AVCHD / HDV to Clarke Tech HD Video File Structure and Technomate Probably

[Josh]

Pulling together bits and pieces and experimentation here goes....

HDV was the old portable domestic / semi professional / professional HD video standard till AVCHD came along in the last period. From wiki

HDV 1080i does not record full 1920×1080-pixels video, but instead sub-samples horizontal resolution to 1440 pixels. Similar subsampling is used in other popular HD formats including XDCAM HD, DVCPRO HD and HDCAM. It had been used in broadcast HDTV encoders as well to reduce compression artifacts.[6]

HDV 1080i is an interlaced video standard, but there are techniques for storing progressive video with frame frequency up to a half of the field frequency within interlaced stream. This means that 50 Hz camcorders are capable of recording 25-fps progressive video, while 60 Hz camcorders are capable of 30-fps progressive video. 60 Hz camcorders intended for digital cinematography also offer recording of 24-fps progressive video.

To record 50-fps or 60-fps progressive video one has to use a 720p camcorder.

The Clarke Tech 5000 is quite happy to play this standard by writing it out via a software tool with a bit of frigging about or selecting a predefined menu option that might exist [HDV 1080i - 50i on ULeads 11.5 or Corel Video Studio that bought it out, now release 12]. This option gives:

MPEG 2
24 bit, 1440 x 1080, 25 fps
Upper Field First [that one is important]
Mpeg 2 Transport Stream, 16:9
Video Data Rate 25,000 kbps [that one is another important one]
Audio Data Rate 384 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 khz, stereo

The output you take through the CT Movie Maker which was written by the guy that posts up on the German site which I've put in the tools section. What this does is to chump up the file into the FAT32 small size files, with the machine code file names. This you then copy across. It's this tool that people use to get their SD movies from other sources to play on the CT5000. Technomate is suppose to have the same file structure etc.

Now you might have noticed that at this point the CT is playing MPEG2 HD rather than the MPEG 4 / AVC flavour ie. less compression. On the compression / resolution front the HD broadcasts in Europe are in 1440 x 1080 in any case.

So if you have a newer AVCHD camera [getting cheaper all the time] you can take it's full HD resolution 1920 x 1080 and produce 1080i HDV from it and play it on your CT [or Technomate HD box ?]. Will credit this one to Herb2000, what he neglected to mention is that if you get the ULeads 11.5 software it needs the power pack free update else you can't get it to do the job and you pick the AVC up off the directory where your camera software put it. You now might just as well go for the Corel Video Studio and get the pro release of it with the bells and whistles. It doesn't need the upgrade and the raw M2TS AVCHD file can be picked up. It's a full AVCHD video editing suite.

Now several things at this stage you don't have full HD and you don't have dolby surround sound which your AVCHD camera may be recording, it's just giving you the HDV 1080i standard. Now reading the custom parameters on then ULeads / Corel Software, noting them down and doing a custom configuration, bottom option you can set it up for full HD, 1920 x 1080 which gets the CT playing full HD. The picture does look better. The file structure is about three times bigger.

At the minute there doesn't seem to be a way of getting the Corel software to play dolby surround 5.1 in HD, writing it out in the HDV 1080i type of structure [interlace European structure]. You can use Elecard and do pass through for the sound, here the video parameters you set up by hand following the above and what you have extracted. TSRemux may be required on the output. But bottom line is that the sound seems to be a bit wobbly in that there is too much data flowing around for the CT in MPEG2, not compressed further HD.

The solution would seem to be MPEG 4 / AVC TS stream for the CT for full HD and dolby 5.1, but here is the end of the story so far. So if you are happy with MPEG2 1440 x 1080 and 2 channel sound CT can do it, 1920 x 1080, 2 channel CT can do it. Not so sure about dolby 5.1 and full HD, as said Elecard is the one to play with.

BTW the Corel software can read the CT's HD TS files direct and you can downgrade to SD. Seems one of the few software tools that handles broadcast HD transport streams without having to remux.... thus I'm hoping one might be able to get what it produces back into the CT in the normal higher MPEG4 compression.

[abuamin]

Can't find the tool. If u r refering to the Edit REcord Info then this is different that what you are saying here.

Thanks for explaining the location of this tool.

Originally Posted by Josh

Pulling together bits and pieces and experimentation here goes....

HDV was the old portable domestic / semi professional / professional HD video standard till AVCHD came along in the last period. From wiki

HDV 1080i does not record full 1920×1080-pixels video, but instead sub-samples horizontal resolution to 1440 pixels. Similar subsampling is used in other popular HD formats including XDCAM HD, DVCPRO HD and HDCAM. It had been used in broadcast HDTV encoders as well to reduce compression artifacts.[6]

HDV 1080i is an interlaced video standard, but there are techniques for storing progressive video with frame frequency up to a half of the field frequency within interlaced stream. This means that 50 Hz camcorders are capable of recording 25-fps progressive video, while 60 Hz camcorders are capable of 30-fps progressive video. 60 Hz camcorders intended for digital cinematography also offer recording of 24-fps progressive video.

To record 50-fps or 60-fps progressive video one has to use a 720p camcorder.

The Clarke Tech 5000 is quite happy to play this standard by writing it out via a software tool with a bit of frigging about or selecting a predefined menu option that might exist [HDV 1080i - 50i on ULeads 11.5 or Corel Video Studio that bought it out, now release 12]. This option gives:

MPEG 2
24 bit, 1440 x 1080, 25 fps
Upper Field First [that one is important]
Mpeg 2 Transport Stream, 16:9
Video Data Rate 25,000 kbps [that one is another important one]
Audio Data Rate 384 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 khz, stereo

The output you take through the CT Movie Maker which was written by the guy that posts up on the German site which I've put in the tools section. What this does is to chump up the file into the FAT32 small size files, with the machine code file names. This you then copy across. It's this tool that people use to get their SD movies from other sources to play on the CT5000. Technomate is suppose to have the same file structure etc.

Now you might have noticed that at this point the CT is playing MPEG2 HD rather than the MPEG 4 / AVC flavour ie. less compression. On the compression / resolution front the HD broadcasts in Europe are in 1440 x 1080 in any case.

So if you have a newer AVCHD camera [getting cheaper all the time] you can take it's full HD resolution 1920 x 1080 and produce 1080i HDV from it and play it on your CT [or Technomate HD box ?]. Will credit this one to Herb2000, what he neglected to mention is that if you get the ULeads 11.5 software it needs the power pack free update else you can't get it to do the job and you pick the AVC up off the directory where your camera software put it. You now might just as well go for the Corel Video Studio and get the pro release of it with the bells and whistles. It doesn't need the upgrade and the raw M2TS AVCHD file can be picked up. It's a full AVCHD video editing suite.

Now several things at this stage you don't have full HD and you don't have dolby surround sound which your AVCHD camera may be recording, it's just giving you the HDV 1080i standard. Now reading the custom parameters on then ULeads / Corel Software, noting them down and doing a custom configuration, bottom option you can set it up for full HD, 1920 x 1080 which gets the CT playing full HD. The picture does look better. The file structure is about three times bigger.

At the minute there doesn't seem to be a way of getting the Corel software to play dolby surround 5.1 in HD, writing it out in the HDV 1080i type of structure [interlace European structure]. You can use Elecard and do pass through for the sound, here the video parameters you set up by hand following the above and what you have extracted. TSRemux may be required on the output. But bottom line is that the sound seems to be a bit wobbly in that there is too much data flowing around for the CT in MPEG2, not compressed further HD.

The solution would seem to be MPEG 4 / AVC TS stream for the CT for full HD and dolby 5.1, but here is the end of the story so far. So if you are happy with MPEG2 1440 x 1080 and 2 channel sound CT can do it, 1920 x 1080, 2 channel CT can do it. Not so sure about dolby 5.1 and full HD, as said Elecard is the one to play with.

BTW the Corel software can read the CT's HD TS files direct and you can downgrade to SD. Seems one of the few software tools that handles broadcast HD transport streams without having to remux.... thus I'm hoping one might be able to get what it produces back into the CT in the normal higher MPEG4 compression.

[Josh]

Here...

http://www.satmoz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40701

It needs putting on a sticker so it's viewable on the normal screen, else you change to in the last year. I'm sure a kind mod will sticky it.

[parad0x_i]

Done Josh.. now on a sticky..

[abuamin]

I could use the CT Tool to convert a video file and I can see it creating a directory with CT format. I still can not read it under CT. I put it under records so it might b erecognized ... but nopE!§!


Am I missing something?