AVCHD to PC conversion challenge!!

dcristescu · 03-01-2009, 04:40 PM

Hi there,

I'm just a regular low budget user with a HD camera looking to embrace HD.
As I am low budget, the Sony HDR-SR12 camera is as much as I'm willing to splurge on, for the time being.

For viewing of the HD content captured with the above I intend to use a laptop with a good graphic card - 512 MB - for HD viewing and, in parallel, DVD top quality viewing on Standard Def TVs.

The camera produces AVCHD footage. Lovely as it is, Sony made sure that their additional products, such as bluray players, get buyers' attentions by motivating them with lousy playback out of the box on computers. (Very stuttery moving pictures with interlaced artifacts galore - those horizontal lines - when playing the native clip files with Media Player - with a recent k-lite mega codec pack installed)

I intend to circumvent that. What I want is to convert the AVCHD videos to PC friendly HD formats, that can be played satisfactorilly on a regular PC. And I need your help!

I took a 50 sec clip at 1440x1080 defintion, granted on a very motion heavy panoramic scan of Amsterdam with complex and erratic sudden rushed movements.
The native m2ts format as taken from the camera can be found at:
rapidshare.de/files/45751720/20081019105611.m2ts.html

What I know:

On the camera screen, the clip playsback flawlessly. The lcd screen I'm told is 1920x480. So it is HD.

Also, analog video out of the camera - PAL - via composite cable to a SD TV plays just as flawlessly.

What I also know:

My laptop PC can play very well heavy motion clips, at FULL HD resolutions. I'm not sure if the clips I've found equate the motion of my test clip, but they are pretty close, and the output is brilliant. So this should not deter me from viewing the damned clip, the hardware should not get in the way . .
I've played back clips from HD trailers and

www[dot]microsoft[dot]com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

The one titled Speed is pretty motionful.

What I've tried:

The shameful excuse of a conversion program that is shipped with the camera - the ridiculous Picture Motion Browser - when I ask to play me back the clip on the PC - I get a clip with the colours screwed up - green frames in the picture - and moderate to mild jittering.

The same program, when asked to make me a DVD of the clip, first converts it to MPEG2. This result plays back with the colours ok, but moderate jittering. (Try playing the uploaded clip from above on your PC. If you don't have a fancy machine, and don't have exquisite codecs installed it should play the same way)

This result burned to DVD from that same program produces a disk that played with a standard player has the same stuttering.

I've downloaded SUPER. Played around with different encoders, to AVC, MPEG4, H264, different SD and HD resolutions, big bitrates, interlaced/progressive. All are very poor results, that only rarely reach the poor quality of the above disc played.

I've tried Roxio Ultimate. Convert to DVD, HD, deinterlaced, the same outcome.

Also Premiere Pro. Poor results, jittery clips.

I'm sure the sneaky marketers at Sony made it tough to get what I want, what with the ridiculous 1080i60 standard to mess things all up. It sure looks like encoder troubles.

BUT! This is computing, you should be able to get it to turn anything into anything you want, if the hardware permits you, and as I showed things look like they should permit it.

I dare you

: get me a version of it that plays smoothly just as on the camera on a PC.

Has anyone else gone through what I've gone through?
Share your conclusions, by all means.

Many thanks, and looking forward to any input,
Dorin

juankerr · 03-01-2009, 05:37 PM

I have a Canon HF10 HD camcorder and I'm able to playback the 1920x1080 AVCHD footage on my PC without any conversion. I've tried Cyberlink Power DVD, Nero Showtime, VLC Media Player, and MPC. The m2ts files I have all play flawlessly on my fairly low spec'd PC: Core2Duo6600/4GB RAM/Nvidia 8800 GTS.

I don't think you need to convert anything - just find a player that can handle the files. I think Power DVD and Nero have been the most stable in my setup for 1920x1080 m2ts files.

I'm also able to stream the m2ts files to a PS3 connected to my HDTV using Tversity without any conversion needed.

mshulman · 03-01-2009, 05:53 PM

One possibility is that your laptop simply isn't powerful enough. The files you have viewed previously (while they are 1080P) are not the same quality of the clips you are taking.

I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 with an add on to view AVCHD files and it works great. I have CS4, but just haven't installed it yet. So I don't think its the programs you are using.

**kamspy** · 03-01-2009, 08:00 PM

AVC-HD is PC friendly.

Have a model number on that laptop?

Anyhow, it's the deinterlacing that's giving you problems.

Does the camera record in 720p?

Have you tried the latest VLC Nightly Build?

dcristescu · 03-02-2009, 02:49 AM

Thank you all for answering.

@juankerr
That's interesting, do you know if your camera records in interlaced or progressive? The problem is the interlacing that Sony devilishly insisted on not letting go.
Can you please try to download the clip from the link in my first message and try to play in on your setup? Does it play ok?

@mshulman
I know the files are all progressive, that's the issue!
I don't require that my computer be able to play 1080i60 format interlaced clips, may they all go to hell.
I just ask for a conversion method to turn the interlaced footage to progressive PC friendly material, as the clips that work very well.
The conversion process may take any period of time, I just want them out of that devilish format!!

@kamspy
Is interlaced AVC-HD as PC friendly?
The laptop is Packard Bell EasyNote MB88. Pretty OK hardware imo.
Alas if only the camera could do progressive 720p

It's a bloody Sony, it can only do interlaced

.
I have VLC installed, and I think I tried it with no success.
I will try again as you suggest.

@all
I understand there are different setups around.
That's why the challenge I propose is to convert the clip I uploaded to any format that plays smoothly. I've given up on playing the native clip on my PC.
Everybody, just try to first download and play the native clip I've uploaded, that try converting it to the format you know to work best.
It's a challenge! The winner will receive paramount appreciation and respect, it's not for free

.

GOOD LUCK!

juankerr · 03-02-2009, 07:20 AM

The Canon HF10 records 1080 interlaced video.

I tried the clip you uploaded and it plays perfectly on my PC using Cyberlink Power DVD, Nero Showtime, and Media Player Classic. It also streams to my PS3 with TVersity.

I didn't have to convert the clip at all.

juankerr · 03-02-2009, 07:34 AM

I tried this conversion:

1. Download, install and run tsMuxer (Freeware).
2. Add your clip to the input window.
3. In the Tracks window choose the H.264 video and AC3 audio. Unclick the PGS Stream.
4. For Output choose TS Muxing.
5. Click [Start Muxing].
6. After the muxing process you have a *.ts file which you can play with Media Player Classic or any of the other media players I mentioned above.

dcristescu · 03-02-2009, 10:15 AM

hmmm
i also have media player classic and k-lite mega codec pack installed.

here's what i think is going on.
players are just a frontend, an interface to a user's commands like play, pause, louder, open this file.

the way i understand is that the real work for playing a video file is being done by the codec. they are the translation tool from the archived compressed video footage in a file to raw images transmitted to the screen.

codecs usually come either as:

packs - the way i got most of mine

additional ones to an editing software

additional ones that come with the application that handles the camera from your pc

additional ones that come with a player

i think your machine has some codecs that are right - as oposed to my machine. they must have come from one of the players you list.
or, most probably, your canon camera is correct in its distribution and actually installs the correct codecs for interlaced avchd to windows (furthermore making them available to all players) when installing the drivers and applications.

the cheeky sony does not do that:
first they themselves don't have the correct pc codecs when they ship the product - i tried to play the file with their cockamamy player as i said in the first post - only to have green pictures and stuttering images.
secondly they don't install the codecs to the windows repository, not enabling additional players, such as media player classic, to use them

to rule out anything else i will install tsmuxer and power dvd when i get home and try what you suggest.
but i'm not very optimistic. i've tried on different pcs and the same issues appear there, it would seem that your machine+codecs are out of the ordinary.

any codec gurus available to give their opinions?

many thanx

dcristescu · 03-02-2009, 11:58 AM

it saddens me to confirm my previous statements

cyberlink power dvd not only does not play smoothly the clip on my machine, it doesn't even open it

tsmuxer - though i'm not sure what its purpose is - produces the .ts file that juankerr talks about, but it also plays like the m2ts file with interlacing lines and lagging static pictures

it's the damned codecs.
again: playing full hd progressive clips with heavy motion does indeed work on this machine - also a core2duo t5450 1,66 with 2GB ram, and nvidia geforce 8600m gs with 512 mb video ram

can anybody with a sony hd camera play the hd clips on their computer?

Dare · 03-02-2009, 01:08 PM

Where can I upload the processed samples?

Your footage is not natively progressive. It was shot interlaced, so deinterlacing while preserving its integrity 100% isn't going to happen.

You have a couple of options. You can bob it in playback (aka line doubling), or you can render it by separating the fields into frames and doubling the frame rate, which is essentially the same thing. Getting your video card to bob it will certainly give you better performance, but the drivers and codecs don't always cooperate. Also, your hardware and/or software might use the wrong field order for unpredictable reasons, and create a weird jittery motion artifact. If your hardware can handle 1280x360 at 60fps, doing it yourself could be worth a try.

Or you can just discard one field, and cut your vertical resolution in half. It'll kill your interlacing problem dead, but you don't really want lower resolution, do you? ;-) It would also have half the practical framerate, so the motion won't have that "live" video look anymore. It'll look more "filmy". (Good thing? Bad thing? I dunno.)

Here's the short version of what I did:

I loaded the clip into DGAVCIndex and saved a project file. That demuxed the audio for me, and gave me a file (.dga) that other programs can understand. DGAVCIndex also generates an AVISynth script (.avs). The script is where I did all my processing, like separating the fields, discarding fields, changing frame rates, or whatever else.

I then loaded the .avs script into MeGUI, and encoded it using the AVC codec. Then I muxed the original sound back into the encoded video files, creating .mkv files.

I made 3 different encodes. One discards one field, one has separated fields at double the frame rate, and one is just straight interlaced. If your playback environment is configured properly, the interlaced version and the separated fields version should look the same.

dcristescu · 03-02-2009, 01:23 PM

oh goody, let's see let's see

would you mind using the same solution i used for sharing the original?
it ain't have to be rapidshare, something along the lines that you prefer

let me know if you can't do that, though it would be cool to make it available to everyone who wanders through this post

side question: the steps you describe seem like advanced hacking
am i conceited to expect at least one of the high end solutions i tried (premiere pro, roxio ultimate) to let me do the same thing :O?
is it possible to achieve the result using such an application?

again, tx

**kamspy** · 03-02-2009, 04:27 PM

Dare's video transcoding skills are on par with God's.

Biblical people, BIBLICAL.

Dare · 03-02-2009, 05:05 PM

I just put them on Rapidshare. Hopefully these links work!

Field Discarded
Fields Separated
Interlaced

The process I'm using isn't really that bad. All the necessary software is free, and there is a lot of online support from other people who are doing the same thing. I would love it if there was a single button that sucked in anything on one end and generated a perfect file on the other end, but that seems to be a ways away. Some developers are trying, but none of them work right yet.

The hardest thing to learn is AVIsynth, but once you get your head around it, you won't be able to live without it. Fortunately it comes with some easy to understand documentation. It's just a headless frame server that runs in the background whenever a video program opens an .avs script. Video encoders and players see the .avs script as if it was a regular video file, like an .avi file. AVIsynth's entire interface is in the script.

For this particular clip, the script was pretty simple. Here's the entire script for the separated fields clip:

Code:

LoadPlugin ("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\DGAVCDecode.dll")

AVCSource("20081019105611.dga").SeparateFields()

DGAVCIndex, the program that makes the .dga file, is pretty simple. Just load the clip, and save a project file. That's it. You can think of it as the "import" function on one of those commercial software packages. Oh, and DGAVCIndex also extracts the audio as a separate file, which will come in handy later.

MeGUI is also pretty simple. You could think of it as a "Render to AVC" function. The .avs script goes in, and an AVC encoded .mp4 or .mkv comes out. You have to set up all the encoding settings just like you would with commercial software, but it comes with presets to get you started. Once that's done, you multiplex the audio that DGAVCIndex extracted with the newly rendered video, using MeGUI's MKV muxer, and you're finished.

This is the simplest process I've found using free software, and it gives me total control over the final output. The best thing about free software is that there are no limits or artificial constraints on what formats I can input and output, and nothing is dumbed down. I've been able to make some very nice files using this method.

Dare · 03-02-2009, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamspy

Dare's video transcoding skills are on par with God's.

Biblical people, BIBLICAL.

LOL Well, look at the results before you judge.

**kamspy** · 03-02-2009, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dare

LOL Well, look at the results before you judge.

Can I rent you for a few days to come redo all my HTPC video archives?

My BD 1080p to h.264/720p/dts5.1 leaves much to desired.

I'm using the 'one button' approach.

03-01-2009, 04:40 PM	#1
dcristescu AVCHD to PC??? Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Romania Posts: 25	AVCHD to PC conversion challenge!! Hi there, I'm just a regular low budget user with a HD camera looking to embrace HD. As I am low budget, the Sony HDR-SR12 camera is as much as I'm willing to splurge on, for the time being. For viewing of the HD content captured with the above I intend to use a laptop with a good graphic card - 512 MB - for HD viewing and, in parallel, DVD top quality viewing on Standard Def TVs. The camera produces AVCHD footage. Lovely as it is, Sony made sure that their additional products, such as bluray players, get buyers' attentions by motivating them with lousy playback out of the box on computers. (Very stuttery moving pictures with interlaced artifacts galore - those horizontal lines - when playing the native clip files with Media Player - with a recent k-lite mega codec pack installed) I intend to circumvent that. What I want is to convert the AVCHD videos to PC friendly HD formats, that can be played satisfactorilly on a regular PC. And I need your help! I took a 50 sec clip at 1440x1080 defintion, granted on a very motion heavy panoramic scan of Amsterdam with complex and erratic sudden rushed movements. The native m2ts format as taken from the camera can be found at: rapidshare.de/files/45751720/20081019105611.m2ts.html What I know: On the camera screen, the clip playsback flawlessly. The lcd screen I'm told is 1920x480. So it is HD. Also, analog video out of the camera - PAL - via composite cable to a SD TV plays just as flawlessly. What I also know: My laptop PC can play very well heavy motion clips, at FULL HD resolutions. I'm not sure if the clips I've found equate the motion of my test clip, but they are pretty close, and the output is brilliant. So this should not deter me from viewing the damned clip, the hardware should not get in the way . . I've played back clips from HD trailers and www[dot]microsoft[dot]com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx The one titled Speed is pretty motionful. What I've tried: The shameful excuse of a conversion program that is shipped with the camera - the ridiculous Picture Motion Browser - when I ask to play me back the clip on the PC - I get a clip with the colours screwed up - green frames in the picture - and moderate to mild jittering. The same program, when asked to make me a DVD of the clip, first converts it to MPEG2. This result plays back with the colours ok, but moderate jittering. (Try playing the uploaded clip from above on your PC. If you don't have a fancy machine, and don't have exquisite codecs installed it should play the same way) This result burned to DVD from that same program produces a disk that played with a standard player has the same stuttering. I've downloaded SUPER. Played around with different encoders, to AVC, MPEG4, H264, different SD and HD resolutions, big bitrates, interlaced/progressive. All are very poor results, that only rarely reach the poor quality of the above disc played. I've tried Roxio Ultimate. Convert to DVD, HD, deinterlaced, the same outcome. Also Premiere Pro. Poor results, jittery clips. I'm sure the sneaky marketers at Sony made it tough to get what I want, what with the ridiculous 1080i60 standard to mess things all up. It sure looks like encoder troubles. BUT! This is computing, you should be able to get it to turn anything into anything you want, if the hardware permits you, and as I showed things look like they should permit it. *I dare* you**: get me a version of it that plays smoothly just as on the camera on a PC. Has anyone else gone through what I've gone through? Share your conclusions, by all means. Many thanks, and looking forward to any input, Dorin

03-01-2009, 05:53 PM	#3
mshulman My Projector is High Def. Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Marlborough, MA Age: 35 Posts: 6,572	One possibility is that your laptop simply isn't powerful enough. The files you have viewed previously (while they are 1080P) are not the same quality of the clips you are taking. I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 with an add on to view AVCHD files and it works great. I have CS4, but just haven't installed it yet. So I don't think its the programs you are using. __________________ Toshiba HD-A2 and HD-A3 PS3 Sanyo PLV-Z3 Canon HF-10 Onkyo 805 "I eat green berets for breakfast and I'm very hungry!"

03-01-2009, 08:00 PM	#4
kamspy Esteban Moderatoro Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cincinnati,OH Good Posts: 12 Posts: 13,048	AVC-HD is PC friendly. Have a model number on that laptop? Anyhow, it's the deinterlacing that's giving you problems. Does the camera record in 720p? Have you tried the latest VLC Nightly Build? Last edited by kamspy; 03-01-2009 at 08:06 PM.

03-02-2009, 02:49 AM	#5
dcristescu AVCHD to PC??? Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Romania Posts: 25	Thank you all for answering. @juankerr That's interesting, do you know if your camera records in interlaced or progressive? The problem is the interlacing that Sony devilishly insisted on not letting go. Can you please try to download the clip from the link in my first message and try to play in on your setup? Does it play ok? @mshulman I know the files are all progressive, that's the issue! I don't require that my computer be able to play 1080i60 format interlaced clips, may they all go to hell. I just ask for a conversion method to turn the interlaced footage to progressive PC friendly material, as the clips that work very well. The conversion process may take any period of time, I just want them out of that devilish format!! @kamspy Is *interlaced* AVC-HD as PC friendly? The laptop is Packard Bell EasyNote MB88. Pretty OK hardware imo. Alas if only the camera could do progressive 720p It's a bloody Sony, it can only do interlaced. I have VLC installed, and I think I tried it with no success. I will try again as you suggest. @all I understand there are different setups around. That's why the challenge I propose is to convert the clip I uploaded to any format that plays smoothly. I've given up on playing the native clip on my PC. Everybody, just try to first download and play the native clip I've uploaded, that try converting it to the format you know to work best. It's a challenge! The winner will receive paramount appreciation and respect, it's not for free. GOOD LUCK! Last edited by dcristescu; 03-02-2009 at 03:25 AM. Reason: forgot question mark

03-02-2009, 10:15 AM	#8
dcristescu AVCHD to PC??? Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Romania Posts: 25	hmmm i also have media player classic and k-lite mega codec pack installed. here's what i think is going on. players are just a frontend, an interface to a user's commands like play, pause, louder, open this file. the way i understand is that the real work for playing a video file is being done by the codec. they are the translation tool from the archived compressed video footage in a file to raw images transmitted to the screen. codecs usually come either as: packs - the way i got most of mine additional ones to an editing software additional ones that come with the application that handles the camera from your pc additional ones that come with a player i think your machine has some codecs that are right - as oposed to my machine. they must have come from one of the players you list. or, most probably, your canon camera is correct in its distribution and actually installs the correct codecs for interlaced avchd to windows (furthermore making them available to all players) when installing the drivers and applications. the cheeky sony does not do that: first they themselves don't have the correct pc codecs when they ship the product - i tried to play the file with their cockamamy player as i said in the first post - only to have green pictures and stuttering images. secondly they don't install the codecs to the windows repository, not enabling additional players, such as media player classic, to use them to rule out anything else i will install tsmuxer and power dvd when i get home and try what you suggest. but i'm not very optimistic. i've tried on different pcs and the same issues appear there, it would seem that your machine+codecs are out of the ordinary. any codec gurus available to give their opinions? many thanx

03-01-2009, 05:37 PM	#2
juankerr My plasma is High Def. Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5	I have a Canon HF10 HD camcorder and I'm able to playback the 1920x1080 AVCHD footage on my PC without any conversion. I've tried Cyberlink Power DVD, Nero Showtime, VLC Media Player, and MPC. The m2ts files I have all play flawlessly on my fairly low spec'd PC: Core2Duo6600/4GB RAM/Nvidia 8800 GTS. I don't think you need to convert anything - just find a player that can handle the files. I think Power DVD and Nero have been the most stable in my setup for 1920x1080 m2ts files. I'm also able to stream the m2ts files to a PS3 connected to my HDTV using Tversity without any conversion needed.

03-02-2009, 07:20 AM	#6
juankerr My plasma is High Def. Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5	The Canon HF10 records 1080 interlaced video. I tried the clip you uploaded and it plays perfectly on my PC using Cyberlink Power DVD, Nero Showtime, and Media Player Classic. It also streams to my PS3 with TVersity. I didn't have to convert the clip at all.

03-02-2009, 07:34 AM	#7
juankerr My plasma is High Def. Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5	I tried this conversion: 1. Download, install and run tsMuxer (Freeware). 2. Add your clip to the input window. 3. In the Tracks window choose the H.264 video and AC3 audio. Unclick the PGS Stream. 4. For Output choose TS Muxing. 5. Click [Start Muxing]. 6. After the muxing process you have a *.ts file which you can play with Media Player Classic or any of the other media players I mentioned above.

03-02-2009, 11:58 AM	#9
dcristescu AVCHD to PC??? Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Romania Posts: 25	it saddens me to confirm my previous statements cyberlink power dvd not only does not play smoothly the clip on my machine, it doesn't even open it tsmuxer - though i'm not sure what its purpose is - produces the .ts file that juankerr talks about, but it also plays like the m2ts file with interlacing lines and lagging static pictures it's the damned codecs. again: playing full hd progressive clips with heavy motion does indeed work on this machine - also a core2duo t5450 1,66 with 2GB ram, and nvidia geforce 8600m gs with 512 mb video ram can anybody with a sony hd camera play the hd clips on their computer?

03-02-2009, 01:08 PM	#10
Dare I moon you. Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Phoenix, Arizona Posts: 4,436	Where can I upload the processed samples? Your footage is not natively progressive. It was shot interlaced, so deinterlacing while preserving its integrity 100% isn't going to happen. You have a couple of options. You can bob it in playback (aka line doubling), or you can render it by separating the fields into frames and doubling the frame rate, which is essentially the same thing. Getting your video card to bob it will certainly give you better performance, but the drivers and codecs don't always cooperate. Also, your hardware and/or software might use the wrong field order for unpredictable reasons, and create a weird jittery motion artifact. If your hardware can handle 1280x360 at 60fps, doing it yourself could be worth a try. Or you can just discard one field, and cut your vertical resolution in half. It'll kill your interlacing problem dead, but you don't really want lower resolution, do you? ;-) It would also have half the practical framerate, so the motion won't have that "live" video look anymore. It'll look more "filmy". (Good thing? Bad thing? I dunno.) Here's the short version of what I did: I loaded the clip into DGAVCIndex and saved a project file. That demuxed the audio for me, and gave me a file (.dga) that other programs can understand. DGAVCIndex also generates an AVISynth script (.avs). The script is where I did all my processing, like separating the fields, discarding fields, changing frame rates, or whatever else. I then loaded the .avs script into MeGUI, and encoded it using the AVC codec. Then I muxed the original sound back into the encoded video files, creating .mkv files. I made 3 different encodes. One discards one field, one has separated fields at double the frame rate, and one is just straight interlaced. If your playback environment is configured properly, the interlaced version and the separated fields version should look the same. __________________ LG GGC-H20L Super Multi Blue Blu-ray & HD DVD ROM Drive 58 31

03-02-2009, 01:23 PM	#11
dcristescu AVCHD to PC??? Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Romania Posts: 25	oh goody, let's see let's see would you mind using the same solution i used for sharing the original? it ain't have to be rapidshare, something along the lines that you prefer let me know if you can't do that, though it would be cool to make it available to everyone who wanders through this post side question: the steps you describe seem like advanced hacking am i conceited to expect at least one of the high end solutions i tried (premiere pro, roxio ultimate) to let me do the same thing :O? is it possible to achieve the result using such an application? again, tx

03-02-2009, 04:27 PM	#12
kamspy Esteban Moderatoro Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cincinnati,OH Good Posts: 12 Posts: 13,048	Dare's video transcoding skills are on par with God's. Biblical people, BIBLICAL.

03-02-2009, 05:05 PM	#13
Dare I moon you. Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Phoenix, Arizona Posts: 4,436	I just put them on Rapidshare. Hopefully these links work! Field Discarded Fields Separated Interlaced The process I'm using isn't really that bad. All the necessary software is free, and there is a lot of online support from other people who are doing the same thing. I would love it if there was a single button that sucked in anything on one end and generated a perfect file on the other end, but that seems to be a ways away. Some developers are trying, but none of them work right yet. The hardest thing to learn is AVIsynth, but once you get your head around it, you won't be able to live without it. Fortunately it comes with some easy to understand documentation. It's just a headless frame server that runs in the background whenever a video program opens an .avs script. Video encoders and players see the .avs script as if it was a regular video file, like an .avi file. AVIsynth's entire interface is in the script. For this particular clip, the script was pretty simple. Here's the entire script for the separated fields clip: Code: LoadPlugin ("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\DGAVCDecode.dll") AVCSource("20081019105611.dga").SeparateFields() DGAVCIndex, the program that makes the .dga file, is pretty simple. Just load the clip, and save a project file. That's it. You can think of it as the "import" function on one of those commercial software packages. Oh, and DGAVCIndex also extracts the audio as a separate file, which will come in handy later. MeGUI is also pretty simple. You could think of it as a "Render to AVC" function. The .avs script goes in, and an AVC encoded .mp4 or .mkv comes out. You have to set up all the encoding settings just like you would with commercial software, but it comes with presets to get you started. Once that's done, you multiplex the audio that DGAVCIndex extracted with the newly rendered video, using MeGUI's MKV muxer, and you're finished. This is the simplest process I've found using free software, and it gives me total control over the final output. The best thing about free software is that there are no limits or artificial constraints on what formats I can input and output, and nothing is dumbed down. I've been able to make some very nice files using this method. __________________ LG GGC-H20L Super Multi Blue Blu-ray & HD DVD ROM Drive 58 31

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