Video rendering for canon 5d mark2 & software

Simon Park

Can anyone tell me what would be a good software to use with the HD video on the 5D.

This is what i would like the software to do:

Reder the .mov file so i can upload it to Smugmug.
be able to make a blu ray disc or movie
be able to make a DVD disc as well.
also be able to make a avi file to stream to my tv and dlink.

Thank you

Simon Park

ziggy53

Simon, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I moved this to the Action forum inside of the Video forum. This is where most of the discussion about video software takes place.

Do you have a Windows or Macintosh system?

KiwiLight

I need som advice too!
Hi there,

Further to the above post, I would also like some help with regard to 5DII HD video and its associated editing.

I have a PC running windows vista ultimate 64 bit, with quad core 2, 4 gigs of RAM.

So, I have been looking around for a while a found a lot conflicting information on various posts about how to edit 5dII video. From what I have read, it would seem that it is very difficult to render video while editing in any software program when using a PC (even the most powerful quad cores with tonnes of RAM). It would seem the issue has do with Windows and the compression algorithm applied (h.264 codex) to the raw video files in camera. This is why when you launch the video from the raw files the video is all jerky when using the apple player. I am told that it runs better when using the software that Canon bundles with the camera, but I have never tried this.

To overcome this issue, a lot of posts recommend to transcode the raw files into an 'intermediate' compression standard/codex. Now, most posts recommend spending $$ to purchase Cineform's Neoscience. Here is a link through to useful discussion on all this mumbo jumbo:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-hd/140473-intermediate-codecs-windows-users.html

Now, I am a total newbie when it comes to this HD video stuff, but I would like to have a go at some of this fusion. Anyhow, I knew that in order to do all this I need to buy a video editing software so I didn't want to spend any coin on a codex transcoder (boring). So I found some free software called Mpeg streamclip:

http://www.squared5.com/

Now, I have to admit..... I totally don't know what I am doing with this software. Every tutorial I have read on using this is to transcode 5dMii footage is for final cut express on Mac systems. As stated, I am a PC user and when I go into the transcoding options I don't seem to get the same options as the Mac users.... so if any of you out there can tell me the intermediate codex that I should use then that would be much appreciated as I think this is where I am going wrong.

So, I found this smugmug guide on how to format footage for upload using Mpeg streamclip which I followed and applied to a few raw files. After the transcoding I found that they now played a lot better in the apple player. Here are the instructions:

http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/How+to+convert+and+format+a+video+for+upload+to+SmugMug

Then the next question was what video editing software should I use.... well I didn't want to pay a fortune for pro editing stuff which narrowed it down to premier elements and sony vegas movie studio 9:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope


Sony has a free trial download so I gave it a whirl and this is where all the issues begun. The program constantly crashes and it is difficult to see the video play natively. I eventually strung something together with a bit of music and transitions (look out Reverie). However, then when it came time to render the clip into a HD file the program just keeps on crashing.... boo.

OK everyone, so there is my rather long winded experience with 5DMKII HD video and its associated editing. Any tips or suggestions would be welcome and please don't tell me to buy a Mac!! I have to admit though, it would appear Mac users have a much easier time with all of this.

Thanks

Rich

ziggy53

Rich,

Editing and processing video, especially 1080P, is "extremely" tough for a computer. When in doubt I look to the following folks for inspiration and proven solutions:

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+System+recommendations+for+Video+Editing/0x4aebb06ba071d2b6a2cd784ce243a6c6.aspx

In particular, see how your system stacks up to this machine:

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/C/DIY+Systems/Videoguys+DIY+6+Quad+Core+Editing+System/0x13758252bb227161831724602db8c355.aspx

KiwiLight

ziggy53 wrote:

Rich,

Editing and processing video, especially 1080P, is "extremely" tough for a computer. When in doubt I look to the following folks for inspiration and proven solutions:

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+System+recommendations+for+Video+Editing/0x4aebb06ba071d2b6a2cd784ce243a6c6.aspx

In particular, see how your system stacks up to this machine:

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/C/DIY+Systems/Videoguys+DIY+6+Quad+Core+Editing+System/0x13758252bb227161831724602db8c355.aspx

Thanks for the info, but I dont think the issues is that my PC lacks the horse power under the bonnet. It runs on a core 2 quad at 2.4Ghz, has 4 gigs of decent RAM, has an NDevia GT 8800 graphics card, has two hard drives running at 7200rpm and I am on Vista Ultimate 64 bit. My system is pretty consistent with the recommendations of the video guys.

I think the issues is that I am using the wrong intermediate codex for editing or that sony vegas sucks at rendering HD video. It may also be that I don't really know what I am doing...hahaha.

Any help welcome...

ziggy53

That nVidia GeForce 8800 GT looks almost ideal for h.264 applications so if you are having any playback issues I would suggest looking for potential new drivers.

Also note that if you have 2 drives make sure that one is dedicated to system and the other to video. The video drive should also be formatted from time to time, or a dedicated partition should be created and that should be formatted from time to time.

VLC is a very popular player for Windows machines, but there seems to be a trick to allowing full 1080P:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-hd/238176-5d-mkii-pc-playback-good-solution-found.html

You may have to invest in the high end editing software for best performance as the entry level software typically cannot use the full resources of the machine that you have. A trial version of the high end software may prove the point.

Sony Vegas seems to be a showing up as a competent editing package for the 5D MKII files. I haven't tried myself because my current machine is woefully inadequate for 1080P anything.

Simon Park

Canon 5D mark video edit
Thanks for moving it, i think this is my first post so just trying to get the hang of it.

I am using a PC at the moment i have my laptop with vista (2.26,4gb ram) and i'm using a Desktop with XP soon to be windows 7 when it it the shelfs.

I will be upgrading my desktop as well as the new software i would need to be able to do some small editing from the camera 5D mark.

ziggy53 wrote:

Simon, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I moved this to the Action forum inside of the Video forum. This is where most of the discussion about video software takes place.

Do you have a Windows or Macintosh system?

ziggy53

I haven't done anything 1080P but Vegas Video has been great for SD video, once you learn the user interface. It's a love-hate relationship for many but I find it very reasonable and even fast to work in.

I have found others saying that they use Vegas with the 5D MKII video files so I think it's a pretty safe recommendation.

SiriusPhotog

To the OP asking about requirements for 5d MII HD editing...
One thing you need to realize about the 5D MII HD video is that it is a HOG. Which is actually a good thing as far as quality goes but horrible for editing.
Just to put thing into perspective, HDV 1080i video is recorded at 25 Mbit/s in MPEG2 format. It's not a great editing format but it works.
1080P footage with the 5DMII is shot at 38 Mbit/s in h.264 MGEG4 MOV format. So it immediately has two strikes against it. 1. - 38 Mbit/s is HUGE (ie: little compression) and MPEG4 is not a great format to be editing.

It takes a machine with some real horsepower to edit this type of footage as is and I have yet to hear of anyone easily editing it on a laptop. Your Vista laptop with 4GB ram is not going to cut it when you take into consideration that Vista is going to eat up a good bit of that ram just for the OS. Loading any decent editing program on top of that takes up a bit more...

One thing I would recommend is giving the Cineform Neoscene plugin a try to convert the clips to another format for editing. It's worked well for me.

BTW - Most of the popular editing programs will do what you want as far as this is concerned:

"Render the .mov file so i can upload it to Smugmug.
be able to make a blu ray disc or movie
be able to make a DVD disc as well.
also be able to make a avi file to stream to my tv and dlink."

My choice is PremierePro but Vegas and the others should do the job as well.

CynthiaM

SiriusPhotog wrote:

One thing I would recommend is giving the Cineform Neoscene plugin a try to convert the clips to another format for editing. It's worked well for me.

What format do you convert the video files to? I don't have this software to refer to (perhaps the answer is intuitively obvious if I had the software, but I don't) nor do I have a 5d or a 7d. But I am on Windows (7), have had a lot of trouble editing the mp4 clips that come out of a flip ultra hd, anticipate upgrading my canon 20d to a 5d markii or 7d and trying to keep a reference for myself of video editing suggestions so when I take the plunge it's not into the abyss of the windows blue screen.

BenA2

CynthiaM wrote:

What format do you convert the video files to? I don't have this software to refer to (perhaps the answer is intuitively obvious if I had the software, but I don't) nor do I have a 5d or a 7d. But I am on Windows (7), have had a lot of trouble editing the mp4 clips that come out of a flip ultra hd, anticipate upgrading my canon 20d to a 5d markii or 7d and trying to keep a reference for myself of video editing suggestions so when I take the plunge it's not into the abyss of the windows blue screen.

Cineform Neo Scene transcodes the files into a Cineform H.264 AVI, which you should not have a problem editing on a descently-speced PC. When transcoding more compressed H.264 files, like those from the 5D/7D, this is a lossless, 10-bit format. Before you invest in Neo Scene and, if you are not already invested in an editor, you might look into using Pinnacle as your editor. Its users claim it can edit native 5D/7D .MOV files with no problem.

CynthiaM

BenA2 wrote:

Before you invest in Neo Scene and, if you are not already invested in an editor, you might look into using Pinnacle as your editor. Its users claim it can edit native 5D/7D .MOV files with no problem.

I saw that in the above posts and will keep it in mind, but I already have Premiere Elements which could not handle the mp4s that come out of a Flip Ultra HD and this is on a quad core i7, with 6gb of ram and an ATI radeon 4800 series video card with 1 gb of video ram. You would think that the computer could handle this, but in PREL it just choked; constant crashes and many blue screens. I think it was something with the software that did not want to play nicely with the computer. As was suggested on another forum (maybe the adobe forums??) I used mpeg Streamclip to convert the files to avi files so instead of crashing in 2minutes, it teased me and let me work for 20 minutes before crashing. But I have since seen numerous references to the Neoscene software so I'm thinking I might download the trial see if I can get its converted files to work with PREL. Perhaps the problem was the streamclip conversion?

BenA2

CynthiaM wrote:

I saw that in the above posts and will keep it in mind, but I already have Premiere Elements which could not handle the mp4s that come out of a Flip Ultra HD and this is on a quad core i7, with 6gb of ram and an ATI radeon 4800 series video card with 1 gb of video ram. You would think that the computer could handle this, but in PREL it just choked; constant crashes and many blue screens. I think it was something with the software that did not want to play nicely with the computer. As was suggested on another forum (maybe the adobe forums??) I used mpeg Streamclip to convert the files to avi files so instead of crashing in 2minutes, it teased me and let me work for 20 minutes before crashing. But I have since seen numerous references to the Neoscene software so I'm thinking I might download the trial see if I can get its converted files to work with PREL. Perhaps the problem was the streamclip conversion?

Well, you definitely have the computer horsepower. Most of the people I've seen post about editing HD files that are using Premiere are using Premiere Pro, not Elements. So, I'm a little worried that might be part of the problem. But, before you get too worried about that, I think you're on the right path to try the trial version of Neo Scene and see how the Cineform codec works for you in Elements.