Hi Guys,

Could I dedicate this thread to people who have purchased v11 pro who are prepared to pay for quality software and need a helping hand to get started. I would like this thread to have a very clear SIMPLE answers so others can follow behind and get the info they need.

So here goes. I want to use camstudio recorder for screen casts, GoPro camera HD Hero 2 for sports, iPhone 3gs for general stuff and stock footage from iStockphoto.com for promo videos. i am a novice who has spent 5 months training up on LWKSv10. Now I am struggling.

I want to know:

1. Now I have pro version do I need AvidDNXHD? I have no problem paying for it but will it help me do what I want to do?
2. What do I need to transcode to on import, I am now really confused with the options, seems it's all changed

All help appreaciated, please don't tell me to search the forum I have nearly read every post here, I just want some help and to leave a trail for others.

Thanks in advance
Paul

I too spent several months as a novice researching codecs during the LW10 era and came to the conclusion that Avid's DNxHD is one of the best. Should you choose to work with it in LW11 Pro, you will need to purchase the once only license from the Store.

I have yet to make this move so cannot advise on your second point. My camera shoots AVCHD and the free DSLR Post Prep utility will transcode my .MTS files to DNxHD. I expect to continue with this workflow path as I use it as a 'pre-edit' to select my best takes and put them in rough order. (the LW11 'transcode on import' feature may eventually make this step obsolete)

As I understand it, to get the best from the DNxHD compression algorithm, you should really take the signal direct from your camera's sensor, uncompressed to the DNxHD codec so that you bypass the camera's own native compression (eg: H264, AVCHD etc) All Pro cameras will have an SDI output for this and some pro-sumer cameras will have a 'clean' HDMI output. Most pro-sumer cameras record a Long GOP stream which is difficult to edit and requires a lot of processor power so transcoding to a codec like DNxHD will result in much bigger files but they are editor and processor friendly!

As an example, 'Great Expectations' is regarded as one of the finest BBC TV dramas recently produced. This was shot on an Arri 'Alexa' in 1920x1080 and recorded to SSD, not in uncompressed 4:4:4 but in HD 4:2:2 direct to ProRes, which is another excellent codec.

PS: I have a project coming up that will require the best possible HD quality from my camera so I plan to record from my clean HDMI output (8 bit 4:2:2) to a third party SSD recorder, direct to DNxHD, thus bypassing the camera's onboard AVCHD compression. This is how a cost effective pro-sumer camera can be used for both semi-pro (AVCHD) and broadcast applications (DNxHD)

I am hoping to find some good choices for exporting with quality results. Perhaps others can post the settings that are currently working well for them.

After several hours of trying a lot of different export formats and settings, the ONLY one that has worked well for both video quality and audio (for me)has been the following:

Format Compression Frames Size Audio Settings

QuickTime Movie H.264 30 fps 720p No Compression, 48khz, 16 bit

Hopefully, there are some other options for exporting that will get great results, let us hear them!

OK, and here are some of the attempts at exporting with different settings that didn't go well. Mostly, every time I tried an export using AVI format, the sound was terrible.


Here are format and compression settings, and the results I wound up with. This is only a few of the many attempts that I made to find a high quality way to export for both video and audio.

Format Compression Frames Size Audio Settings Results
AVI DVCPRO 100 29.97 fps 1080p Stereo 48kHz Video good, Audio muddled, as if
there are two audio tracks that are out of sync, even though the tracks on the edit
being exported are completely in sync and are joined.

AVI DVCPRO 100 30.00 fps 1080p Stereo 48kHz exact same results as above

AVI DVCPRO 100 30.00 fps 1080p Stereo 44.1kHz same video, now audio is sped up and
higher pitched, and still muddled as well.

AVI DVCPRO 100 30.00 fps 1080p Mono tracks, bypassing mixer, 48kHz Video good,
Audio normal speed and pitch, but still muddled as if two tracks are not in sync.

AVI YUYV 29.97 fps 720p Stereo 48kHz Resulted in an .avi file that opens
By windows media player as audio only, and the audio is still muddled. NO VIDEO AT ALL

AVI UYVY 30 fps HD1080 Stereo 48kHz SAME RESULTS AT ABOVE

AVI MPEG 422 HD 30 fps HD1080 Stereo 48kHz Good Video, Audio muddled.,

That is a list of the "AVI" attempts. I also had bad results with MOV and MP4 attempts. PLEASE, someone out there has to have some other better ways of exporting with superior results, Let us hear from you!

I had identical results as you Ken2011, with both audio and video. It's nice to know I'm not the only one! I have only managed to get Quicktime H.264 to export at a viewable quality.

We're looking into these results. There seem to be a number of things going on here and they are possibly unrelated, but we will see if we can duplicate the results. Make sure that your project is set to the same audio sample rate as the source video.

@paulturbo

The advantage with using DNxHD is that it is a codec designed for editing, and it is very high quality - you'll be able to go to many generations of it without any obvious visual loss - so it's ideal if your edit is laden with effects etc.

It will make things go faster as well, because it is very processor friendly as well. For example, on my laptop, simply playing an H.264 clip will making the fan come on (indicating a processor working hard). With DNxHD or ProRes, I can play several streams at once, and the fan doesn't come on.

Downside? You'll need as much as six times the storage for DNxHD; but storage is so cheap these days that unless you're editing a feature film, it's not really a factor.

Some external recorders capture directly from the HDMI or HD SDI output of camcorders, and encode directly to ProRes or DNxHD. You can then just import these files and edit them natively in Lightworks. That's the ultimate workflow!