The general process now a days for video editing and deployment

[boagz57]

So its been quite a while since I thought about making an amv. I recently had an itch to create one and now I just want to see if I have the right idea with the general process from start to finish of amv creation.

For the videos themselves most of the anime I will be using will be modern anime contained in 720p/1080p mkv/mp4 files. I'm thinking this means I won't really need to use avspmod/avisynth scripts much since there shouldn't be much footage cleanup I would need to do. Moving on from there then the next step would be to recontainer mkv files I'm guessing. From one of the older posts (https://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides ... odecs.html) it mentioned converting your videos to a utvideo codec before editing. I think I can maybe perform this codec conversion in virtualdub? But I also read in the forums to just use the amvtool app and convert to mp4 x264 and then edit, though maybe I'm reaading it wrong. After I'm done editing my footage in my editing program should I just export it as an mp4 h.264 since I'm planning on posting to youtube?

[Zarxrax]

Yeah, for the most part it doesn't need to be too complex these days if you have good source footage. You mainly just want to make sure that what goes IN and OUT of your editing software is in an editing-friendly codec. UTvideo is one of those, but there are others that you might want to use depending on your editing software. For instance, I'm using Davinci Resolve, which doesn't accept UTvideo, but it works good with DnxHR. If you are on a Mac, most editing software would work well with Prores. Just make sure you have plenty of HDD space because the files get huge, especially at 1080p.
When you finish editing, don't export directly as an MP4. You still want to export in the same codec that you edited with (or any lossless option) and then convert that to MP4 using something that utilizes x264 (whatever comes in the amvtool should be fine).

[boagz57]

"For instance, I'm using Davinci Resolve, which doesn't accept UTvideo, but it works good with DnxHR."

Ha, funny you mention that because I literally just downloaded it yesterday to try it out (thinking of switching from my old sony vegas pro 12 setup). What program do you use to re-container to the DnxHR codec format? I didn't see it listed in virtualdub or amvtool. Also how do you like davinici resolve so far for amvs?

[Zarxrax]

I use ffmpeg (which is a commandline tool) to convert. Without getting into the details, I just do something like this:

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ffmpeg.exe -i "inputfile.mp4" -pix_fmt yuv420p -an -c:v dnxhd -profile:v dnxhr_hq "outputfile.mov"

I think DR works great for editing AMVs, but it does have a bit of a learning curve. Particularly if you want to do more complex things that involve the Fusion page. It is a combination of what started out as several different programs, so you end up usually having multiple different ways of doing things across different pages of the application, but you also see some inconsistencies in the interface between different pages as well.

I do particularly like the Cut page for quickly finding clips and doing a rough edit of a video. I find it easier to quickly throw some ideas down than in any other editor I have used.

[boagz57]

Awesome, thank you. I'll try and see if I can get ffmpeg to work for conversion.

[l33tmeatwad]

I will see about getting these formats added to AMVtool in the future, thanks for the tips Zarxrax.

[boagz57]

@ l33tmeatwad That would be awesome. I just tried getting it working yesterday and was going down the rabbit hole of trying to build ffmpeg with the right flags and having the right codecs installed and blah blah. Needless to say I haven't gotten it to work yet :/

[l33tmeatwad]

You could always snag a copy of ffmpeg here .

As for what the other posts about AMVtool and MP4, they were mentioning recontainering footage in MKV containers to MP4, aka copying, as most NLE software supports decoding x264/5 but not the MKV container. That is not the same as re-encoding or converting to another video format. Recontainering is appealing to some as they are able to use the original footage, so no large files, and recontainering takes hardly any time at all compared to converting. That said, stability & speed when using x264/5 in some software may vary. I'm not certain about davinci resolve, but most newer NLE software support decoding 10/12 bit x264/5 now so if your system cooperates with it that could be an option, although I'd go by this list of compatible graphics cards with Premiere to get an idea if your system would be stable when using this method. The community at large has traditionally not recommended this method as lossless codecs deliver reliable performance when editing and NLE software often had stability & compatibility issues with x264/5, however the rise of AVC & HVEC in cameras forced the industry to provide better support so it has become a viable option for those with better hardware.

[Zarxrax]

x264/MP4 does technically work in resolve, but it was painfully slow to edit at 1080p when I tried it, but then again I have a very weak computer.

[boagz57]

@l33tmeatwad awesome, thanks man, I got it to work. Definitely smoother playback in davinci, really cool. Though I forgot how big these files can get uncompressed lol. I'm gonna need to get myself a larger drive (though not sure if I want to just dump hdd's at this point and just get larger ssd, though not sure how necessary it is. Maybe more reliable and obviously faster but all I'll be doing is storing this files so who knows).