Hi,

If you use Pinnacle Studio to capture and edit your video files, try to continu with Pinnacle probably you can open directly the old file or convert the old file to new file compatible to Pinnacle Studio 23. The file I create in 2011 can be opened with Studio 23 this save me a lot of problem an time.

Regards,

YR

@yvon-robert

@Scenestealer

@CubeAce

Hi

It's not actually a file compatibility problem, just a question of the right intermediate format to employ to get from AVI to MP4 via MEP. And my Pinnacle days are over...(!) I uploaded the tapes some years back but didn't get around to doing something about them until recently.

My files are indeed DV-AVI. The experiment I tried involved converting DV-AVI clips to raw AVI - taking four times as much disc space as the original file! Thanks for the tip, Peter - I'll be editing in DV-AVI in future!

My computer - a venerable Sandy Bridge i5 - doesn't seem to use maximum CPU capacity or memory (8GB) when rendering, but then I've only been rendering a couple of tracks with effects (titles, transitions, noise removal, background music). I'm not clear as to why it was stuttering while editing, but given the size of the files on the timeline I suspect the limitations of the D: hard drive.

Another experiment I played around with today wasn't exactly scientific, but did give me a couple of insights into the intermediate file dilemma. I converted a couple of short DV-AVI clips to, variously, MXV, AVI and MP4 formats, and exported them as separate movies in those formats. I then imported each movie and re-exported each as an MP4 file to see if I could detect a difference on the TV screen at 720 x 576, 25fps (4K was a bit after my time...). I could have been imagining it - and you can shoot me down if you disagree with this - but I think the MP4 files derived from intermediate AVI and DV-AVI movies appeared marginally sharper than those from the MP4 and MXV intermediate movies.

Also - and I can't explain this but perhaps everyone else on this forum can - I was surprised to find that the final MP4 files were all the same size, give or take a couple of percent, irrespective of the intermediate movie format... There must be a perfectly simple explanation for this that eludes me for the moment!

Thanks and regards

Richard

@Richard-Curtis

Hi

. . . . just a question of the right intermediate format to employ to get from AVI to MP4 via MEP. . . . .

Why is it a question of using an Intermediate format at all?

I agree with @CubeAce use the DV-AVI files as is.

Unless MEP cannot import the AVi files, using an intermediate format is not going to help because:

1. it involves conversion (recoding) = time lost
    
2. there will be no improvement in the quality over the existing source files
    
3. is not going to make editing easier
    
4. the export to mp4 time will show no significant difference as this is when the recoding occurs.

The only likely issue you may come across is no audio when imported into MEP, if this is the case the AVI files contain dual audio streams (Type 2 DV-AVI) which need converting to single audio stream (Type 1 DV-AVI) - this can be done with DVDate and is a lot quicker than recoding to an intermediate format and does not involve recoding the video.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John

Thank you for your response My original question arose from two issues I had somewhat belatedly come across (I had previously been importing and editing MP4 files for the past few months so the AVI dilemma hadn't arisen until now). First, I hadn't appreciated the distinction between AVI and DV-AVI, and couldn't understand why I was getting these huge files when working with AVI clips that resulted in slowing the program down when I tacked a few of them together. Secondly, it had occurred to me that since my final export would likely be to MP4 it might be a good defensive idea to convert clips from AVI/DV-AVI to MP4 BEFORE assembling them for final export, editing being faster in MP4. That way, only one conversion involved as well. @CubeAce and @Scenestealer put me on the right track, though, as confirmed by yourself - I'm only too happy to edit in the original format which I now know is the much more friendly and compact DV-AVI.

My observation regarding the similarity of the final MP4 files referred to their size, not necessarily the coding time, although from your comment the two properties would appear to be related. Intuitively I had expected it would take longer for the program to trawl through a 13GB AVI file than e.g. a 2GB MP4 file of the same clip, but I can now see that both arrive at similarly sized MP4 files in the end as determined by the required resolution, frame rate etc. - so that's why (as you point out) they take around the same time to recode. Is that correct?

Finally, I don't have a problem importing the audio stream - thankfully...

Thanks again for your help...

Richard

@Richard-Curtis

Hi,

When I edit my DV AVI files, I just use the imported source. This has always worked fine for me...except for being reminded that I'm so far behind in making proper videos out of all of these that I'll never catch up.

I use the Magix mxv format usually only when there are special problems. In particular, if I need to use Neat Video (NV) to clean up noise and possibly stabilization, I do rough cuts, apply NV and maybe stabilization, export to mxv, and use that for further editing. NV is extremely heavy and slows down editing to a crawl. Exports of a complete video to MP4 or BR of an hour can take a day or two, and then fail to render properly. I also use mxv on exports from Vasco da Gamma sometimes as the wmv file seems to drag down editing.

I have also exported movies to mxv that are to be put on a multi-movie BR and then import them into a final project as separate movies. Burning goes a lot smoother.

That's my experience with mxv files.

John CB

@Richard-Curtis @Scenestealer @johnebaker @yvon-robert

Hi Richard.

As far as I'm aware it's the export file codec and it's respective quality settings, frame rate, and resolution that determines how much faster or slower an export will take. Not the format being worked on. That and the capabilities of the machine doing the work.

Ray.

@Richard-Curtis

. . . . I can now see that both arrive at similarly sized MP4 files in the end as determined by the required resolution, frame rate etc. - so that's why (as you point out) they take around the same time to recode. Is that correct? . . . .

That is correct.

Thanks for the clear explanation of how you got to that line of thought re using an intermediate file format.

Also pleased the import of the DV- AVI file does not have the audio issue. While the correction is quick, when you have a lot to do it can be time consuming.

John EB

@Richard-Curtis

Hi

I hadn't appreciated the distinction between AVI and DV-AVI, and couldn't understand why I was getting these huge files when working with AVI clips that resulted in slowing the program down when I tacked a few of them together.

Just to clarify - AVI is just a container format and as such can contain compressed codecs as well as the uncompressed AVI's which Magix AVI export defaults to. Actually uncompressed should be the easiest for the PC to edit and process because a lot of the load when using compressed codecs is created by the fact that each frame needs to be uncompressed by the codec prior to effects being applied, then re-compressed for realtime preview or writing to the export file. The problem is though is that the data rate is huge about 1200Mbps or 150MB/s which can cause problems with your storage drives, as I think you alluded to, especially if you have more than one stream on your timeline.

I think the MP4 files derived from intermediate AVI and DV-AVI movies appeared marginally sharper than those from the MP4 and MXV intermediate movies.

Well that would make sense, although probably difficult to discern at SD resolution, because the MXV and MP4 would have gone through an extra step of transcoding - IOW the DV-AVI didn't need converting prior to loading to the timeline and the uncompressed AVI was simply in the state where it required no coding other that to the export format.

Which leads on to your subsequent comment:- My observation regarding the similarity of the final MP4 files referred to their size, not necessarily the coding time, although from your comment the two properties would appear to be related. Intuitively I had expected it would take longer for the program to trawl through a 13GB AVI file than e.g. a 2GB MP4 file of the same clip.. So encoding time could be shorter using the uncompressed intermediate and probably also the MXV which is relatively (and simply) uncompressed also.

.....editing being faster in MP4.

Not so as you deduced. It is probably the worst next to H.265 .MP4 because of the complex compression algorithm.

@browj2

Exports of a complete video to MP4 or BR of an hour can take a day or two, and then fail to render properly.

You deserve a medal (or a badge at least) for what you accomplish......on a Pentium 860 at 2.8Ghz and no iGPU!! You wouldn't consider a PC upgrade anytime soon? You wouldn't know yourself!

Cheers

Peter

Intuitively I had expected it would take longer for the program to trawl through a 13GB AVI file than e.g. a 2GB MP4 file of the same clip,

@Richard-Curtis To illustrate the point that size isn't related to difficulty in editing, I'm currently capturing some VHS tapes. The most recent file, which I captured with Virtual Dub into incompressed AVI format, is 89gb for a 3 hour clip, almost 500mb a minute! But MEP tears through it like there is no tomorrow. It loves it. It's even better than DV-AVI to edit. But give me a small, highly compressed MOV or MP4 from a phone and MEP is noticeably slower.

@browj2, I'm curious re your use of MXV. I have always only ever used it for capturing video. Are you saying you reencode parts of your originals into MXV for processing in NV (I don't know anything about NV, BTW)?

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter,

The time to export was in the context of a heavy use of Neat Video. In that particular, NV was applied to almost all clips in the 1 hour+ multi-movie project. Remember that NV can drag down rendering to less than 4 fps, in my case about 1.

I bought my computer at the end of 2010 and started doing full HD in mid 2011. People were envious of my wonderful computer at the time. I'm still doing full HD projects. I changed the C drive for an SSD and increased RAM to 16Gb, making it even more powerful. Magix has stated that it has increased rendering speed and made playback smoother from one version to the next. Thus, my old computer should really fly. So, why is it slower than it was back in 2011 using the same material, doing the same things? Or is it my imagination?

@AAProds

I apply Neat Video to some clips, mainly VHS, digitized 8mm and Super8mm film, and full HD taken in low-light conditions. See this site for NV's gift to the video editing world. It does an amazing job, particularly on the digitized film by cleaning up the video noise and removing dust and some other imperfections. However, this requires heavy computation, having to analyze and correct each frame, and then render it.

8mm and Super8 is digitized to 1080 at 20fps. I change it 16 or 18 fps, respectively, and then apply Neat Video and stabilization, where necessary. Then, I export to mxv and use the result for further editing - colour correction, effects, transitions, titles, music, narration, etc. Doing everything on the original footage would be extremely arduous. Colour correction would have to be done before applying NV, as applying it afterwards has no effect. - NV does not like that. There is no way to get smooth playback without preview rendering once NV has been applied, and doing this would take a long, long time. I do pretty much the same with VHS footage.

John CB

 See this site for NV's gift to the video editing world. It does an amazing job, particularly on the digitized film by cleaning up the video noise

You can say that again! I'm most impressed by it's noise reduction. I installed the Virtual Dub plugin for a test. Without the Neat video filter, my system re-encodes Lagarith AVI at 65FPS. With the Neat video filter activated, it encodes at 8FPS. Definitely worth the wait though. "Gift" is probably not the right word for it though! 💰

@AAProds

Hi Alwyn

Yes NeatVideo is very impressive and pricey, but well worth it if you ever have to deal with "noisy" footage. I notice you say you tested it in VD; are you also aware there is a version specifically for MEP and VPX?

Jeff

@Scenestealer

@yvon-robert

@browj2

@CubeAce

@johnebaker

@AAProds

Hi All

My thanks to you all for the sound advice and information you've given me here. Although I'm becoming reasonably proficient in performing various isolated activities in video editing (even NV!), I still have a lot to learn about the basic technology behind the art - as you have discovered. Trawling the internet to find answers generally unearths a great deal of uninformed and conflicting garbage, so I really do value the expertise on this forum. Until my next question, then...(!)

Best regards

Richard

are you also aware there is a version specifically for MEP and VPX?

@emmrecs

Jeff, yes, I saw that. I was miffed they didn't do a combo deal on VD + Magix like they've done with those $%^&* programs! 😂

@browj2

Magix has stated that it has increased rendering speed and made playback smoother from one version to the next. Thus, my old computer should really fly. So, why is it slower than it was back in 2011 using the same material, doing the same things?

Because Magix have changed internal processes to take advantage of developments in hardware and processing which are not present in your older system.

They are relying a lot on the Integrated Intel GPU for a lot of accelerations of processes and effects - I noticed just yesterday that just updating the thumbnails as you scroll the timeline creates quite a bit of activity / load on the Intel GPU and without one this would fall back to the processor.

Your processor does not have AVX extensions which are being exploited in the more recent i7 series for effects processing in VPX and MEP. To make things worse the workload created by VPX has been further increased in recent versions by colour processing becoming 16bit instead of 8bit.

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter.

This is why I'm not overly fond of programs like Adobe Photoshop any more. With that type of monthly payment you have to keep your machine up to spec as the program is constantly updated. I prefer to update only if I acquire new gear and the older programs don't interface any more with the newer gear. Even here I can see a time not too distant when my current system won't cope. Maybe six years if I'm lucky. The new AMD processors are going to force Intel into more changes to keep market share with gamers who outnumber people like us by a large margin. That may force companies like Magix to change how their software works on new hardware. It never ends and the upgrade cycles just get faster. There is only so much upgrading one can do unless you do it for a living.

Ray.

@Scenestealer

Just a quick retort. With new, more modern equipment, I would expect VPX/MEP to run more smoothly without any help from Magix' developers. Secondly, I expect improvements in VPX/MEP to run at least the same on existing, i.e. older equipment. Thirdly, I do not expect an export of exactly the same project to take longer with newer versions; I can accept the same, but not slower, especially when Magix says that it should be faster.

That said, the final days of VPX10 were not good; pressing play on just my simple video clips, always the same ones for years, sputtered. Playback of these did not sputter with older versions but got progressively worse with each new, improved version. I could not even get a simple cross-fade after preview rendering to play back smooothly with VPX10. Maybe my memory is going, but then VPX11 came along, and all was suddenly smooth once again. Preview rendering now worked again.

I'll have to find some work before I can afford a new computer, or the old one will have to die (the computer, I mean). I'll tell Bernadette to get a real job; no one is willing to pay her for chasing squirrels. Her videos have not brought in any royalties. In the meantime, I'll just keep on going with what I have.

Magix! Please fix some bugs.

John CB

@browj2

Hi John

. . . . With new, more modern equipment, I would expect VPX/MEP to run more smoothly without any help from Magix' developers . . . .

The opposite side of the coin is the need to cater for 2.7K, 4K UHD, 4K and 8K video resolutions, higher frame rates and HEVC.

The data increase in the higher resolution formats is not linear - 4K UHD has 4 x as many pixels as Full HD with all the knock on effects of moving that data, rendering it to visible image and playing this back in real time which are not going to lead to smooth playback without the intervention of the developers.

. . . . Maybe my memory is going, but then VPX11 came along, and all was suddenly smooth once again . . . .

I can replicate that - your memory is definitely not going - VPX 11 really does have a big difference in playback smoothness, it works like a charm on my laptop with a 4th gen processor and HD4600 iGPU.

. . . . Magix! Please fix some bugs. . . .

Yes please.

John EB

@browj2

Hi John

With new, more modern equipment, I would expect VPX/MEP to run more smoothly without any help from Magix' developers.

I would too, and I think MEP/VPX do. Do you have any evidence that new or old versions of MEP/VPX only run the same or worse on more modern equipment?

Secondly, I expect improvements in VPX/MEP to run at least the same on existing, i.e. older equipment.

Would be nice but by making improvements Magix need to use new processes that might make the existing "pipeline" redundant or less efficient, or it might limit how much they are able to exploit the new hardware / technology to make improvements. We cannot keep making things backwards compatible without eventually sacrificing development possibilities.

Thirdly, I do not expect an export of exactly the same project to take longer with newer versions; I can accept the same, but not slower, especially when Magix says that it should be faster.

I do not have any evidence to say export is slower with newer versions on the latest hardware but it is conceivable that it might be slightly in some circumstances for the reasons given in my last comment, and the fact that it is doing more during, like higher bit depth colour processing. Also Magix have not claimed VPX exports are any faster in recent years except with export of HEVC material on machines with Nvidia GTX1060 or or higher graphics cards where the New Infusion Engine in conjunction with the NVENC Hardware chip and encoder make a significant difference .

Sure, VPX10 had a raft of problems and I agree with you that a lot more bug fixes and a few less new features would be optimum. But as with most consumer products I think it would be unrealistic for manufacturers to need to make one model perfectly before we could move on to next with better features, because often the flaws are circumvented in the redesign.

Peter