Hello,

I have a panasonic hdc-sd10 and have transferred several 4GB files to my PC in avchd format.

The output format for the project is going to be wide-screen DVD - not HD.

Also, my dual cord is not up to editing avchd natively and its needs to be converted to another format.

I can't transcode using DNcHD as the is going to be 12 hours source and I dont have enough disk space.

I see that I can render to al kinds of PAL formats but do not know what to choose.

I presume RAW DV PAL 16:9 is an option - f=dv pix_fmt=yuv420p s=720x576 profile=dv_pal_wide

Or AVI DV PAL 16:9 - f=avi vcodec=dvvideo pix_fmt=yuv420p acodec=pcm_s16le s=720x576 profile=dv_pal_wide

Would this be the accepted way of doing this to get standard wide-screen DVD format?

I really have no idea about this and would really appreciate some help.

Final DVD will be 1 hour 45 mins long approx and I guess I may be able to use the DVD wizard to create this including menu and chapters etc?

Thanks, Gary.

Raw DV and AVI DV is only appropriate if you are going to use some other DVD authoring program that can convert it to MPEG-2 DVD format. Otherwise, you can use Kdenlive to render to MPEG-2 DVD by choosing DVD from the Destination drop-down menu button in the Render dialog.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

So I should render clips to DVD VOB MPEG-2 format, then edit them in kdenlive, and then render again to DVD VOB MPEG-2? Won't that produce bad looking video that been rendered twice to MPEG-2?

Elsewhere, it has been suggested to use Handbrake to convert AVCHD MTS files to MPEG 4 MKV files (using constant quality setting of 1 within handbrake, 720x576 size with 1024x576 display size to get 16:9) and edit in kdenlive with those files. The resulting MKV files are about 1/4 the size of the AVCHD MTS files and can play and edit within kdenlive on my dual core.

Is that a good workflow?

Regards, Gary.

Hi Gary,
If I were you, I'd try a few small tests of a few minutes first. Try Handbrake plus some different bitrates in Kdenlive and see how they look. Also try converting some in Kdenlive to a MPEG-4 or H264 and see how it looks. Try some at a higher bitrate such as 8000K or 10000k 2 pass. Use the Render Job Scripts and Queue to render at night.

You are also asking a question about what format to put on DVD? Basically PAL=Europe=25FPS and NTSC=US=29.97FPS (but it is more complex than that).

Hope that helps. Geoff

If you're going to author SD DVD then mpeg4 / h264 is not an option. DVD Video requires mpeg2.

Bitrate would be something like 5000k, 8000 to 10000k would swamp the memory buffer of many hardware players and give you stuttering playback, although playback on PC's which have more memory available as a buffer would not suffer so much.

Dan's given you the answer already. :-)

The other bits to consider are the differences between the two formats regarding levels, colourmetrics and PAR. Those may well, probably handled by using the DVD option Dan suggested. Never used kdenlive for such personally.

Thanks for the replies.

I not really sure that I made myself clear or I may not be understanding your answers.

I have AVCHD video, about 750Gb, and my machine cannot play it so I can not edit it.

It needs to be converted to a less demanding format before I can edit it at all in kdenlive.

So looking at converting 1920x1080 interlaced format (16:9) to maybe 720x576 interlaced (with flag for 1024x576 = 16:9).

I understand that I need to render to DVD MPEG-2 format in the end for the actual DVD, but I also need to convert to a usable format for my system so that the video can be edited in the first place.

Gary

>my machine cannot play it so I can not edit it.
Does it not play at all or is it just really slow to edit?

Also, are you saying that you have 750GB in 4GB segments?
I hate to recommend this, but with a large project like this, maybe you would be better off buying a bigger hard drive to help get this done so that you can transcode? Can you do some editing in chunks?

Before you start editing in kdenlive, set the project settings to "DV/DVD Windscreen PAL"

Step 1 - get the clips you want to use transcoded to a more usable format. Since you are using PAL try the 25fps options.
Step 2 - edit
Step 3 - render to MPEG-2 DVD format

As I already said you are going to have to experiment with this one a little bit on some smaller segments to see what works.

Hope I am understanding you correctly. Geoff

You can transcode the AVCHD to DNxHD, which plays/edits easier, within Kdenlive. Right-click the clip in the Project Tree and choose Transcode.

I read about the DNxHD transcode option which would normally be very useful, however, in my situation I have 750Gb of AVCHD video (1920x1080) and I haven't got 2/3TB storage available for transcoded DNxHD files, and my PC wont playback AVCHD MTS files (impossibly stuttery/hangs).

Unfortunately I can't edit in chunks as I initially need to make a showreel of about 8 mins with about 100 clips from all the video. Hence the need to transcode the HD video to a lesser format for editing without loosing much quality.

I been reading this thread too which seem to point to a version of proxy editing that works for AVCHD - basically create a HighQuality.avi and a LowQuality.avi from source files; edit with LowQuality.avi, and then point kdenlive at HQ files for final render. (http://www.kdenlive.org/forum/proxy-clips-hd-editing). I am going to experiment with this next.

Also have learnt that a newer series nvida Geforce card (maybe 9xxx or 2xx series) that supports VDPAU feature set (GPU acceleration) should allow HD playback without stutter as decoding is offloaded to card. (I have unsupported 7xxx series card). This could avoid all the problems I have been having. (http://www.kdenlive.org/kdenlive-nvidia-vdpau-ffmpeg-patch).(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo). MLT used by kdenlive includes VDPAU support now (http://mltframework.org/twiki/bin/view/MLT/ToDo). I presume VDPAU decoding is working for people with newer Geforce GPU cards?

In my current situation I have been converting to a MPEG4 file in a MKV container using handbrake, constant quality at 1, size at 720x576 but set to display at 1024x576 (16:9) for PAL widescreen interlaced format. Editing using that and then rendering to DVD wide PAL. Its been a steep learning curve to say the least, but I am making progress.

Incidentally, on my dual core I have discovered playback of the AVCHD MTS files just works in SMPlayer (frontend for Mplayer), in that it keeps the audio running and I can skip around the video. (The video playback is extremely jumpy). Nothing else would even look at it on my machine.

Regards, Gary.