Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

I just received this neat little camera and I'm trying to figure out the particulars of the MTS files that it shoots. I'd like to edit the 3D in 3D Stereotoolbox but when I look at the files they are not separate files or side by side as I expected.

Anyone with 3D editing experience with these types of files who can educate me as to how to break these files into component parts and adjust convergence please chime in and help out. Are they muxed permanently or can they be adjusted?

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

My understanding is that only Sony Vegas Pro version 10d can edit these files.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Bruce, can you please shoot a very short clip and send it to me for analysis. I don't have one of these cameras yet but I assume they are using MVC, which we don't have a means to demux yet.

The JVC TD1/HMZ1 seems to have the option for MVC or AVC side by side.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

I wonder if Cineform Neo3D could deal with the files? This could be worth an inquiry to Cineform, or perhaps post the question on their dvinfo forum. This may be an expensive solution unless you are aready into Cineform processing but their 3D tools work very well.

They normally start with the two separate tracks, convert them to Cineform AVI (or MOV) and then do the mux. I don't know if they can start with a file that is already muxed. I think they can handle MTS files okay but I don't know about muxed MTS.

The TD10 looks very interesting - anxious to hear more about the results.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

I don't think any 3rd party software can deal with demux of MVC yet. I just sent David Newman an email and notified him of this thread so maybe he can shed some light on it.

When the consumer divisions of JVC and Sony put MVC into the cameras I don't think they intended anyone to actually edit it, just drop it on a blu-ray or PS3 for 3D playback. Now that the professional divisions have adapted the design it becomes the preferred way to go for full raster left and right.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

There are several people that I know about who have this camera and are editing the MVC files using Sony Vegas Professional version D.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Peter Wimmer has a MVC to AVI prototype converter here: http://www.3dtv.at/Downloads/MVCConverter010_en.msi . It will produce two AVI streams from the MVC (MPEG stream or MP4 file) and it will not work directly on MAC, but it is a step to separate the two streams out of the single MVC stream. The AVI streams can be subsequently converted. This converter currently is at beta level. The converter only works under windows. Some additional information from Peter:

"The MVC to AVI Converter converts MPEG Transport Streams (*.mts, *.ssif) or MP4
files containing 3D video data encoded with the H.264 MVC codec to two
uncompressed AVI files, one AVI file for the left and one for the right view.

Click 'File|Add Files' to add an MVC file to the batch list, then click
'File|Start Conversion' to convert all files in the batch list to AVI format.
The AVI files are stored in the same folders as the MVC files. The 'Left' or
'Right' suffix is added to the AVI filenames.

The audio track is only decoded if the ffdshow Audio Decoder is installed."

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Sorry guys I didn't mean to abandon this thread - just been caught up in massive production overload. So this turns out to be a bit of a curiosity. I'll post a clip in a day or so Tim and others can take a look at it - on the road right now.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

How are you getting the video off of the camera? This camera and the ability to edit its video came up before, Alister Chapman posted about it on Jan 6th of this year and I think there maybe another thread as well. Anyway my question is whether you are recording to the "soldered" flash memory or using a removeable SD card for example. I was hoping that by using the removable media the file format would be more universally editable as compared to downloading from the internal storage.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

The recording medium is irrelevant. I'm not sure if the Sony TD10 has an option to record a simple side-by-side in AVCHD, but if it doesn't then it seems only Sony Vegas is currently supporting ingest of MVC.
The JVC TD1(consumer) and HM-Z1U(pro version) give you the option of full raster MVC or side by side AVCHD.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Tim is correct that there are limited options for post production work with these new MVC formated 3D cameras. We are now in discussion with three vendors of H.264 decoders, all with upcoming MVC support. We currently (not shipped) have support for progressive MVC sources only, yet the first Sony cameras are interlaced. I understand that the Sony camera software does support splitting the MVC stream into two standard AVCHD streams, which can than be loaded in Neo (via FirstLight) for batch conversion in a CineForm 3D file -- still that is a kludge. We believe will have full MVC support for M2TS and MP4 wrapped media in the August-September timeframe based on the reports we get from the codec vendors. If a decoder component is available sooner, we make our upgrades very quickly, so fingers cross.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

New link for MVC splitter under windows: 3dtv.at - MVC to AVI Converter Editions & Prices

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

We are using the Sony TD10 as a "D" camera on a 3D shoot now. I'll get Tim a clip to analyze and I'm going to give the software that Pavel suggests a try also.

Will post results as soon as I can.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Has anyone tried Stereosplicer?

StereoSplicer

In working with the Fujifilm W3 3D camera I used this to separate the streams into individual AVI's and then converted to a format FCP could work with. The W3 had MPO and AVI 3D files. Might be worth messing around with.

Can anyone post a short clip from there Sony TD10 with native folder structure. Just has to be 5 or 10 seconds. Enough to try and over come the challenges.

My Sony TD10 has shipped from Sony and should be here any day now.

This is just like when HDV was first introduced.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

We used the Sony TD10 as a "D" camera on the Indy 500 3D shoot, so I have some MTS files from it that I'm trying to "break open" to get discreet L and R files for NLE editing.

So far I've tried the following;
PMB software - comes with the camera and has a hard time recognizing footage even when it sees the camera plugged into the computer. Seemingly worthless, I am unable to determine what if anything this POS software does.

MVC to AVI converter - doesn't seem to know what to do about this footage. Says it's processing it, then gives error message: "Main Concept Adobe2 H264/avc video encoder is not compatible with the video format" I've installed FFSHOW etc, but I guess I still don't have the right codec installed to make this work.

Sony Content Management Utility - downloadable from the Sony site, it does pull in the footage, but doesn't seem to want to do much of anything with it.

Sony Vegas 10.0D - Finally I see two video tracks on a timeline with the audio in between. Not knowing much about how to use this program (FCP user that I am) I can't see how to export these tracks separately into L and R files as it appears I should be able to.

Anyone with some good knowledge of how to do this? It seems like it might be the final step towards generating file streams that can be converted to be used in another NLE like FCP.

Suggestions welcomed. I can post a short clip for analysis if someone instructs me the correct way to do so on the forum.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

As far as the 3dtv.at S/W goes, people definitely split files with it from that camera. Perhaps email Peter Wimmer. He has been on this forum several times, but he is mostly on the yahoo group: 3dtv : 3d stereoscopic amateur videos. You can ask there. There were some updates lately.

Someone posted a procedure for the file splitting for the Vegas 10.0d:

Sony HDR-TD10E
3D STEREOSCOPIC VIDEO SPLIT LEFT-RIGHT MVC FILES
1 - In Vegas 10.0d, configure the project as "LEFT ONLY" (in 3D mode)
2 - Take a file imported from the TD10E with Sony PMB
3 - Render .....
4 - Reconfigure the project as "RIGHT ONLY"
5 - Take the same file and replace it in its track
6 - Render as step 3 and save it also in the desired folder, renamed-R

I went from Vegas into Final Cut and Tim's filter many times. I normally render into ffdshow MJpeg at the desired quality, and move it into my Mac. It usually imports into Final Cut (AIC) quite easily, even though it is time consuming.

This is a hot topic on many forums. Unfortunately Apple is not very interested in BluRay or in 3D, and the people supporting these media and formats don't port their S/W onto Mac.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Thanks for all that info Pavel. I'll give your suggestions a try even though I'm not that familiar with the Vegas program.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

i own a TD10E and found the camera to work very well.
The only problem is the way you work and what you want to get.
If you are looking for professional output, there is no solution for instance out of creating 3D MVC blu-ray.
Unfortunately the sony is 50/60i and this is a pain since 3D MVC Blu-ray is 24p only.
If you are an happy owner of a TD10E, you can shoot 50i, deinterlance to 25p and just use it as 24p.
for 60i, there is no solution yet since converting 60i to 24p will create lot of problem that could be irrelevant in 2D but that are really bad in 3D.
If you are just shooting for internal/personal stuff and accept to use some proprietary solution, then there is no problem.For example, you can split the MVC to left/right files, edit with your favorite application, then reassemble the left/right to side by side and burn it to a blu-ray or a usb key.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

My TD10 has three options for frame rate; 24P, 60P and 60i at 1080x1920. I have only shot in the 24P mode but have not as yet gotten into a program that will tell me whether it is native 24P (23.98) like Quicktime Inspector. I figure it's 23.98 embedded in a 60i stream - AKA Sony PSF.

I have some files on a timeline in Vegas 10D, but don't know the program well enough yet to determine the frame rate from that program - but I'm working on it.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Bruce, you don't have to know and use much of the Vegas S/W. I know how to use it about intermediately. I thought it would be useful for it's auto-alignment feature, but that isn't perfect, and Vegas kept crashing on me, wasting lot of time and nerves, so I wouldn't recommend it over FC and Stereo3D Toolbox anyway. I would just bring the files in, place them on the timeline one-by-one, output L and R in Mjpeg format, transfer that output onto Mac (unless you are running the Vegas on Mac already), and finish the post with Tim's S/W and FC. You don't have to learn much of Vegas for that. I just don't like it for real editing that much. Sony should stick to H/W. Vegas is in beta stage of development in comparison to Final Cut. Just MHO.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

A little extra help here if you don't mind;

1. Step by step on how to configure project as LEFT ONLY (in 3D mode)
2. Why imported from Sony PMB and not directly from AVCHD/STREAM/*.MTS?
3. What are the proper Export settings? I can only see Export to Tape, DV, or PSP ?

Thanks for chiming in.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Sorry Bruce, I don't have Vegas 10d any more. I let the demo version expire, because it was way too unstable. Maybe someone else,or on the Vegas forum can help with step-by-step.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

I've successfully extracted a full frame L & R clip from Sony TD10 footage.

I used Sony Vegas 10D version NLE to extract the full resolution clips, and then exported to AVI, MXF, MOV, and MP4

1 - 13 second clip (X2 L+R) =
MP4 - 40MB (x2)
MXF - 87MB (x2)
AVI - 1.35GB (x2)
MOV- 2.70GB (x2)

The MXF which is Sony XDCAM @ 50MBs turned out to be the most efficient and data compact without any resolution sacrifice. AVI and MOV were uncompressed but obscenely large for that short of a clip. MP4 was a Sony XDCAM @ 35MBs which most closely replicated the original AVCHD data rate.

I used Final Cut Pro XDCAM Transfer software (Mac) from Sony to re-wrap the MXF file to MOV and placed both clips in the FCP bin. Dashwood plug in was applied to adjust convergence, and I watched the full screen composite on a Samsung 42" 3D HDTV.

Mission accomplished, TD10 footage can now fit into either an Avid or FCP workflow with this process, although it does span two different OS which makes it kind of kludgy. Hopefully a more direct method will arise soon to avoid this log jam of NLE's.

Now I'm trying to determine if there is a way to batch process in Vegas, but I'm suspecting that there isn't for this type of activity.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Anyone who have a TD10, can upload a very short native MVC file?
I work with Vegas for many years, and with 2 cameras sidebyside,
but i like to upgrade to TD10 or the new HXR-NX3D1.
I like to see the quality of the footage, the wide angle, barrel distorsion,
chromatic aberration, low light sensitivity, etc. before buying.
The 3cm interaxial is not too small? I hope it will be ok also for very near subjects,
because now i have 7cm minimum with my cams, and often this is just
too much for close subjects. And it is true that you can set the parallax
with a knob, but not with toe in the lens, instead the sensors are wider than
fullhd, so i can play with the extra pixels on the sides? That's what i have read.

Can somebody help me? Then i can help in using of Vegas.
regards

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Here's a little clip from a recent U/W shoot. Sorry it's not much - actually the only small clip I have and it's a result of an accidental start and stop of the Record function. Hopefully it will help.

I'll try to shoot some better short clips soon.

http://beampath3d.com/pub/Bimini_25_MVC.zip

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Thanks, even Vegas Moviestudio can read this file, and use as stereo3D source,
output to MVC, etc..
I only have to set the "'pair with next stream" option in the clip properties dialog.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Here are a few more short clips. At least these have some color range and some motion.


http://beampath3d.com/pub/Paramotor_16_MVC.zip
http://beampath3d.com/pub/Paramotor_17_MVC.zip
http://beampath3d.com/pub/Golf_MVC.zip

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Thanks, looks very good to me!
Can this cam shoot real 24p, or just 50/60i?
Stereoscopic player cannot deinterlace the MVC file..

The 3cm base work well with close subjects!
The opposite situation: sunday i filmed an airplane in a show,
with 15cm base, but this was too small. I get little depth.
So now i have to make a 60cm rig :-)

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Unfortunately the TD10 is limited to 1080 60i in 3D. This is a MAJOR limitation. I would think it's a deal killer for all but the home movie consumer. Even then, the user will need one of the 3DTV's that support 1080 60i frame-packed mode (e.g. Panasonic or Sony).

Stereoscopic player should de-interlace the MVCs properly - it just doesn't detect the need to do so automatically. Go to "Video Properties" under the "File" menu, select the "Settings" tab and click on the "Interlaced Video" option.

The narrow I.A. is better than the alternative (too wide) that most side-by-side cameras have suffered with since the dawn of time. It will help the consumer user from ripping viewer's eyes out with excessive parallax.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Yes, but 60i is perfect for 120Hz shutter systems.
Who wants to create 24p the european 50i version would be better,
beacuse it can be deinterlace to 25p, and slowdown to 24p.
Yes, Stereoscopic player has some deinterlace, but this simply duplicate one field,
so usless, compared to real Blend or Bob method. In the codec properties (ctrl-v)
i cannot set deinterlacing.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

I think Stereoscopic Player's de-interlace is going to use the native de-interlace in your video card. In the case of modern NVIDIA cards, it's motion-adaptive and very good. On ATI cards, the default on-card de-interlace is selectable via the Catalyst control panel. Playback looks very good from Stereoscopic player on my 120Hz LCD page flipper w/ NVIDIA de-interlacing.

The big problem with 60i is that 1080 60i or 30P (the natural rate to de-interlace into) are NOT mandatory HDMI 1.4a 3D formats and therefore are not widely supported - so the "out of the camera" experience for some users will have to be anamorphically scaled and not full res. Also, 3D Blu-Ray is limited to 24P and there is no good way to get there from 1080 60i. You can always scale to 720 30P... but that sucks!

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

For deinterlacing: would be good, but i read in the text file:

* Deinterlacing support (drop-field deinterlacing). The internal deinter-
lacing is not used if a compatible video decoder is detected. In this
case, deinterlacing is automatically enabled in the decoder and the
internal deinterlacing is disabled.

Drop is bad. You are sure, that you see 60frames, and not 30p?

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

We're seeing 60i motion-adaptivly de-interlaced into 30P.

CoreAVC MVC decoder (that Peter Wimmer uses in Stereoscopic Player for MVC decoding) is almost certainly using hardware de-interlacing via DirectShow. It's using DXVA2 or CUDA hardware acceleration for decoding. If the DirectShow decoder can't do the de-interlacing, Peter falls back and discards one field for playback. That is certainly NOT happing on any of our page-flipping PC's here.

Are you seeing juddery playback of the MVC files from Stereoscopic Player on a page-flipping display? That is a tell-tail sign of dropping a field.

We've been trying to de-interlace, scale and modify the time-base of the native 1080 60i footage here. We've tried yadif, the motion-adaptive scaler/de-interlacer in Compressor and the optical-flow-analysis based Nuke/Kronos package. Neither offer ANY visual improvement in de-interlacing this footage in real-time with an NVIDIA card. We've tried:

- 1080 60i to 1080 60P
- 1080 60i to 1080 30P
- 1080 60i to 1080 24P (a crap shoot, I know)
- 1080 60i to 720 60P (had high hopes for this one, but no better image than 720 30P)
- 1080 60i to 720 30P

We were hoping to crack the 1080 60i fields in half (to 1920 X 540 60P), then scale to 720 X 1280 by borrowing spatial information from the original 1080 frame. There are apparently broadcast hardware processors (e.g. Teranex vc100) that can do this effectively. We have failed to replicate the process in software so far. All hopes of getting some production use out of the TD10 are pretty much dashed here. Here's hoping the HXR-NX3D1P ships on schedule.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Great, then it's time to upgrade my 7600GT :P

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

OK - have a decent path to 720 60P working. Used Peter Wimmer's MVC-to-AVI. Used AVISynth to crack 1080 60i into 540x1920 60P (split the fields). Then used Compressor's statistical prediction resize filter to go from 540x1920 to 720x1280. Added a pinch of gamma correction ('cause something along the way stepped on the gamma) and the results are passable 720 60P 3D.

I'm test encoding now to see how much difference additional temporal information makes using this conversion as apposed to using a native 720 60P 3D rig.

If anyone wants the simple AVISynth script and/or Compressor settings, let me know.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Ok, i tested with the latest player which claims:
"Added support for interlaced MVC content. "

I use a geforce 210 (dxva and cuda support) and also
an Ati 5450, but i cannot see any hardware deinterlacing.
Graphics drivers are updated.. So what's wrong?
I see the horizontal lines, or dropped resolution when check the
"interlaced video" option in video properties window.

But if you see 30P from 60i source then it's also not the best, because
the best is 60 individual frame from a 60i source, so very smooth
motion.

"have a decent path to 720 60P working."

Great, and this is also a 3D Bluray standard :-)

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

I'm a little stumped by the official Sony specs posted at this URL.
Sony : HXR-NX3D1E (HXRNX3D1E) : Technical Specifications : United Kingdom
________________________________________
Recording format
Video Format: 3D: 3D : MVC (1080/60i, 50i, 24p : original format), HD: HD : MPEG4-AVC/H.264 AVCHD format compatible (1080/60p,50p : original format), STD: MPEG-2 PS
Audio Format: 3D/HD: Linear PCM/Dolby Digital 2ch, 16bit, 48kHz, STD: Dolby Digital 2ch, 16bit, 48kHz
Recording frame rate
3D: 3D (28Mbps) 1920 x 1080/(60i,50i,24p)/16:9, HD: PS (28Mbps) 1920 x 1080/(60p,50p)/16:9, HD: FX (24Mbps) 1920 x 1080/(60i,50i,25p,24p)/16:9, HD: FH (17Mbps) 1920 x 1080/(60i,50i,25p,24p)/16:9, HD: HQ (9Mbps) 1440 x 1080/(60i,50i)/16:9, HD: LP (5Mbps) 1440 x 1080/(60i,50i)/16:9, STD: SD (9Mbps) 720 x 480/60i or 720 x 576/50i /16:9, 4:3
________________________________________

It sure looks like the camera records 3D at 24P, but the frame properties of recorded footage clearly indicate it is 29.97. Now I'm also looking at de-interlacing solutions for possible conversion to 23.98 but I'm not holding out much hope that it will look any different than Sony Z1U footage did when it would get converted to 23.98 - lots of strobing and other ugly artifacts.

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Not sure. Works great here on Geforce 540M and GTX 580. Can you see a difference when you enable the switch for de-interlacing in Stereoscopic Player? Are you viewing on a 120Hz LCD or over HDMI 1.4 to a 3DTV? If you play in 2D from Windows Media Player, does it de-interlace any differently than when played from Stereoscopic Player in 3D?

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Those specs are for the yet-to-be-released Sony HXR-NX3D1, we're discussing the TD10. They are likely the same basic camera with the exception that the NX3D1 supports 24P in 3D and has XLR audio inputs (and costs 2X as much as the TD10).

Re: Sony TD10 3D camera editing suggestions
 

Good point, hadn't made that distinction.

So, what would the best deinterlacing/24P conversion routines to run on TD10 footage to make it the most compatible with other 1080/24P footage like from a Panasonic 3DA1?

Compressor? other workflows? I've been reading your thread posts about converting to 720 but I'm not sure that is the way to go with a 1080 3D project. It sucks to find all this out after the fact, but I'll be looking more closely at the NX3D1 now.