Help me with some 720p settings

Bob002

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Jul 22, 2004
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Going to be recording some fights this weekend (I am a fighter and the "video" guy) for an MMA promotion.

I'm going to be using Canon Vixia HV40s outputting at 1080 through the HDMI output to BlackMagic Design HDMI Capture cards. I'll be using Wirecast to stream, but I want to make sure that I get a good 720p of the show "just in case". The streaming company we're using has realllllllllllllllly low qual settings for their streams.

So, what can you recommend?

The Youtube 720p settings are Flash H.264 encoder, 1280x720, 30 FPS, with an average bitrate of 2000. The Quicktime one is slightly better with an average bitrate of 2500 or so. I'm gonna play with these a bit, but want to see what others suggest.
 
The BMD cards (assuming you are using one of the "Intensity" models) overall work well for the capture; just make sure you have a VERY fast drive to write the raw data to.

Getting the right settings can be a little finicky for the capture port; however, there are lots of videos on YouTube of people using these cards to capture in-game footage from a PS3, Xbox 360, etc. Watch a few of the videos just to get an idea of the quirks, especially with getting the input settings correct.

I also suggest holding off on doing live transcoding of the input footage into whatever output spec you are planning on using. Just capture the raw footage to later make your edits and final video project, and then convert it to whatever container/video/audio spec you need.

Good luck!


(Side note: The external USB 3.0 "shuttle" has been kinda flaky from my own testing, and the forums suggest this depends on the quality of the USB 3.0 chipset and always staying up-to-date with the BMD driver. If you have the choice, go with an internal card for sure.)
 
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They are Intensity models. And I'm writing to a 120 GB Sata 3 Kingston SSD. I don't know that I can do raw footage, unfortunately; either having enough room, OR being able to capture raw from both cards. I also am already doing the livestream, which is the reason for doing the 720 at the same time. We are also going to take the tapes from the cameras and use thsoe to put together a broadcast.

Ideally I'd like to get cameras that write to 720p files AT the camera, but these only do pictures to the SD card, as far as I can tell. And it's not in the budget right now to do anything else. I essentially got thrown into all of thise video and am making the best of things.
 
Should be able to drop to 24FPS since that's what most movies are at. That will save a good amount of bandwidth.
 
Want to bump this. I need to still play with it, as well, but I'm getting pissed at this dude. He sends me the settings then tells me the quality isn't good. Well, duh. You're having me record at 640x360!
 
When you do get this workflow finalized, please post a summary of what you settled on and any hurdles and discoveries made along the way.
 
2 - 2.5Mb/s would be right on the border of good quality for 720p, particulary if the H264 encoding is in "fast" mode. "Slow" mode would be pretty good, but it takes longer and Youtube probably doesn't value your time as much as they do theirs.

But if this is strictly for Youtube, then not much choice. But for archiving at 720p or 1080p I would use a higher bitrate like 8Mb/s to 12Mb/s range.
 
2 - 2.5Mb/s would be right on the border of good quality for 720p, particulary if the H264 encoding is in "fast" mode. "Slow" mode would be pretty good, but it takes longer and Youtube probably doesn't value your time as much as they do theirs.

But if this is strictly for Youtube, then not much choice. But for archiving at 720p or 1080p I would use a higher bitrate like 8Mb/s to 12Mb/s range.

I'm having so many issues with all this, but I'll keep plugging away, I think I'm just going to try it in 1080 since that is what the cameras are at. figure it'll be easier than downconverting. I can do that at a later date with handbrake.

The video just doesn't look as good in the digital file as it does when I take directly from tape.
 
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