AVS video editor and 5D2

[Technophile]

Hey guys, i have a couple concerns about using AVS video editor with my 5D2 videos. first off...my computer specs

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3.2ghz
4GB PC6400 DDR2 ram
7200rpm 750GB hard drive
Nvidia 8800GT
Vista Ultimate 64-bit

so the first question is that when I render a video from AVS, it produces a black border around the left, right and bottom sides, as seen here in my flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/technophile82/3604786983/

this border also shows up during editing in the preview window. I have been importing the raw video files into AVS straight out of camera (on the hard drive first, of course). so, i havent figured out how to eliminate that border...

second is that the final render of whatever video isnt quite that smooth - it appears like its dropped some frames. The raw video looks noticeably smoother played back in-camera and also in VLC media player. I dont know if my computer is lacking (considering an upgrade anyways), or if its an issue with AVS editor, or whatever. Ive been rendering to MPEG4 at 720p.

Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks!

[basroil]

You're talking about an avisynth based batch program right? If so, I suggest getting AVISynth 2.5+haali splitter+megui+ffdshow, with x264 as the output for video and FAAC for the audio. Sounds like either your script or your decoder calls for a border, so the first thing to do is to check to make sure neither is enabling it. Also, since it;s only on three borders, may have to do with your resizing algorithm, always use lanczos 4 tap (you can get more info at avisynth.org), it doesn't have to be strictly mod16 output to be used.

And your computer is fine, my core duo laptop (2.0gh) can re-encode 5d video without problems... though it can't play the video at 1080p and usually takes 3hrs per pass for a 12min video...

[Technophile]

i was referring to this program:

http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-editor.aspx

but, i'll look into avisynth too.

[basroil]

ew... Don't use that garbage, it's only a gui for avisynth, nothing more. But that said, you will need to learn how to use avisynth properly for it to be better, kind of like having a total beginner in photography and handing him a field camera without instructions. It'll take some getting used to, but it's just as powerful as anything else out there when you master it (Final Cut, Avid, etc can be replicated in output), but when you first use it it'll feel more or less like trying to edit a raw image with command line inputs (not fun at all)

[Trey T]

I am not familiar w/ that editor but check and make sure if your project/time-line is at the resolution you wanted it to be. your project should match the resolution of the files.

i.e. if your project is set to have 1920x1080, the files you bring into the time-line should be the same resolution.

as far having a computer edit properly, meaning you can do playback w/o the skip frames, you need to have proper codec/software for your computer setup. check this (http://www.divideframe.com/?p=gpudecoder) software out if you're a vegas or premier editor.

It seems even w/ a super PC, you can NOT edit the original 5DII file w/o having a special codec. Another word, there's nothing wrong w/ the moderate computer today, it's the software. I asked this question several times in cinema5d.com but no one has any clue. All they said was, "you need a fast computer." then recently there was a post about "GPU decoder" it seems to get everyone on board w/ editing the raw footages. not that it's perfect but it's step forward. we'll just have to wait a lil further until vegas and premiere comes out w/ somethign built-in.

[basroil]

I am not familiar w/ that editor but check and make sure if your project/time-line is at the resolution you wanted it to be. your project should match the resolution of the files.

i.e. if your project is set to have 1920x1080, the files you bring into the time-line should be the same resolution.

as far having a computer edit properly, meaning you can do playback w/o the skip frames, you need to have proper codec/software for your computer setup. check this (http://www.divideframe.com/?p=gpudecoder) software out if you're a vegas or premier editor.

It seems even w/ a super PC, you can NOT edit the original 5DII file w/o having a special codec. Another word, there's nothing wrong w/ the moderate computer today, it's the software. I asked this question several times in cinema5d.com but no one has any clue. All they said was, "you need a fast computer." then recently there was a post about "GPU decoder" it seems to get everyone on board w/ editing the raw footages. not that it's perfect but it's step forward. we'll just have to wait a lil further until vegas and premiere comes out w/ somethign built-in.

I would always suggest against encoding with more than four threads, it will reduce quality and bloat the file size. If you can, just use one or two threads. I personally use two threads encoding and 2 threads decoding, so I still have two free processors and four free threads on my i7 rig. Lets you watch videos and edit photos while the video is compiling, and if you use max quality settings, it can take a while even on an i7.

And decoding is all about the editing program. Unless it does not have internal splitters and codecs, it should be able to edit mp4-AVC files (just rename XXXX.mov to XXXX.mp4, that way quicktime isn't needed). Any direct show compatible codec should be able to properly send information to your editor of choice as long as the editor is direct show compatible (premiere, vobsub, few others are), regardless of if you can play the video in real time or not (I can encode 1080P video perfectly using megui and a 2.0gh core (not core 2) laptop that can't even play 1080p video). My suggestion for codecs are coreavc (not free, but works very well on slow computers) or FFDSHOW (free, decodes anything and everything, including AVC, realtime, and even WMV9 and VC-1). If it supports direct show filters, the program will also work better if you have the haali splitter installed, so you can work with non-standard mp4 and mkv containers.