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I need help encoding hdv footage in Cleaner XL1.5 for web delivery!
I need help encoding hdv footage in Cleaner XL1.5 for web delivery! I am a fairly experienced editor who upgraded to hdv recently, using Premiere Pro 1.5.1 and Aspect HD to edit my hdv footage filmed with a Sony FX-1 1080i camera. This footage will only be used online, so I normally deinterlace as I export an edited movie from Premiere Pro and end up with a big CF AVI file ready to encode into web ready formats for the end users. Now I import that into Cleaner XL 1.5 ( just like I used to import the edited DV AVI of standard def movies) with the intention of batch encoding the movie into three different formats as dictated by my customer- WMV, Real and Quicktime at both full frame size and half frame size (Six different outputs in total).
Now the wmv files turn out fine using the NTSC Progressive 16 x 9 template- (progressive because remember I already deinterlaced the footage, and of course these movies are 16×9 frame size) . But I can’t get Cleaner XL to encode to Quicktime at all (it gives me an error #223 I believe ) and the Real files come out distorted as if they were in 4×3 aspect ratio. I believe that the 1.33 pixel aspect ratio in the CF AVI file is screwing up the encodes to Real and Qucktime in Cleanner XL 1.5. I was able to mess with the settings in Real to trick the program and get the final output to look okay as if it is widescreen, but the Quicktime files I can do nothing with to make Cleaner XL work.
I have hundreds of dollars invested in Cleaner XL which I liked up to this point so I do not really want to try a different batch encoder, nor do I want to switch to Mac, nor do I want to output from within Premiere half a dozen times separately nor any other solutions that require me to just give up and spend a lot of money doing this a completely different workflow. Can anyone help?
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20 Replies
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What do you have your Input Profile set to?
Have you double-checked the Quicktime and Real exporter settings?
Do you have a Job Crop applied?
CleanerXL can be confusing at the best of times, not helped by such a badly designed interface.
It’s a London thing.
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Input profile is NTSC Progressive 16×9
I double-checked and tried many different settings in Real and Quicktime output profiles.
There is no job crop applied.
I am familiar with Cleaner having used the Cleanner XL pc version for years, and the upgraded to ver. 1.5 is very similar.
I still can’t figure out what is going on. I think it has to be the 1.33 pixel aspect ratio of the my edited CF AVI file screwing up the Real and Quicktime encodes, but that is pretty lame if this new version of Cleaner XL cannot handle that! -
It’s your input profile, HDV is not NTSC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV#Resolution_and_aspect_ratio
It’s a London thing.
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What is option I should use for an input profile then??
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NTSC Anamorphic
720×486
PAR 1.200NTSC HDV
1440×1080
PAR 1.33It’s a London thing.
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Danny, I don’t see those options in Cleaner XL 1.5. When I try to load an input profile the only folder options I have are CD or DVD, DV Camcorder or Expert. In none of these are there any profiles called HDV and certainly not HDV 1440 x 1080 input PAR 1.33 profiles! How di iI load or make a correct input profile?
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I don’t use cleanerXL anymore and this is one reason I dropped it, it makes too many assumptions and it makes it hard to change default settings as well as it’s reliance on (incorrect) input profile templates.
if you ‘edit’ an input profile by right clicking you have the ability to change the aspect ratio – cleanerxl uses a strange combination of numbers to derive that ratio, maybe they are used as standard somewhere but I’ve never seen them anywhere else, devide one by the other and you’ll get the correct figure.
Cleaner has not been updated usefully in years and this is reflected in its inability to recognise HDV as well as other ‘newer’ formats.
Actually Windows is pretty crap out of the box with any kind of HD source other than WM, there’s no native support for the likes of DVCPO HD or DVCPRO 50 even, despite Microsoft promising this as far back as XP Service pack 2.
Any Mac has this level of capibility out of the box.I’m not in a position to give you the exact settings with which you should insert into your edited input profile to give you the correct outputs, but maybe Ben Waggoner, (the (ex) worlds greatest compressionist) would like to step in here. Ben was part of the team who created (Movie/Media) cleaner (pro) and then watched it get bastardised by Media 100 and the more so when it was sold to Autodesk, but he now works at Microsoft and is so much more of an expert in these matters than I, especially whe it comes to the psuedo flavors of HD such as HDV.
FWIW: The reaosn I now use OS X for all production work is largely due to the lack of any (direct) support from Microsoft for tools during the production/post production phase of video. Microsoft was, and is, too busy and concerned with the delivery aspect, owning the streaming space is, and was far more important than building a solid architecture for the like of us and that is why Apple have always seemingly always owned with Quicktime technology. Witness the massive migration to FCP which is largely due to issues like these and the fact that Apple OS/Quicktime and 3rd party tools just work. Nearly all of the time, Apple cerainly aint perfect!
That said, I highly rate CarbonCoder (Rhozet) or Procoder (Canopus) for this kind of work. Both are only available on Windows both are roughly the same, at this level.
It’s a London thing.
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Danny, thank you for this info. I am going crazy with this! I have now over $725 invested in Cleaner XL including the XL version that I purchased a few years ago that handled batch encoding of standard definition videos just fine. I thought this new(ish) Cleaner XL 1.5 update would handle hdv which I now shoot almost exclusively in. But having just read the manual, I realize that never once is hdv or 1.33 pixel aspect ratio even mentioned! There has to be way to make this work for quicktime and Real as well as wmv which does work fine. I will look into editing the input profiles and query Ben W. if I can find him.
I am puzzled however by your recommendation of Procoder. I just now downloaded a 30 day demo version from their website and once again, there is no mention of hdv in the included help manual. And this demo will not accept my edited movie’s full size AVI file (1440 x 1080 1.33 par) that I exported from Premiere Pro 1.51 as an input! So Procoder is no good or hdv either I guess? What now? Is there no software app that will allow me to batch encode to multiple formats the many videos that I film with my hdv camera and edit in Premiere?
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Procoder/carboncoder has no problem with files of that resolution or indeed much higher resolutions. I’d look at the problem being your output from Premiere rather than a problem with Procoder.
Try dropping an unedited/unprocessed-by-premiere-export HDV clip into Procoder and see if it works.
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Danny, thanks for your continued responses. But I tried to import one of the unedited avi clips that was captured by Premiere Pro 1.5.1 with Aspect HD and Procoder demo does not accept that either!
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