Captured HDR-HC3 MiniDV 1080i .m2t Questions

Hi - This is my first post so a quick introduction...I have only been trying to learn about video for a couple of weeks and most of that has come from watching YouTube vids about DaVinci Resolve 14.

I have captured what I think is (and should be) 1080i video from a 10 year old Sony HDR-HC3 which uses MinDV tapes.

To do so I used a 1394 Firewire connection and the program HDVSplit.0.77StaticBeta.

My files are in .m2t format which VLC Media will play but Resolve 14 does not seem to recognize.

Since I need to convert the .m2t into something else anyway, which format should I be aiming for? And which program(s) are worth trying to do so?

Anything I create should be optimized for YouTube so I expect that the answer is .mp4 and I have already tried to install Handbrake and I get errors and crashes. But that might have been a 64-bit version. And even though I'm on a 64-bit Win 10 system, I have found many 32-bit programs to be more stable for me. I need to go back to that and try to figure it out again.

But first I wanted to find out if I am in fact capturing what I should from the HDR-HC3 which are .m2t files with the following specs:

VIDEO

Frame Width 1440
Frame Height 1080

Note: This is 4:3 ratio. I have checked an re-checked my camera settings, and confirmed that the program I'm using should capture 16:9, and these files should in fact be viewed at 16:9. But I'm wondering if this capture ratio has to do with the fact that these are 1080i vids rather than 1080p. Also, when viewed with VLC at 16:9, they look right.

Data Rate 25000
Total Bitrate 25384
Frame Rate 29.97 frames/second

AUDIO

Bit Rate 384 kbps
Channels 2 (Stereo)
Audio Sample Rate 48.000

Is this what I should be expecting to capture?

Thanks and sorry for the long post. I'm kind of stuck without understanding better several related topics.

Regards - Ted (aka...BreckSnowPro on YouTube)

Just a quick follow-up to my own post above...The more I look into this, the more I have come to believe that the 1440x1080 files I am capturing are probably what I should expect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV#Specifications

So now the question becomes what to do with these files which should actually be viewed at 16:9?

How do I best convert these 1440x1080 files into something usable in DaVinci Resolve 14 such that I can edit, color correct / grade, and render with it, and end up with 16:9 files to share with others?

Thanks again! - Ted.

And once again, I'm figuring it out as I go. VLC will convert .m2t to .mp4 and Resolve will "stretch frame to all corners".

So now I am wondering if there might be a better way to do it, both in terms of the quality of the final work and speed in terms of possibly doing batches of files for either or both of the steps I'm now using VLC and Resolve for. I will likely have 100s of files to do this with.

Note that the HDR-HC3 records in the HDV 1440x1080i format and ideally should be captured to computer via a FireWire (IEEE1394) connection. The MTS (or alternatively M2TS) files are heavily compressed and not the ideal format into which to capture HDV as they need to be transcoded first, a process that can only degrade the data further.

See this document for guidance:

http://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/D ... c_List.pdf

Note that the HDR-HC3 records in the HDV 1440x1080i format and ideally should be captured to computer via a FireWire (IEEE1394) connection. The MTS (or alternatively M2TS) files are heavily compressed and not the ideal format into which to capture HDV as they need to be transcoded first, a process that can only degrade the data further.

Colin, that is absolutely wrong. Capturing through FireWire by HDVSplit is the correct way on Windows and results in .m2t stream files which are bit-identical to the files on tape. It is just a container - no re-compression is done.

And once again, I'm figuring it out as I go. VLC will convert .m2t to .mp4 and Resolve will "stretch frame to all corners".

So now I am wondering if there might be a better way to do it, both in terms of the quality of the final work and speed in terms of possibly doing batches of files for either or both of the steps I'm now using VLC and Resolve for. I will likely have 100s of files to do this with.

You could use VirtualDub Filter Mod:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/vdfiltermod/

It can read your m2t files and convert them into ProRes MOV.
You might also use the built-in deinterlace filter to create 50fps progressive clips and then export as ProRes. The tool supports batch processing.
From there it is easy to work with Resolve.

Colin, that is absolutely wrong. Capturing through FireWire by HDVSplit is the correct way on Windows and results in .m2t stream files which are bit-identical to the files on tape. It is just a container - no re-compression is done.

Yes, I realise it's a container. I'm handling them every day. The point I was trying to make (unsuccessfully, it seems) is that the end result needs to be in a format that Resolve can use, and that will require transcoding.

However, as I don't use Windows for any video-based operations I don't know HDVSplit at all.

Ah ok, I read it like you meant that the HDV data gets re-compressed when capturing into m2t.
HDV itself is heavily compressed and converting it to a mastering codec like ProRes or Cineform won't degrade the quality anymore.

Ah ok, I read it like you meant that the HDV data gets re-compressed when capturing into m2t.
HDV itself is heavily compressed and converting it to a mastering codec like ProRes or Cineform won't degrade the quality anymore.

You're right, of course. My response was rather clumsy!

FWIW I use a (now-discontinued) Canopus ADVC-1000 to convert in real time the FireWire output to SDI, complete with RS-422 transport control, which is then fed to the appropriate Blackmagic capture/conversion device in order to create ProRes422 or 10-bit Uncompressed QT files.