Archive for the ‘AVI’ Category

Convert FLV Video Files

Monday, July 22nd, 2013

To convert from [.flv] to another format, use VLC Media Player’s [Media > Convert/Save] option.  Be sure to set the destination as well as the source.  VLC can only convert to formats in its own internal container and codec sets, but e.g. can convert to [.mp4] containing H264.

Thereafter can use e.g. Sony Vegas to generate e.g. [.avi] containing CFHD, e.g. for onward use in applications that don’t recognize mp4-h264.  Vegas is more accommodating and flexible than (straight use of) Adobe Media Encoder, as regards non (broadcast) standard frame sizes and proportions.  Conveniently, Vegas automatically matches the Project to the footage on footage-import.

Prior to that, I tried installing and using Riga, the two-way FLV convertor, but it didn’t work on  my Window 7 (64-bit) machine,  opening only a blank window where a GUI was expected, and both the downloader and installer were both full of bloatware (NB needed to install in Advanced mode in order to avoid some of that).  Pointless…

Using Cineform’s HDLink to Re-Wrap (ReWrap) from QuickTime (QT) MOV to AVI

Monday, July 8th, 2013

Rewrapping means taking the encoded contents out of one container file-type and putting it in another, with no decode/re-encode happening.  For example, given a [.mov] file, one might rewrap it to a [.avi] file.  These file-types are each merely containers, designed to contain various encode formats (e.g. DV, Lagarith, Cineform, DivX) without having to “understand” them.

Rewrapping may for example be required for some Windows-based applications, that either don’t handle [.mov], either at all or (as I have encountered) not fully.  Similarly, some applications (Windows or Mac based) will only work (or work properly) with [.mov] files.  For instance I have found the Windows variant of Boris RED (versions 4 and 5) to work properly with HD 50 fps progressive only via [.mov] container, as reported at http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/15/859544 while someone else has found Avid Media Composer 5 to prefer [.mov], reported at http://community.avid.com/forums/p/84923/487414.aspx.

One tool for doing this: HDLink, a utility bundled with the Windows version of Go-Pro-Cineform “visually lossless” wavelet-based codec (that I have used for a number of years).  HDLink can convert Cineform files from [.mov] to [.avi] and vice-versa.  Incidentally, for the Mac version of Cineform, there is a broadly equivalent utility called ReMaster, but that can only convert in one direction, from [.avi] to [.mov].

To re-wrap:

  • (Just now, I merely did [Convert] tab, select file and [Start], ans all worked fine, but maybe full work instruction should be as follows?)
  • Use HDLink’s [Convert] tab.
  • Select/Ensure the required destination file-type:
    • Click [Prefs] button (at bottom of dialog)
    • In [Prefs], ensure [Destination File Format for … Conversion] is set as you require.
    • And (I guess?) enable [Force re-wrap CF MOV->AVI], to ensure it doesn’t sneakily do a transcode?
  • Select the Input file and go.
  • The rewrapped version will appear in the same folder.

The process is of course much faster than transcoding, involving simple computation, hence the overall speed will tend to be limited by the storage (e.g. hard disk and/or its transfer bus, especially if it’s a slow old thing like USB2) rather than the CPU (which may consequently show an extremely low % usage).

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QuickTime is THE Broadcast Standard (not MXF or AVI)

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012

http://www.sounddevices.com/products/pix240/videos/

  • {In one of the videos it is stated that QuickTime is the main standard used in broadcasting, and that MXF is not so much, mainly due to the fact that it has been interpreted in different ways by different manufacturers, becoming incompatible among some of them.  That’s my experience also.}

http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/pix/pix-faq/

  • Quicktime is well-supported by editing software, is Mac OS and Windows compatible, and supports ProRes and DNxHD. Also Quicktime is well-established in the post industry and has good metadata handling. Though AVI is  a relevant consumer file type, it is – rarely used in professional production.

http://community.avid.com/forums/t/96816.aspx?PageIndex=3

  • QT was never meant to be a wrapper for acquisition or file transfer between post production applications. It is way too inconsistent. There is a mind numbing combination of color levels, gammas and bit depths replete with defaults and overrides that make QT a bloody mess.
  • Not true. The blackmagic codecs, pro-res, cineform, AJA and other codecs have no such issues when passing material from NLEs to other applications.

Boris FX Export Issues

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012

Boris Red is great, but “I learnt the hard way” not use Boris standalone.  From now on I will only use it as a plugin to an NLE, performing the import/export via that instead.  In Red 4, it was possible in Windows to e.g. import DNxHD or Cineform and then export QuickTime>Cineform.  However in Red 5.2 at least, it seems that QuickTime import and export capabilities have been removed.

In more detail:

  • Naively, I tried using Boris Red 5.0 in standalone mode, to import a file, apply an enhancement effect then export to an intermediate file (that I could import back to my NLE).  But it failed.  Different variations on my export attempts failed in different ways, sometimes crashing, sometimes an error message, sometimes a weird image in the result
  • So I updated to Red 5.2, hoping that the problem might be fixed in that version.  However the problem remained, and now there was a further obstacle – Red version 5.2 for Windows removed the ability to export to QuickTime.  At first I thought it was perhaps a case of QuickTime version incompatibility. But no, it appears that this export feature has been deliberately removed from Red, following issues between Red and QuickTime in their newly-shared 64-bit world…
  • In desperation I tried Uncompressed.  Cumbersome in the least and, in the case of external USB2 drives, slow.  However even that attempt failed, with a Boris crash.
  • Finally I gave up and simply applied Red as a plugin to my most flexible available NLE, namely Sony Vegas.

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