these MOV files to AVI, in order to force a more sane decoder to take over the decoding job under Vegas. So today I found a way to make these 720/30p HD files REAL TIME on my 5 year old Pentium4 3Ghz PC under Sony Vegas. From 2 fps previewing speed when using Quicktime under Vegas, to full 30 fps when using ffdshow instead! And it’s mighty stable! Here’s how:

Main method

1. Download ffdshow. Use the latest CLSid version for your operating system. Here’s the current 32bit version (as of this writing), if you are lost and you don’t know which one to download. Install it.

2. Download and install SUPER (use the RO server, the US one is corrupted). Load the app, right click, and set “Output file management” to any newly created folder (this will be the folder that will hold all your AVI files). For example, e.g. C:\myvideos\holidays\france\

3. Create another folder in that folder, call it “originals” (so now it becomes something like C:\myvideos\holidays\france\originals\). Copy the Kodak .mov files from the SD card to that “originals” folder.

4. Navigate to the “originals” folder with Windows Explorer, and drag-n-drop all the MOV files to SUPER. Set up SUPER exactly as shown below in pink, and press “encode active files”.

Now, transcoding will commence. Transcoding to AVI will be really fast, since we only re-encode the audio (Vegas can’t decode the original ulaw audio format without Quicktime you see, and these AVI files don’t use Quicktime). Also, this conversion is completely LOSSLESS, you won’t lose quality at all by doing so.

5. Load Sony Vegas (or any other PC video editor that uses the “Video for Windows” technology), and load the newly-created AVI files in it (not the MOV files). Load the Vegas “project properties” dialog, and manually set resolution to 1280×720, frame rate at 29.97, field order to “none/progressive”, quality to “best”, de-interlacing to “none”. In the “audio” tab, change the audio resampling & stretching to “best”. Leave any other fields found in that dialog as is. Click “ok”.

6. Now edit (previewing is going to be stable and faaaaast when using the default preview/auto mode). When you are done with editing, you MUST select ALL clips in the timeline (either by using the “edit mode”, or by using the SHIFT key), and right click on them, select “switches” and then “disable resample”. This is very improtant because otherwise you will get a “ghost” image out of these clips (because these stupid Kodak cameras don’t record in a fixed frame rate). When done, export for PC viewing or Youtube/Vimeo/PS3/XBoX360 like this under Vegas. For other video editors look here.

Alternative method

Windows 7 has problems with SUPER. Also, some people just hate it, or don’t trust it. So, here’s the command line edition of the same workflow shown above. It requires some small knowledge of MS-DOS usage.

1. Follow #1 from the first method.

2. Download the latest build of ffmpeg. Create a folder called “ffmpeg” somewhere, and unzip the contents in there.

3. Inside that same ffmpeg folder, create another folder, called “videos”.

4. Copy the Kodak .mov files from the SD card on the ffmpeg/videos/ folder.

5. Open a DOS prompt, navigate to the ffmpeg/video/ folder, and run the following command for each and every one of your MOV files:
..\bin\ffmpeg.exe -i kodak_001.mov -f avi -vcodec copy -acodec pcm_s16le kodak_001.avi

Substitute the “kodak_001″ file names with your video file names. E.g. the 100_132.mov will become 100_132.avi, etc. You will have to manually do that for every one of your files, unless you are proficient with MS-DOS scripting/programming, in which case you can automate it using “batch” files. If you don’t know what I’m talking about scripting here, just do the job manually.

Transcoding to AVI will be really fast, since we only re-encode the audio (Vegas can’t decode the original ulaw audio format without Quicktime you see, and these AVI files don’t use Quicktime). Also, this conversion is completely LOSSLESS, you won’t lose quality at all by doing so.

6. After the conversion to AVI is done for all files, move all these newly-created AVI files in another location, e.g. where you usually store your video projects (e.g. C:\myvideos\holidays\france\ whatever).

7. Follow #5 and #6 from the first method. Read the important notes. You’re done.

Tutorial for MJPEG MOV files

IF you’re having speed/stability issues with HD MJPEG MOV digicams too (e.g. Panasonic LX3, Nikon D90, and many other digicams), you can apply this tutorial too to create AVI MJPEG streams. This would result in previewing these files twice faster. You need to do two changes to the tutorials above:

1. After installing ffdshow in step #1, load ffdshow’s “VfW Configuration” panel, click the “Decoders” tab, click “Codecs”, scroll down to find the MJPEG format, and change it from “disabled” to “libavcodec”. Screenshot.

2. When you set the frame rate on your Vegas or other PC video editor’s project properties dialog (just before you edit), you must figure out what is the source’s footage frame rate. Vegas tells you what the original is if you select it in the Project Media tab, and read its status bar. It will say something like “30.000 fps”, or “24.000 fps”. Type in the frame-rate field that number. Set up the rest of the project properties as shown in the tutorials above. At the very end of editing, after you “disable resample”, export at 29.97 fps if the original reported frame rate was 30, or at 23.976 if the original was 24. Leave at 25 if it the original was 25. This will ensure sane, standard-compliant, frame rates.

Everything else is the same as in the tutorials above.

Important notes

1. While editing, the gamma will be different than the original Kodak MOV files. This is normal. Quicktime has a known problem with MPEG4 footage, rendering them with a lower gamma value (looking washed-out). What you will get with AVI and Vegas, is how the camera REALLY recorded the footage — which is a good thing.

2. This method only offers speed and stability under PC editors for MPEG4-SP & MJPEG files, not for MPEG4-AVC/h.264 files. Please note that the Kodak digirecorders, like the Zi6/Zi8/Zx1 are h.264-based, not MPEG4-SP based like their actual Kodak HD digicams. Therefore, for these Z-series digirecorders you’ll need something like Cineform NeoSCENE (costs $99) to go around the editing problem.

3. SUPER might trigger your anti-virus. This doesn’t mean it has a virus or that it’s malware, it’s just that it doesn’t always play nice with some anti-virus apps.

After just 4 hours of overall shooting time, but 2 months of various setbacks, the music video I shot for local Bay Area artist Andy Kong, is finally up. Andy is a great singer/songwriter, so if you like the song, go ahead and check his music on iTunes!

Video was shot with a bare HV20 (just an ND filter was attached to it) in 24p, and in 60i for the slow-mo scenes. There are a few shots that I’d like them to be different, but overall I’m reasonably happy with the result. HD version here.

Wow, just wow! A mixture of real footage and motion design, inspired by the look of Dutch ’70s postcards and class photos. Shot with a Canon HV20. HD version here.

One thing that bugs me with the 720/30p MPEG4-SP format found on Kodak digicams (not on their digirecorders, as these use h.264), is that it’s very slow to edit on Windows. Most Windows video editors use the Quicktime engine to decode that MOV format, and Quicktime on Windows just plain sucks ostrich balls. I mean, sure, if you have a very modern, very fast PC, you’ll get some acceptable performance out of it, but on a modest PC, you won’t get more than a few fps on the editor’s preview screen. And besides, Sony Vegas is super-crashy when using the Quicktime engine. Every time I had to edit footage from these Kodak digicams, I had to use proxy files. The MPEG4-SP format is NOT a heavy format (it’s even lighter than XViD, which in turn is much lighter than h.264), it’s just that PC’s Quicktime somehow sucks with it.

These days, I am preparing a laptop to give to my mom. She’s 54, she’s never used a computer before, but she wants to learn. So I’m thinking of giving her my HP 1120NR netbook (1.6 Ghz Atom, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB flash storage, 1024×576 res, latest well-configured Ubuntu). I have already left with her the last time I was in Greece my Kodak Z1275 too. It’s a digicam with 720/30p recording capabilities at 12 mbps (no manual controls in video mode, not even exposure compensation). I think she would really enjoy shooting pictures and videos with it — something she didn’t do so far since she had no computer to enjoy them (she just has a 14″ TV with no A/V inputs, but she might buy a 32″ HDTV soon).

So while I was preparing that netbook, I also installed PiTiVi, the only easy-to-use GTK+ video editor that can do HD. KDEnLive is a bit overkill for her I think. So while I was testing PiTiVi with Kodak’s MPEG4-SP format, I found that at least ffmpeg/gstreamer were able to playback the format easily, even via a video editor (which usually adds performance constraints to the decoder), and even with the usage of an Atom CPU. And when removing the toolbars and making its UI “fullscreen”, even at a 1024×576 resolution, video editing was very acceptable! Only one screen needs to be trimmed down to fit in that resolution (the Project Properties dialog).

Of course, PiTiVi, has no support for transitions, effects, or titles. It’s just a straight-cutter right now. But for someone like my mom, I think that would be good enough. It’s fast for the specific video format, somewhat stable (not amazingly though), and it can export back in a 720/30p format (XViD) that the Atom CPU can handle in real time either via VLC or Totem (720/30p h.264 is too close of a call with that CPU, plus, the latest Ubuntu “unrestricted” ffmpeg package has removed AAC support once again). So I envision a scenario of my mom shooting some video, editing it with PiTiVi, exporting as XViD to a 16 GB SDHC card, deleting the working files to save space in the measly internal storage, and playing back the XViD file from the SDHC card on a (new) HDTV via the HP-2-HDMI dongle (if I ever find to buy it, since it’s a rare hardware addon for that netbook model).

As for still pictures, I’m excited about the new F-Spot that features basic image manipulation tools.

Not sure if she will ever manage to learn all that stuff, since she can hardly use her Nokia S40 cellphone, but hey, why not? JBQ’s grandmother learned how to use a PC with Vista at her mid-70s, so it’s never too late.

From any Canon video dSLR or digicam h.264 format to AVID’s Media Composer 4 (MC4), using the Avid DNxHD intermediate format: step by step tutorial (PC & Mac). For 1080/30p timeline support on MC4 you will additional need the Symphony Nitris DX hardware though.

This is a 38-second preview of a music video I shot 1.5 months ago, and it should be completed in December, after we do some necessary re-shoots. The Bay Area artist is Andy Kong, the song is called “Accidental Love Song”, and it’s part of his newly released album “This Beautiful World“.

It was shot with a naked Canon HV20 (just an ND filter was used). The specific “band” scenes you see here were shot in PF24 (at 1/48), but the rest of the video actually has cut-scenes of a little background story we put together. The cut-scenes were shot in 60i, interpolated to 60p, and then slowed-down to 24p (2.5 times).

Edited with Sony Vegas Pro 9, Cineform removed pulldown to 24p, and the following plugins were used: AAV ColorLab, Color Corrector, and a custom Magic Bullet template.

Having nothing more to do tonight I browsed the archives of the HV20.com forum to search for good HV footage (and I already check out properly tagged videos on Youtube and Vimeo daily). Found some interesting stuff. Two full-length HV movies for one. “Hollow” is a drama, and “Envelop” is a horror movie (login to the site to be able to view the screen-caps). Both movies are in post-production right now.

Secondly, I found this beautiful music video shot with an HV20 (w/ 35mm adapter). I believe VH1 and MTVU was going to show it, not sure if it actually reached the TV sets. It did reach their web sites though. The song is currently offered for free for promotional reasons. Get it here.

And one more music video, with the same director and band. I believe this was also shot with his HV20, but I will have to confirm with the director. UPDATE: Confirmed, it’s also with the HV20 and a Letus Mini adapter. Here’s a picture of the director’s rig, and a yet another music video by the same director and band, with the HV20.

It’s been over 2.5 years since the release of the HV20. During that time it became the most game-changing camcorder to ever hit the market: it was the first consumer camera with 24p support, and with its improved lens/sensor, it inspired thousands of amateur filmmakers who were previously limited by the hardware to do what they always wanted to do. Some amazing videos were shot with the HV series, short films, and about 400 official music videos too — an amazing feat for any camera, let alone a consumer one.

However, in the quickly-moving technology of today, the HV series is now fading away: it’s bowing to AVCHD cams, and to the Canon 5D and 7D dSLRs. Once upon a time there were as many as 30-40 HV videos uploaded on Vimeo daily, now we are lucky if we get 5-6. Obviously, as with everything, its time is passing. It’s fully functional of course for those who want to still use it, and it still outperforms some non-Canon AVCHD camcorders! But most artists from the “old gang” on Vimeo have moved on, and I have done so too with my recent purchase of the 5D Mark II.

In light of this, and by trying to close this chapter, I decided to put together a best-of. These are my top-5 favorite HV videos for each category:

Short Movies
1. A Thousand Words *
2. White Red Panic
3. Manifest Destiny *
4. The Ring *
5. Semblance

Runner up: The Unfortunate

Music Videos
1. Malbec – Story Of A Broken Heart
2. Twinn – Don’t Cry *
3. Arman Bohn – Combat
4. Pitchblend – Celsius *
5. D.A.A.N. – He Hallo

Runner up: Motiva – Repülj Madár *

General Art
1. Rainy Day
2. Birth.Life.Death. * (NSFW)
3. Ape *
4. Mirror, Mirror
5. Seeing Red
6. Reflections of Home
7. Luna 2 *
8. Unspoken
9. GAY = SIN
10. Wii Boxing *

Special mention: The Condition:Human sci-fi web series.

* The asterisk denotes the usage of a 35mm adapter.

More of carefully selected best-of-the-best HV videos can be found on the HV group.

Reza Productions just posted on Vimeo the full short movie they shot last March with a bare-naked Canon HV30. In my opinion, it’s on the best top-5 of all the HV short films shot so far: it’s color graded well, light and photography is great, it’s cut pretty well, and the director was smart to setup his shots in a way that by zooming-in he would introduce some slight shallow depth of field. Shallow enough to make this short movie to look very “filmic”, as in “movie-like“. I am very impressed by the look he got out of his naked HV30. Download the 1080p HD version here.

This short movie proves that HV’s 1/2.7″ sensor & semi-fast lens are enough in most cases, if you know how to light & shoot properly. From all the gadgets I’ve bought over the last 2.5 years to feed my filmmaking hobby, the 35mm adapter was the most useless one. Except the initial test with it, after it arrived on my doorstep, I never used it to shoot anything. I wasn’t happy with the vignetting, the loss of resolution and stabilization, the bulkiness, the difficulty of actually shooting with it. Instead, I learned how to maximize my camera’s ability to achieve a shallow-enough-for-my-purposes DoF. Even a tiny bit of shallow DoF is enough to get rid of the “video look”. You don’t need massive amounts of it! The latest music video I shot has some pretty shallow DoF at times, and it’s shot with a bare HV20 too. Here are two snapshots from it:

I believe that most of the videographers who bought a 35mm adapter are misguided. Except maybe a handful of HV videos shot with a 35mm adapter on Vimeo (out of about 500 such videos watched so far), the majority are just shaky “tests”. Sure, there are situations that very shallow DoF looks better, but I am personally just not sold on it. There are more important things on a video than blurriness. And I am not willing to lose so much just to get blurriness. In fact, now that I have a 5D MarkII, I will do my best to keep shallow DoF under control.

Red Giant Software released yesterday a Vegas version of their brand new product, Magic Bullet Mojo. Mojo is a simpler version of Magic Bullet that only has one goal: to make your footage look like the Hollywood movies of the last few years: teal-looking, but by preserving the skin color (which can be a tricky thing to achieve without this plugin). I tried the demo, and it indeed does what it promises. The algorithm they use to auto-figure-out where the human face is in the frame, and preserve that color, works great. You can use the plugin’s UI to bleach or warm your video, punch it, change the color tint from green to teal to blue, select the way the algorithm finds the face in the frame, and finally, how much you want these settings blended with the original, ungraded look.

Talent is Dave Tsui, from the Bay Area band HIJK

The only problem I encountered is that the “mojo” slider punches up contrast and/or gamma (even with “bleach”/”punch” all the way down). I would prefer to contrast/gamma my video separately if required, with the use of another plugin, and only use Mojo for its teal/skin abilities. Finally, on Vegas, we are used to double-click the UI’s slider buttons to get them to jump back to their default values, but this doesn’t happen with the Mojo UI.

Update: One more example. Except the unwanted dark gamma change that I can’t get rid of with Mojo, the rest of the tint is as it’s supposed to be. I know that to some of you it looks weird and that the original picture looks more natural, but the point of Hollywood movies — that Mojo emulates — is to not be natural.