[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Chris,

miniDV used PCM (uncompressed) audio, while HDV went to compressed MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio. Specs I found for the XLH1 suggest a total bitrate of 384kbps, so four channel would be 96 per track, or 192kbps per stereo pair.

You are correct that DV had 32k and 48k options available for recording.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Christophe,

Wow, it has been years since I’ve seen a posting about the Canon HDV 4-channel audio. I don’t know the solution via Firewire, but what if you take the analog audio out from camera, and route to the LINE IN on computer, and just let the tape play and record the audio “live”? Then drop the recorded audio into NLE timeline and manually sync with channels 1 and 2 of the HDV clip?

I just did a web search for “how to capture 4 channel audio from canon xlh1” and found many posts 8-10 years old, no clear solutions though. One suggested that you may need to use the headphone out jack to get analog output of channels 3-4.

Good luck to you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

It looks like you are using a very underpowered, inexpensive laptop to render a complex After Effects composition. The simplest answer to the question is that you need a better computer, or put up with the slow renders.

A few tips: if you have a USB 3.0 port on the laptop, connect a fast external drive and do the video work there rather than on the C: drive which is sharing resources with the OS and Programs. A separate drive is always recommended by Adobe, and in fact for all NLE programs.

6GB is far too little RAM for After Effects (or any video editing really), if you can increase that would help to some degree.

I’ve read that rendering to H.264 out of After Effects is not ideal. You may want to try exporting to an intermediate codec first, then transcode that file to H.264 later. This will not hurt quality if using a good intermediate codec like Cineform or DNxHD.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

You may have found the Presets for Lens Distortion Removal, which are mainly GoPro and related.

If you just choose the Lens Distortion effect itself and play with the controls, you may find that it does what you want. However, you may need to crop the image a bit after un-warping it, and if your subjects are too close to the edge…

Thankis

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Eric,

Try the Lens Distortion effect

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

If the DVD player is connected via HDMI, then the HDMI communication between player and display will determine resolution, so if TV is 720p then player will send 720p, or 1080i for 1080i TV.

If DVD player is connected by RCA (analog), then check in TV setup menu if there is a “1:1” option which might display actual pixels of incoming signal, some TVs offer that.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

And that is exactly why if you really want to “proof” a DVD you have just made, one should use a DVD player and TV and not a computer – software players have so many settings/variables, there is no playback quality consistency. And of course if the DVDs are shared with others, you don’t know what software they might be using or what settings they have…so test with a DVD player and TV and if DVD looks great….that’s all you can do since we can’t control how others might view the DVD.

If you expect a lot of your viewers to be using computers to watch your DVDs, then perhaps author them as Progressive rather than Interlaced, since computers don’t have interlaced displays and depending on software settings, interlaced video can look very poor on a computer.

Each time I make a new DVD, I test it in the family room/home theater before making or distributing any copies.

Actually, if you are creating videos that you expect most viewers will watch on their computer, I would just get away from DVD completely – many new laptops don’t have DVD players, and you can deliver a much better HD quality by delivering an H.264 file that will play on just about any device.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Adobe can have some strange issues if the source video uses Variable Frame Rate. It’s been years since I’ve used Camtasia and never had an issue with their footage at the time, but perhaps they updated recently? I see a lot of posts from people using screen cap apps for gameplay and many of those apps are Variable Frame Rate and they are seeing issues with time like you are with Adobe.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Do not watch the DVD on a PC, you will typically not get good results for a few reasons. DVD is usually interlaced video, and computers use progressive. Another issue is scaling to fit the output. Also using a software decoder. These factors degrade the quality.

Review the DVD using a regular set-top DVD or Blu-ray player, and the player must have an HDMI output to the TV display. Players with HDMI will have upscaling hardware built-in to deliver the best image to the display. If you use the analog (yellow RCA) output from DVD player to an HD display, you will not get a good image quality.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Can’t say that I’ve done it, but yes Encore does have the option to include data files on a DVD

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers