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HDV native vs AIC transcoding
I’m wondering how AIC looks compared to native HDV and if my experience is correct… or if I messed up somewhere:
I recently tried out a HDV and AVCHD camcorder to see if I was ready to switch to HD. Directly playing the 1080/60i video from the cameras to a 720p projector looked amazing!
Then I imported the footage into iMovie (HANG ON, HANG ON, don’t click your back button yet). I wanted to see how easy the 1080 clips would be to work with. I exported the movie at 720 and 1080 (h.264 using light and medium compression — 25 and 9Mbps). I also played back the 100Mbps 1080i .MOV file.
Playing back the video from a Macbook Pro via Front Row, the video looked good, but lacked the “knock your socks off” HD wonder. It looked slightly better than a 480p DVD. Then I plugged in the cameras and cued up the same clip for an A/B test.
The original HDV played from the camera was sharper than any of the files off of the MacBook Pro. No contest. Its like the difference between an audio CD playing AIFF native and the 256k “CD quality” version…. the original CD really sounds better.
Is this how AIC transcoding is and why FCP’s HDV native is such a big feature?
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13 Replies
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The simple answer is, use HDV and make your sequence compressor ProRes.
Or, if you’re drives can handle it, capture to ProRes via FireWire in the first place.
Have a wonderful day.
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Thanks for the response. So exporting as ProRes should look better than H.264? I’m puzzled by the fact that the AIC file untouched and played through Quicktime is not nearly as impressive as the actual HDV from the camera. Thoughts there?
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I have never used AIC, and I don’t understand why you are including H264 as an option for workflow, as it is a delivery codec. Basically, HDY is a great capture format, but lousy for editing, because of it’s GOP structure among other things.
ProRes is compressed, but you can’t tell by looking at it, and it is one of the leading working formats in use, rivaling 10 bit uncompressed in quality.
I don’t know anyone in here who uses AIC, and doubt may are still using native HDV, with the introduction of PreRes.
There are two excellent papers in here on ProRes by Tim Wilson, suggest you read.
Have a wonderful day.
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Basically I’m just using iMovie and considering FPC now that I’m working in HD. iMovie only gives you AIC as a choice… actually it doesn’t give you a choice, that’s what it does — imports HDV as AIC and gives you a .MOV clip.
H.264 was used on the export only just so I could see how it looked. After being disappointed, I went back to the original .MOV and it still lacks the detail of the HDV source.
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Understand, just remember that H264 is not a production codec in professional work.
Have a wonderful day.
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Aside from my bad workflow… HDV native vs AIC .MOV video quality?
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Someone else will have to jump in on this, I don’t use AIC.
Have a wonderful day.
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I figured this was the best place for this, FCP is far more of a professional app so there should be many more videophiles here. I posted a similar question on another site and no one understood the issue. I’d bet most people using iMovie HD are blown away with AIC and don’t even mind AppleTV’s 540p setting. Being in the graphics field and working with video I guess I’ve trained myself to see faults (some times I wish I could look past them!). Every time I walk into a BB or CC I want to recalibrate all their displays ; ) Unfortunately, I work mostly with still images so I don’t have FCP and only a Core 2 Duo. I may need it up my software/hardware now.
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The Apple Intermediate Codec (not the “AIC” by the way–Apple never calls it that) converts the Long GOP structure to an intraframe format. With that conversion, there is light compression and probably a slight loss in quality. I’m surprised if it is that noticeable.
Native HDV editing is a feature of Final Cut Pro, so why not upgrade if it allows you greater quality?
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
I never thought about this, but could this be a fault of my MacBook Pro or how I’m trying to do this?
I’ve been using the DVI-out to feed my projector. All the calibration on the projector is the same on DVI and component currently. The native display on a MBP is 1440×900. It has a ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor w/ 128MB of v-RAM. It is capable of dual display and video mirroring and supports up to 2560 x 1600.
My projector is 720p native. Plugging the DVI into the MBP turns on video mirroring. I’m only looking at the projector screen and no the MBP display.
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