tin_the_fatty weblog

I have been playing with video encoding tools to try to turn the HD video files (in AVCHD format) I shot during my trip to Mongolia to video files good for general consumption, i.e. watchable on the standard personal computer (e.g. DivX or H.264).

Apple iMovie and Final Cut Express both work very well for DV (tape in SD), and FCE supports AVCHD, but the workflow sucks. Importing means reading only from a memroy card or a directory in the odd-ball AVCHD directory format, and converting the file(s) into the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) format, which takes around 5X real-time. The resulting AIC files are also fscking massive. Real-time DV import is, compared to this, bliss.

I checked out Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8 (trial for 30 days) and was pleasantly surprised. It supports editing in native AVCHD format (efficient!) and is fairly easy to use. However, codec selection is limited, and can’t do hi-res H.264 movies. Hi-res WMV is supported, but I’d rather go for a more cross-platform codec.

A Google search led me to this, which explains how to create Xvid/DivX/x264 movies in AVI format by using the excellent Debugmode Frameserver and VirtualDub. It also shows how to turn an interlaced movie into progressive format by using a clever filter trick.

While the AVI container is okay, I want to create movies in an MP4 container. Super was promising, but gave errors on certain longer clips. Then I bit the bullet and read up on MeGUI, which is more difficult to use because of the need to create an Avisynth script, and finally muxing the video track and the audio track. MeGUI is complex, but is also very flexible, and the effort was well worth it.

Encoding under FCE is probably easier, but the the x264 codec is supposed to be faster and creates files of higher quality. The Vegas Movie Studio-Frameserver-MeGUI solution also supports 5.1 channels audio encoding while FCE only supports stereo sound (moot point thou, as the 5.1 surround sound experience on DVDs takes a lot of work and not achievable with built-in sound recording of a consumer camcorder.)

Sony Vegas Movie Studio is surprisingly good. v9 has recently been released, which adds an AVC/H.264 codec capable of creating hi-res files, among other features. Now that I can create MP4 files of the highest quality with MeGUI, I am still undecided as to whether I should upgrade.