# Canon HF S100 and Image Mixer- Help!!



## alexpho (Aug 18, 2009)

Hi there! First time post on this site. I could really need the help please. Sorry for the long post.

I am currently on vacation in Disney. I recently bought a Canon HF S100 for this vacation and brought along my laptop, ACER 6930, Windows Vista.

The camera is awesome, good AVCHD HD camera. I have it set to record in 24 FPS Cine mode at 24 MPS (1900x1080 lines?? ). The video format is in H.264 Streaming and MTS File. I have been downloading to this computer for the past 8 days.

My goal is to edit these vacation photos and videos onto both standard DVD and Blu Ray Discs. I am not a pro and have very little knowledge in computers, but can usually managed. My major problem right now is not being able to view my videos correctly in Imagemixer. The video quality and audio quality appears to be fine. However, the video is " jerky " and " stutters" when playing it on my computer. This specs on this laptop are ( reading from sticker ) Intel Core Duo processor, up to 1244 mb mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, 3 GB DDR2, 320 GB HDD, DVD Super Multi DL, and 32 Bit Operating system. It is now currently showing 44 GB available in drive C and 1300 MB in total graphics memory available.

My questions are-

1. I heard alot about Imagemixer being a bad editing program. Any suggestions on another editing program that may suit my needs?
2. Am I off from the gate using a computer that can not handle what I want to do? I just bought this laptop 8 months ago.
3. There is a Best Buy near by, what can I have added to this laptop to increase the performance?
4. Is there another way to view my videos as recorded without the jerky motion from ImageMixer? Windows media player is also jerky.
5. Apparently, Windows Media is also copying the files when I upload onto ImageMixer. It is a duplicate file call DPI. What is this?
6. There is a DVD drive on this laptop, from reading some editing programs like Pinnacle Ultimate, I can burn AVCHD files directly to this drive and can select either DVD and Blu Ray as a finished product? Is this true?

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Alex:1angel:


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## blah789 (Aug 25, 2008)

1. Don't know much about editors. Ask zuluclayman, he'll know more.

2. and 4.
You probably know H.264 is a very processor-intensive codec, and even more so at high resolutions. If I may ask, what player are you using to play your files? (I don't know what comes bundled with the Canon - for example JVC AVCHD camcorders come bundled with Cyberlink BD Solution for playback).
Look at task manager, performance tab while your video is playing. What's the CPU usage?
One solution for the high CPU usage has been to offload the decoding to the GPU, but this requires the proper player and/or decoder to have the right switches turned on (DXVA enabled).

If whatever you have for H.264 playback doesn't have a DXVA setting, try Media Player Classic Home Cinema.
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/
follow these instructions http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/DXVASupport.html
I know it says NVidia or ATI only, but try it anyway, because the folks at Intel say they're working with the MPC people, so maybe it'll work for your chip
http://software.intel.com/en-us/art...tion-with-the-intel-g45gm45-express-chipsets/

longer steps here
http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/

The only trouble is that MPCHC has its H.264 built-in, so it's not accessible to outside programs in Windows like editors and so forth.
If you didn't have an H.264 decoder with DXVA built-in, you could try finding one elsewhere. I know the ffdshow-tryouts one (the freeware one) doesn't use DXVA. A few searches show Cyberlink sells on for 40 bucks, but it doesn't say whether it works with Intel cards (ask their tech support about this, not sales ppl)
http://www.cyberlink.com/store/hd-264-pack/buy_en_US.html
Elecard's working on it
http://www.elecard.com/technology/avc-dxva.php
Lead Technologies and MainConcept also have their own, but I don't see DXVA mentioned in either (but MainConcept has a 64-bit decoder).

3. is related to the above. Perhaps a better GPU, but it really depends on software support. Neither CPU nor GPU can be replaced (easily) in a laptop.

5. In Canon digital cameras, all the AVI's also had a THM file; and on JVC camcorders, the MOD (MPEG-2 videos) came with MOI. Those are just thumbnails, or files with metadata on them. I'd guess DPI is the same, but it's just a guess. More likely to be accurate if the file is very small, or if you can open it with an image viewer.

6. First you have to check what kind of burner you have. If it's just DVD+/-R(W) (including double layer), the best you can do is burn to standard DVD media (4.3GB single layer, twice that for double layer). If you want to burn to blu-ray discs (25GB a piece) you'd need a blu-ray burner.
Second you have to know the difference between a movie DVD and a data DVD. Movie DVD's (as sold in stores) have a specific file structure, with files like .VOB .IFO .BUP, and folders like VIDEO_TS when viewed in Windows Explorer (this is true for DVD - I don't know what they put on blu-ray movies, but I suspect a similarly rigid file hierarchy). Data DVD's are just like a hard drive or thumb drive, you can put any files on them.
If you have a DVD burner, you can burn your AVCHD files as data files, and maybe a standalone blu-ray player could read them (or a PC with the proper players and codecs). Or you could burn them into a standard movie DVD. The latter is less desirable, because you have to make a conversion (likely to MPEG-2, and the resolution has to be reduced because standard DVD's can't read 1920x1080), but the result will be playable in any standalone DVD player. You'll probably need DVD authoring software (nero vision for example).
If you want to make a movie blu-ray disc, you may need blu-ray authoring software. Or you could make a data blu-ray, and i suspect those will be like your data DVD's with avchd files on them, except they can store more.

* I just remembered this. If you have ffdshow-tryouts (or a codec pack that has it, like CCCP) AND another H.264 decoder (the one bundled with your camcorder, cyberlink or whatever it may be), go to ffdshow-tryouts settings in the start menu, video decoding configuration, and turn the H.264 decoding OFF. The reason is ffdshow will take precedence if it's on (and you wouldn't want that since it doesn't have DXVA support).


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## zuluclayman (Dec 16, 2005)

thanks blah789 :grin:

re: video editors

yes imagemixer has a terrible reputation - I have not used it and by the number of hits from a Google search of Imagemixer problems I don't really want to.

Have a look at these - trials are available for download so you can try them out and see which suits you best before outlaying any $$$$:
Sony Vegas range - if you don't want to fork out for the full Pro version the Movie Studio 9 Platinum Edition is good value
Adobe Premiere Elements 7 - good value for money
both suites offer 
* multiple audio and video tracks (Adobe offers more than Vegas)
* lots of effects
* lots of transitions
* chroma keying and green/blue screening
* picture in picture - multiple images on same frame
* keyframing - allowing progressive changes in effects
* multiple input and output formats - I have Adobe and sometimes have to use a converter (Prism) to get some file formats in properly - see below
* ability to burn to DVD from timeline adding scenes and chapters as markers
* ability to upload direct to Youtube account formatted as flash movie
and much much more 
As more and more people play with video cameras these editing suites get simpler to use, more capable and cheaper :grin:
You may need to convert the files to a supported format if you get a message saying that when trying to import to the editing software. You could try using Prism a freeware converter available here


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## alexpho (Aug 18, 2009)

Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for your help. I'll take these suggestions when we get back to the hotel room tonight. I was at Best Buy last night and they do not have external " Blu Ray Burners " for use with lap tops, only one internal one. All the hype is building for Windows 7. Perhaps I will pick up a new desktop ( needed a new one anyway ) when I get back home, with a better processor and capabilities.

Again, thank you for stepping up and helping me.

Alex


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## neeraj.vasudeva (Sep 3, 2009)

Hi,

I am not sure if ur problem is solved or not ...but probably my post might give u some info/help .... i was almost in same boat as u r ... I also went to Disney with the same new handy cam, and transferred all my video to my Dell Latitude D610 ( Pretty old model at least 3 years old i guess )

So after i came back, i tried exploring options to make use of these .mts files created by canon hfs100 , did some goggling and also had a word with customer care rep. from Pixela. ( Pixela are guys who provide support for Image Mixer software ( Their US tel no. 1800-458-4029 9-6 pm Pacific time ).

The cust. rep. told me clearly that my pc is too old that's the reason why the video's r not playing smoothly .. she told me if i have selected MXP mode which is the highest resolution mode it requires atleast 2.33 mhz speed of cpu processor speed ... sorry i forgot the name of the processor ... most likely she told me intel core duo ...

so i played these mts file in image mixer software on my office machine which definitely matches to the pc hardware configuration which image mixer software expected and it played pretty smoothly.

Hope that solves ur 1st query , i doubt just upgrading 'xyz' component of ur laptop would help u in this situation. I would suggest if u can get hold of some new machine from a friend and try it out... also u can call at the above no. 

Next part comes importing these .mts files ... which is pain in the *** .... luckily i have a macbook which is pretty new model ... i plugged in my handy cam and imported the .mts files into iMovie software provided by apple. 

FYI, iMovie is software which u can run on Macintosh pc/laptop , its much more advance than windows media player... ofcourse apple doesnt give it for free.


At this point of time iMovie 9 transfers mts files from ur handycam only so if u have transferred it to a external usb disk, it wont recognise those files on external hdd... that's the reason now i am putting back my .mts files from external disk to handycam so that imovie can read the same.


for windows after doing some google i found that software called "voltaichd" would be useful for u, u can purchase it from http://www.shedworx.com/voltaichdfor 35$

U can also refer to following urls for more info

http://asimag.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/ilife-09-avchd-to-toast-to-imovie-09-workflow/

http://macandmobile.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1891497&tstart=0

Hope it solves ur issues to some extent.

Regards

Neeraj


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## neeraj.vasudeva (Sep 3, 2009)

Here goes the path for the site where pixela have shown the min. hardware configuration required to play software

http://www.pixela.co.jp/oem/canon/e/pixela_application_disc_ver20/spec.html

Also in my above post there was a typo, here is the correction of the same

*[wrong]*
FYI, iMovie is software which u can run on Macintosh pc/laptop , its much more advance than windows *media player*... of course apple doesn't give it for free.
*[/wrong]*

*[correct]*
FYI, iMovie is software which u can run on Macintosh pc/laptop , its much more advance than windows *movie maker*... of course apple doesn't give it for free.
*[/correct]*

Regards

Neeraj


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## alexpho (Aug 18, 2009)

Hi Neeraj,

Thank you so much for the responses!! I am excited to tell you the forum this, since then, I have finally ( and painfully devoted so much time to this ), FIGURED IT OUT!! Through researching on the internet, reading other forums, and trying so many things, I am ready to edit and burn. Here is what I have found out and have PROVEN TO WORK....

1- Yes, Pixela sucks, leave it alone and use it only as an upload program.
2- Several things were wrong with my " settings " on my laptop. The power savings was set to energy saver if the laptop was plugged in, less juice to the CPU and more on the brightness. 
3- Windows Movie Maker and WMP required a special codec to run MTS. H264 files. I found one ( after various codecs and viruses ), and the files played smoothly and in HD. However, you must tweak the settings under " tools " in media player, and TURN OFF some of the other codecs. This is the reason why the video was messed up. Wrong codec and existing codec.
4- And here is the coolest thing. I bought a cheap $70 HP DVD burner and a Sony PS3 player for my son ( new slim model ). Included with the burner was Nero 8 essentials DVD. 
5- I played around the various settings and read up some more online for about 5 days. I finally figured it out....I NOW CAN BURN BLU RAY DISCS FROM MY LAPTOP, USING NERO 8 ( after various Youtube code trials ), AND PLAYED BACK ON MY PS3!! THE VIDEO ARE STUNNING AND I BELIEVE IN NATIVE 1920 x 1080. IT WORKED !!It is awesome!! The encoding period is very long though.
6- You can even use WMM as an editor but use Nero to burn to get the same results.


My next step is to get a new desktop with Windows 7 and at least an I7 processor. 

Regards,

Alex


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