HDV native vs AIC transcoding
by smitty miler
on
Aug 27, 2008 at 2:50:12 pm
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?
Re: HDV native vs AIC transcoding by smitty miler on Aug 27, 2008 at 3:21:21 pm
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?
Re: HDV native vs AIC transcoding by Chris Poisson on Aug 27, 2008 at 3:36:42 pm
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.
Re: HDV native vs AIC transcoding by smitty miler on Aug 27, 2008 at 3:46:02 pm
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.
Thanks by smitty miler on Aug 27, 2008 at 5:08:10 pm
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.
Re: HDV native vs AIC transcoding by Kevin Monahan on Aug 27, 2008 at 5:12:15 pm
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?
Is it my laptop or me perhaps? by smitty miler on Aug 27, 2008 at 5:29:57 pm
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 1440x900. 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.
Re: Is it my laptop or me perhaps? by Ryan Mast on Aug 27, 2008 at 6:51:38 pm
I used AIC quite a bit last year while I was still using Final Cut Express, which only allowed for HD capture to AIC, not HDV or ProRes. I didn't notice a significant quality loss.
The quality difference you're seeing is most likely the loss in compressing to H.264. Can you export it as a QuickTime Movie in AIC?
Re: Is it my laptop -- UPDATE by smitty miler on Aug 27, 2008 at 8:19:09 pm
H.264 is the Quicktime movie compression.... right? What would be the best setting to use if you wanted to play a video back on a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro for presenting on a 720p projector?
---- UPDATE ----
Ok, not sure what is going on. I switched my MacBook from mirroring to dual display. Only the resolutions with (interlaced) next to them would output a signal. The highest resolution available was 1440 x 900i which with the video off, the desktop windows/menus didn't look great -- readable but not crisp.
SO, I took the HDV video I imported to iMovie and exported it BACK to the camera. That takes the MacBook out of the equation. I played the "edited video" back through the camera to the projector and it looked MUCH better than the MacBook output... can't say if how different it looked from the original source. So I guess that would be HDV > AIC > back to HDV?
That said, perhaps HDV to AIC isn't loosing that much?
I'm wondering how an AppleTV (540/30fps @ 5Mbps max ) or Mac Mini (probably limited to 720/30fps) would look.
Re: Is it my laptop -- UPDATE by Gino Kalkanoglu on Apr 1, 2009 at 1:43:15 pm
AVCHD cameras shoot 24Mbps at the most which is 3MB or so roughly. So you have 3MB of information and putting it our on ProRes to 25MB does not change the 3MB information size. You will have 22MB of empty data if you do that. Best thing to do is to edit the footage on AIC timeline and put it out as either AIC or HDV1080i60 deinterlace it and here you go. Before you export it out you can also use filter settings in the export menu on FCP 6.0.3. Thats what I use. I hope this helps. Deinterlace the footage though. Also get the magic bullets. You will be amazed once you play with it. Learn the basic color correction. You will see ton of difference on your footage.
