SpliceVine

Transcoding, trials & tribulations

Eric Wise — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:43:20 +0000

It’s video compression month on Splice Vine and in pt. 2 of this Friday Fundamental podcast, I and Clay Asbury, video editor and writer for DVInfo, talk about transcoding.

How do we prep files for these different editing apps? Do we even need to any more?

You can also check us out on iTunes:

Links for this week’s episode:

Podcast music is And the wait continues (Morphamish Remix) by Asthmatic Astronaut

Steamroll base image is a photo from GlennPeg

Codec double agents and compression helper apps

Eric Wise — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:31:56 +0000

It’s video compression month on Splice Vine and in pt. 1 of this Friday Fundamental podcast, I and Clay Asbury, video editor and writer for DVInfo, talk about compression fundamentals. Namely, the importance of understanding the differences between wrappers and codecs. We also talk about codec double-agents and the compression helper apps we use the most.

You can also check us out on iTunes:

Links for this week’s episode:

LEARNING RESOURCES:

Divergent Media’s month of tips on video compression.
Compressor 4 Essential Training (Lynda)
Adobe Media Encoder
Sorenson Media YouTube channel
Telestream Episode Pro tutorial
Video Compression Shoot-out. (webinar comparing Compressor, Squeeze and Episode)
Streaming Learning Center (Jan Ozer’s site)

SMALLER 3RD PARTY COMPRESSION APPS

MPEG Streamclip (how you can rip a video off of YouTube)
Clip Wrap (re-wraps HDV (m2t) and AVCHD (mts, m2ts) files into QT movies. Supports ProRes, DNxHD, XDCam, etc…
Flip4Mac (plugin is good for creating WMV versions of your video)
Hand Break (an open source multi platform video transcoder) (outputs .mp4 and .mkv container formats with H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 or Theora essence files)
MacTubes
Magic Bullet Grinder

Podcast music is And the wait continues (Morphamish Remix) by Asthmatic Astronaut

Steamroll base image is a photo from GlennPeg

H.265

Eric Wise — Sat, 04 May 2013 22:44:39 +0000

Links to info on H.265, so that when this next-generation compression standard is ready, you will be too.

The industry has been abuzz with talk about H.265 for a while now. What is it besides the obvious successor to H.264?

According to streamingmedia.com, H.265 / (High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a new codec with 50 percent better compression efficiency than H.264 and support for resolutions up to 8192 x 4320. This codec will go a long way towards enabling a seamless transition to an ultra HD future.

Steaming Media predicts that between now and IBC in September we’ll see the first wave of HEVC capable encoders come to market.

Until then, here are some links that will get you up to speed on this game-changing codec:

H.265 / HEVC (Wikipedia entry)
What is HEVC (H.265)? (extensive streamingmedia.com article)
HEVC compression not ready for primetime (a Broadcast Engineering article that is bearish on how long the new standard will take to implement)
Philip Hodgets blog post on H.265
Bruce Nazarian talks about H.265 on The Digital Production BuZZ (at 23:09 in)
A good op-ed piece on it at Reelseo
A contrary opinion that sees Google’s VP8 as heir-apparent.

Check out this short video on H.265 from NetworkWorld.

Compression helper apps

Eric Wise — Sat, 04 May 2013 21:41:11 +0000

These cheap and in many cases free compression apps could save your life – or at least, save your edit.

You’re probably aware of the major video compression apps like:

But there are compression apps by indie developers worth checking out that will help round out your encoding toolset:

MPEG Streamclip - this much beloved free compression software is a staple in the dock of many editors. It even has a feature that lets you rip and convert movies off of YouTube. (Oy. I wish I had known that a while back. I’ve been using Snapz Pro X to do screen records of YouTube videos and have been creating enormous files in the process).

Flip4Mac - as far as I know this is the only plugin that lets you export WMV files from NLEs running on a Mac. To do this though, you’ll need Flip4Mac Studio that costs $49. Also, it converts almost any video to uncommon formats like WebM (VP8) Ogg Theora, etc…

Clip Wrap – allows you to easily rewrap HDV (m2t) and AVCHD (mts, m2ts) files into QuickTime movies. And according to the developers, the newest version of ClipWrap beat transcoding to ProRes by 8.2x in our side by side comparison, and transcoded to ProRes faster than Final Cut Pro!

HandBreak – an open-source multi-platform video encoder. This app outputs .mp4 and .mkv container formats with H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 or Theora essence files.

MacTubes – while not technically a encoder, it is a handy free YouTube downloader.

iSkySoft for Mac – converts video to many popular formats including the .WMV format.

Magic Bullet Grinder- the essential tool for converting DSLR video to edit-friendly formats.

Bitrate Starter

Eric Wise — Sat, 04 May 2013 19:12:46 +0000

Take the guess work out compression with Bitrate Starter. This app helps you determine starting video and audio bitrates to encode your video file.

There are many factors that should be considered when selecting encode settings. According to compressionist Andy Beach, there are basic questions that need to be answered like knowing how the video was shot, how it was edited and who will be the intended audience.

But what’s aesthetically happening inside the frame is also very important. The complexity of your scene compositions and image motion are big factors that should be considered when encoding your video for optimal vieweing.

According to Beach, sequences with lots of motion and little redundancy are more challenging to compress than sequences which changes relatively little from frame to frame.

This is because of the way intraframe compression works and you can find a more detailed explanation of it here.

Until now, there hasn’t been a way to dial in an optimal bitrate that’s based on content and not just playback performance.

The app Bitrate Starter by online video encoding and video player deployment/hosting service videoRx, helps take the guess work out of encoding.

As you can see in the GUI above, after putting in your delivery specs, you’re then able to drag sliders that correspond to scene complexity and motion & pacing of your video.

So now when you enter your encode settings in compression apps, they’ll be based on the unique attributes of your video. This should theoretically ensure that you produce an encoded video that has far less compression artifacts than it would have had otherwise.

Check out this short video of VideoRx owner Robert Reinhardt talking about MPEG DASH at the 2012 Streaming Media East conference.

Teranex

Eric Wise — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:24:57 +0000

Still converting your video with software? It’s time to start thinking ‘inside’ the box.

We didn’t know what to make of it when Blackmagic Design bought Teranex a couple of years ago. We assumed good things would happen and sure enough we were right.

They re-engineered and re-released their legendary Teranex processors. The result was a smaller, more intuitive conversion box for $2000 instead of the previous price tag of $90,000!

What does the box do? It lets you convert your video every which way but loose – and more:

Up Conversion
Down Conversion
SD/HD Cross Conversion
SD/HD Standards Conversion
High Quality De-interlace
Cadence Detect and Remove

Now granted, you can’t use the box for file-based workflows, only for live feeds. So this is definitely a feature we’d love to see in future versions.

There is also a 3D version of the box if you’re doing stereoscopic work. But my guess is that as the resolution escalation continues, we’ll eventually get Teranex boxes with 4K and (gulp) 8K support.

You can check out Larry Jordan’s NAB 2012 interview with Stuart Ashton, Director, EMEA, Black Magic Design for more info (they talk about the Teranex about halfway in).

Also, check a short video from IMT about the Teranex boxes from the NAB 2012 show floor.

Jan Ozer

Eric Wise — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:14:08 +0000

For the past 15 years Jan Ozer has packed an untold number of hours into his schedule as a trainer, speaker and consultant. How does he fit it all in? Well, he is a master compressionist after all.

It’s been a busy 2013 so far for Ozer. He’s just written two books. One is on streaming video and the other is on the upcoming version of Premiere Pro. He also visited Moscow in March, speaking at the Connected TV Forum. And of course he spoke to a packed crowd at NAB in April.

To find out the details on all things Ozer check out his extensive resource site on compression, Streaming Learning Center. There you’ll find a cornucopia of compression advice that goes beyond tips on streaming media. He has advice on preprocessing your video, encoding your video, choosing production tools and distributing your video.

Some of the highlights from the site and other Ozer content on the Web:

Producing Streaming Video for Multiple Screen Delivery (essentially, a follow up to his last book Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5)
Producing Great Video with the Adobe Media Encoder (this is a 3 hour video. Check out a free sample from it here)
Producing and Delivering Effective Video (a 1-hr talk Jan gave at the NYU film school on producing and delivering effective video)

Encoding Video for iOS Devices (This 1-hr talk was given at the 2012 Streaming Media Europe conference in London.)

MPEG-DASH explained and HTML5 Video (In this 10 min talk, Ozer talks about emerging online video standards such as MPEG-DASH and HTML5 video, authentication and DRM.)

Check out Ozer’s short overview from a year ago on what’s new in Adobe Media Encoder.

NAB re-cap with Joe Botana pt. 2

Eric Wise — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:35:24 +0000

In pt.2 of this Futurism Friday podcast, I and editor Joe Botana look back at companies presenting next generation tech & workflows at NAB. We talk more about media asset management, but also about transcription apps, file transfer services and how metadata stole the show.

We’re also on iTunes:

Links for this week’s episode:

Cantemo Portal

partnerships (Axle partnerships with Object Matrix and Vidispine)

Editshare (Flow and Geevs)

Avid Media Composer 7

Debra Kaufman LumaForge article

SpliceX

Podcast music is And the wait continues (Morphamish Remix) by Asthmatic Astronaut

NAB re-cap with Joe Botana pt. 1

Eric Wise — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:18:58 +0000

In pt.1 of this Futurism Friday podcast, I and editor Joe Botana look back at companies presenting next generation tech & workflows at NAB. We talk about Axle, CatDV and Digital Rebellion among others. We also ask, will 4K be 4 times the headache?

We’re also on iTunes:

Links for this week’s episode:

Track Matte Moment (NAB episode)

Aframe (Editflow)

Mediasilo

Forbidden Technologies

Podcast music is And the wait continues (Morphamish Remix) by Asthmatic Astronaut

NAB 2013 re-cap with Clay Asbury

Eric Wise — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:49:02 +0000

In this Friday Fundamental podcast, I and Clay Asbury, video editor and writer for DVInfo and Premiumbeat, look back at the highlights of NAB 2013. We talk about the shows highlights and potentially game-changing announcements like Cineware, Axel and Movi.

We’re also on iTunes:

Links for this week’s episode:

Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera

Black Magic Production Camera 4K

Movi by Firefly Systems

Avid Media Composer 7

Flanders Scientific Monitors

Digital Bolex

Lightworks

Bulletproof

Adobe Prelude
Podcast music is And the wait continues (Morphamish Remix) by Asthmatic Astronaut