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MJPEG from HDV
Hi Bovines.
Here’s one for you all.
We are big fans of the HD MJPEG codec here. The biggest benefit being we are able to cut “Offline” using boxes without the hardware…in realtime. We are about to buy our second BM card, and build a new suite, but here is our issue.
We want to use the MJPEG codec for all our files. We shoot alot on Z1’s, yet we are now cutting HD progressive. Replacing the Cams is not an option…and it shouldn’t be!
We can capture HDV native, and convert within premiere, but quite frankly, it just ties up the suite for too long. We’d like to do this grunt work on another machine, so we can get on with work.
I can use the very excellent HDVsplit utility to capture native m2t HDV files (therefore not tying up premiere, or doing unwanted transcoding).
From these files, I’d like to convert to BM MJPEG AVI’s. We’ve tried procoder, cleaner, virtualdub, virtualdubmod. Alas no joy. On the commercial packages, we can read the HDV files, but we can’t encode to the Blackmagic MJPEG…or any other BM format for that matter.
We have noticed, to output BM files from premiere (which we do on all machines) we must use the BM Decklink Compiler to output BM AVI’s. After effects just shows the codecs, and works fine.
1./ Why are the BM codecs not available, or not functional from other packages?
2./ We just need a conversion pipeline. M2t to BM Mjpeg (with a deinterlace and resize). Any ideas? Anybody else doing this?
3./ BM guy’s….what about a HDV capture utility. Firewire to MJPEG? Is it possible?
We are happy yo use something like procoder to do the job, but the BM codecs just dont work!
Thanks
Sorry about the long post!
Brett
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7 Replies
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Hi Brett,
Our codecs should be available system wide via Video For Windows. Please conduct these steps in After Effects:
1. In the Render Queue panel, click the underlined name of the output module.
2. Choose Video For Windows from the Format menu.
3. Click Format Options in the Video Output section.
4. In the Video Compression dialog box, pop up the list of available codecs.
5. Note all the codecs in this list. The Blackmagic codecs should appear here.Now go to the other applications you mentioned, ie procoder, cleaner, virtualdub, virtualdubmod. Can you see the same codecs in these applications as you saw in After Effects? Are some or all of these missing? Perhaps just the Blackmagic codecs are missing?
Please let me know what you observe as this will help us to understand what is going wrong.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Thanks for the quick reply Luke.
After effects has them all there, no problem. We’ll just talk HD for now, as that is my problem.
Procoder has only the HD 8bit 4:2:2 codec, but it just comes out black! Also the AVI frame rate is limited to 30fps max!
We did get virtualdub to work, finally, but from an HDV file, it took foorrevveeer….and didn’t deinterlace so well.
I’m not sure what the issue is.
I know there’s hardware solutions around, but we’ve already spent plenty in that department.
Cheers
Brett
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Hi Brett,
The information I was hoping to obtain was whether all the codecs you see listed in After Effects, also appear in Procoder and other applications. Is it only Blackmagic codecs that are missing in Procoder or are some of the other codecs also missing?
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Just a follow Luke.
It’s just the Blackmagic 16bit 4:4:4 and Motion JPEG codecs that are missing.
Cheers
Brett
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Hi Brett,
Thank you for this information. We’re looking in to it.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Thanks Luke
Did you manage to replicate the problem?
Brett
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Any joy yet Luke?
I have just written an encoder shootout for DMW magazine. None of the latest encoders supplied could write a BM MJPEG. Curious?
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