# full HD video files wont play back properly :(



## anologman

Hi, I`ve just bought a Canon 550d to upgrade my old 350d.

Wow, the quality is astounding in stills, but the HD video is posing more of a problem.

The files wont play back without either flickering (in Canon`s supplied software, Zoombrowser EX) or playing slowly with jumps or pauses in programs such as Quicktime.

I`m getting the picture that my Evesham Arima W810-DCX isn`t up to the job, having 1.7GHz intel centrino processor and a NVidia GO 6600 graphix card, the dogs nuts for media centre and gaming a few years back, but now?

I also have one of the early Mac mini`s, I cant remember the spec, but I took the better of the 2 options available at the time, and if I remember correctly I had it filled with the extra ram, but I suspect I`ll have the same problem on this too, tho I haven`t tried viewing HD vid on it yet.

When I started using the Mac mini for music recording, its main function, it wouldn`t keep up and the music on Logic 7 would break up. This was remedied by adding a high speed Lacie 250GB external drive to run the music from.

Is this something I can do to help view full HD files correctly, or am I barking up the wrong tree here.

I was looking at a SEAGATE 2TB external drive on offer for £79.99 at Maplins, here in the UK, but not sure it`ll help. I need extra storage space anyway, but if one would be more helpful than another, ie. speed of drive etc then it`d make a big difference to what I do next.

Can anyone help here?

Oh by the way, I`d like the drive to work with both Windows XP and OS-X without having to partition if possible, with file sharing of Jpegs. HD files and music (mainly WAV or AVI files)

I`ve a feeling I`m going to get a response that I need to upgrade my hardware significantly, but please go easy on me, I`m an analogue man in this digital age and have a tight budget. I`ll very much appreciate any help or advice tho so please help if you can.

Cheers, Martin:grin:


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## anologman

Bump, please anybody?? ;-)


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## WereBo

Hi analogman :wave:

There's several things that could be causing the problems, some of which you've identified yourself - an underpowered CPU and graphics-card (for today's software and especially Hi-Def video).

Have you tried shutting down all the un-needed stuff running in the background (IM, Skype, stuff that automatically checks to update itself etc. to suggest a few possibilities)?

Another possibility is if your main HDD is getting a bit full, that can really hit Win-XP performance - It needs a minimum 15% free-space for it's page/swap-file. Also, a defrag can help lots, if it's not been done for a while.

Whilst adding an external drive for storage is useful, it won't improve your playback performance, it might well slow it down more as USB is a lot slower than an internal drive.

Sorry, I can't comment about Macs, I've never used one :wink:


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## zuluclayman

Video files from the Canon (and some other brands) DSLR's are notorious for poor playback - in players and editing software - they have such high bitrate out of the camera. This is especially true if you are running a system more than 2-3 years old - the processing speed just isn't up to the job. 
Many people transcode them before editing using something like MPEG Streamclip - you could try doing this and see if it helps. there will always be a trade-off in quality when transcoding down but if you use H.264 codec in an Mpeg4 container you should get quite good quality. Don't ry to use a fully lossless codec or your file sizes will be astronomical and will definitely cause your system problems.


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## Jay_JWLH

I'm not sure how much you will really need, or am I really sure about what I am about to say, but I think you will need at least 1.5GHz of processing... to spare. That is the least amount you would have to expect out of video handling devices for TV's, which are dedicated to the viewing of HD content. You would need at least a dual core processor, or one of the i range of processors so that at least one core can handle a lot of the video, while the other core can also help your computer keep up with other background tasks so it doesn't slow the video down.

As for getting any external storage, I've managed to run video off external storage, but it might prove a potential bottleneck. If possible, I would suggest internally, using SATA. If your computer is still in the IDE and USB1.1 age, then I say give up on using the computer to view HD content all together.

If the hard drive is connected to either a Mac or PC it shouldn't prove too much of a problem. You may need to be careful of compatible file systems, and compatible files. For example, Mac may need an update to view an NTFS file system. I wouldn't suggest using FAT32, because it won't support any files larger than 4GB.

As already mentioned, your most cost effective bet would be to transcode the original video into something smaller bitrate wise. This may take a lot of processing power (and time), but when you accomplish this, you should be able to view the video just fine. At this point you will probably have two copies of the same file, just one smaller. This will take up additional storage space, but the smaller video hopefully won't be as much.


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## anologman

Thanks for your replies, its been very helpful, but oh dear, not good news then, it looks like I`ll have to sacrifice the quality in order to view and show my footage, at least on my XP laptop.

I run a music band and we`re intending on shooting some footage on 3 camera`s to edit with audio for promotional purposes, are you actually saying, Jay, I`ll have to sacrifice the HD qualities to accomplish this?

The good news is that my Mac Mini 1,87 GHz dual core with 2GB memory will run the footage, but only once I`ve imported it to iMovie as HD footage, it still has the same problem, maybe even worse than the PC, when played on Quicktime. It takes about 25+mins to load up a 3+min clip to iMovie, but it ran at full speed and smoothly once loaded up. I`m not sure if iMovie is, in effect, what you mention above Jay, and reducing the bit rate or whether its showing them as full files, I suspect the former.

Obviously, I guess, there is quality lost when reducing the bit rate etc., and more so when using things like a youtube uploader, is there any advantage to shooting in full HD in camera, if the end result is going to be downsized for editing/final viewing (ie. I could choose a lower bit rate recording at point of shooting).

Which way fwd would give me the best results, shooting at a lower spec in camera and then editing and viewing, or shooting at the top spec for the camera and then reducing the bit rate to work on the file.

Sorry for the ignorance, I`m new to HD, the last time I owned video cameras they used tape! I`m a photographer that would like to utilise the camera`s HD vid capabilities. Any further advice on this would be very helpful I`m sure. 

Thanks, Martin:grin:


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## WereBo

Unless you're intending to use the video for DVD sales etc., I'd be tempted to shoot in 'ordinary' quality. Using the laptop will, it seems, give you the best flexibility, compared to the Mac.

Alternatively, you could shoot in HD, move it straight to the 2Tb external drive, then save a lower-definition version of it on the laptop's drive for editing and promoting. That way, you've still got the HD original for later use and/or posterity.

Even so, I think you'll be catching up with any lost sleep/shopping/socialising/whatever, while the laptop's working away on the videos.


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## anologman

Thanks, WereBo, but what makes you say it seems I`ll get more flexibility from my laptop than my Mac, I dont quite follow you there.

I`ve downloaded freeware, "Any Video Convereter" and converted footage to mp4, it now runs properly but occasionally grinds to a halt as something grabs some CPU, even though I`ve shut everything down, web connections, anti virus etc. I think its time I did a re-format on my computer, it has been a long time.

My internal Hdrive has enough space, so that`s not an issue here, but my processor is 1.73 GHz and its not dual core, so I`m up the creek, I fear, as far as veiwing HD content. My Mac mini is dual core 1.8something GHz processor and would have hoped to be able to view HD via that, but I`m not even sure that will handle it.

Thanks, Martin:grin:


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## zuluclayman

Your idea of keeping an archive quality copy and then working on a transcoded copy has merit - when and if you upgrade your system you will still have a top quality copy to work with (your archived one) and in the meantime you can play with the transcoded one.
I would still advise shooting in the best available settings because, as you may already know, every time you re-encode it you will lose a little bit of quality

so if your workflow was:
shoot high quality
transcode to edit on your comp - first re-encode
export from editing software - second re-encode
upload resulting file to video host site (Youtube, Vimeo etc) - third re-encode (they use their own re-encoding for web distribution)

You can see that you have 3 re-encodes there and this will affect the quality so shoot high in the first place :grin:

If you shoot with lower quality settings you can never "up" the quality in post - similar with stills, you can't make lo-res images look like hi-res.

If you want to browse some good threads and info about using DSLR's for video these two sites offer good info:

Vimeo - a great hosting site, very much upmarket from Youtube, with great forums for both technical and general questions. Has channels just devoted to video examples from specific cameras etc. - worth a look

DVXuser - online forum with whole sections devoted to Canon gear and DSLR's in particular

hope this helps - make sure you come back and link us to some of your videos too - mine can be found here


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## WereBo

anologman said:


> Thanks, WereBo, but what makes you say it seems I`ll get more flexibility from my laptop than my Mac, I dont quite follow you there.
> 
> I`ve downloaded freeware, "Any Video Convereter" and converted footage to mp4, it now runs properly but occasionally grinds to a halt as something grabs some CPU, even though I`ve shut everything down, web connections, anti virus etc. I think its time I did a re-format on my computer, it has been a long time.
> 
> My internal Hdrive has enough space, so that`s not an issue here, but my processor is 1.73 GHz and its not dual core, so I`m up the creek, I fear, as far as veiwing HD content. My Mac mini is dual core 1.8something GHz processor and would have hoped to be able to view HD via that, but I`m not even sure that will handle it.
> 
> Thanks, Martin:grin:


Sorry Martin, I mis-read your post - I thought the Mac was locking the video into 'iMovie' format, or a lot slower at some processes (I haven't really played with video much, so I'm also learning :wink.

If you've shut everything down that you're not using and it still hangs temporarily, it's very likely that it's Windows that's grabbing the PC for some background work - Being just a single core, it freezes or drastically slows everything else until finished.


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## grimx133

Video is quite cpu dependent, any single core will struggle with HD content. Most, not all, dual cores will handle it, and quads are a lot faster than duals. It's not so much to do with the video card.


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## Jay_JWLH

Gaming, videos, and other server work are some if not most of the highest demands for processing power out there. Just go have a look at the high end Apple computers, and you will see how they are dedicated for people who work with image and video editing. Things like RAID for quick data access, RAM to keep it all going, and even more than one processor (up to 12 cores in total as I just checked on the Mac Pro). Not that you need anything that extreme, but 2.8GHz dual or quad core would have been more fitting, especially if the video editing program made full use of all those cores.

Going back on track... youtube will offer you the ability to host the HD video, but on their end I believe they will re-encode the video to make it more bandwidth and data storage friendly, so always keep the original video if you want to keep all the quality.

I see no reason to shoot video and pictures at a lower quality. But the best reason to do that would be to increase the frame rate if it is a benefit of the camera. My camera for example will shoot at 60FPS at HD quality, but at 30FPS will record at Full HD instead. Although not Full HD, I find the double frame rate much more worth it.

Like already mentioned, get the files stored, have your best computer reduce the video bitrate/dimensions to something more manageable and stored as a second file, and work on them from there.

How about you just go to a internet cafe, and see if they have a good enough computer to do it there. Or just get a better computer I suppose.


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