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A 2021 General Fanediting Best Practices Guide for HD and UHD

krausfadr

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No I have never used Vegas. On other NLE's (like Premiere) that problem typically wouldn't rear it's ugly head until the project starting getting complex with a lot of cuts.
 

tizzeres

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A final question on the audio side of things. You recommend converting to wave - but, is this only for files not already accepted by the NLE? To cut to the chase, is there any reason to not drag my 5.1 ac3 audio into my NLE and work with that - rather than converting it to wavs as I would an audio that my NLE does not accept?
 

DigModiFicaTion

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If you are using Vegas, ac3 is not compatible. Your best options are to create individual waves files and then map them to their correct surround locations or create a high quality aac 5.1 file (you can do this and have it automatically muxed using avidemux). aac is not lossless, so you have to choose convenience or lossless for audio.
 

tizzeres

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I'm using premiere, which is allowing me to add ac3 audio directly in to be edited. However, is this advised, or is it instead recommended to transcode the ac3 into waves files, anyway? Thanks for your help :)
 

krausfadr

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in general it’s better to work with uncompressed audio formats if applying effects. But using the DD in Premiere should work ok too if that’s what you want to do. If the disc also has DTS or DTS-MA then that is preferable to convert to WAV since it is higher quality than DD.
 

tizzeres

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It's only got DD, but I think I'll transcode to wave, anyway. Thank you
 

tizzeres

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With the program Hybrid, is there any reason not to use film scan 3+, rather than film scan 2?
Also, thank you so much for this guide - it has helped me greatly - as you can tell. Are there any other guides as comprehensive as this one?
 
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krausfadr

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Going above film scan 2 might be considered overkill where the drawback (extremely high filesize) outweighs the reward (negligible increase in perceived quality).
 

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I tried to convert mkv to mov. I keep getting 04_muxing Crashed creating mov file with ffmpeg
 

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Different software is available to rip discs and to edit video. There is no one “right” approach. This guide provides my preferred methods for maintaining high quality and good compatibility of the final product. It uses makemkv for the rip because it’s free, lossless, and offers support for downgrading UHD drives. MVK format also has robust supporting software (mkvtoolnix) with an easy to use graphical user interface, making it rather straightforward to perform tasks like adding chapters, cover art, or looking up file informaion needed for proper HDR conversion to SDR.

This guide also suggests using the Non Linear Editor (NLE), Davinci Resolve, for its unparalleled color correction capabilities. But of course other good choices are Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut. I’ve used both of these in my 1080p edits as well. Those are the three main NLE’s used professionally today. Many experienced faneditors still use Sony Vegas which looks dated but is fully functional.

At a high level, here is the process:

Blu-Ray/UHD Disc > MKV rip > Cineform (or Prores) import to NLE > Cineform (or Prores) export from NLE > MKV Re-encode

Of the above 4 conversion steps, the first is lossless, the next 2 are near lossless, and the final step is lossy. IMPORTANT: If you think you are gaining quality by directly editing a direct blu-ray rip, you aren’t. Because NLE’s do a bad job of exporting your final product to compressed codecs like H264 and HEVC. Using a compressed codec throughout the entire process, e.g., H264, HEVC, will result at best in only fair quality.

For fanedits made from a UHD HDR source, only use Resolve (if you will be doing color correction). It is the only NLE that handles HDR to SDR conversion well. Note that UHD and HDR are not the same thing. UHD relates to the size and resolution while HDR relates to the color and luminosity. If you try and process HDR content as SDR in Premiere, for example, there is a good chance the result will look bad to fair. Resolve (the paid version) on the other hand, can automatically process HDR footage using DolbyVision to convert it to SDR.

Note: To rip from a UHD disc, a downgrade is first required for the firmware on the drive. More information is available on the forums at makemkv.com regarding suitable drives for UHD and how to downgrade them. There you can also find links to purchase already downgraded drives.

STEPS:

1. Use Makemkv to rip the Blu-ray or UHD disc. The result will be a MKV file usually between 30-70 GB.

Keep the highest quality audio when selecting the audio for the rip. This, for example, could be DTS-HD 7.1 surround. Avoid standard DTS or standard Dolby Digital unless this is your only option.

If the movie has subtitles during foreign language parts, keep those intact.

It’s also nice to keep the general subtitles in your edit as a lot of people like having them available. This adds time to the editing process, though, since every point you slice your video you have to slice the subtitle as well.

2. Use Hybrid to convert the MKV to Prores (minimum of Prores 422 format, 4444 is better) or Cineform (Film Scan 2). I personally recommend Cineform Film Scan 2 (same perceived quality as Prores 4444 at much smaller file size). I go into even more detail of why Cineform is preferred later on in this guide. Process only the video for this step without any audio. Expect this step to take around two hours for a standard movie, depending on your CPU speed.

3. Use dmMediaConverter to convert the mkv to a 5.1 channel audio file in WAV format. To do this: uncheck the Enabled box for the video stream. Uncheck the Copy box for the audio stream. Highlight the audio stream then select WAV as the codec and select 5.1 for the channels. When you save the filename be sure you add the .wav extension or the program won’t convert it correctly.

If the rip is 7.1 channels still be sure to down convert to 5.1 in this step.

If the resulting WAV file is greater than 4GB, reload the WAV into dmMediaConverter to then split it in half into two files. First, select the job type: Split. Resolve will not import a WAV properly if it is larger than 4GB.

4. Import the Cineform and WAV file or files into Resolve. Do not plan to import a compressed format (such as H264 or HEVC) into an NLE. The editing can become laggy and prone to various errors, including possible choppy video in the final product. All these problems can be easily avoided by using Cineform (or Prores).

If you are determined to edit directly in a compressed format (NOT RECOMMENDED), do not reencode a rip to MP4. You can convert from MKV to MP4 without re-encoding. To ensure the MP4 will work correctly use only Avidemux. Per a tip from @robulon: The settings have an option called Optimize for Streaming that should be set to "Move Index to the beginning of the file" Failure to set this option (or if you use a different program) will likely result in intermittent choppiness of your edit because the MP4 has a weird variable framerate, and NLE’s don’t handle it well.

5. Work your magic and create a fanedit in Resolve. The edit should be done in 5.1 surround.

Once your edit is finished it will need to be exported. The final product will be an MP4 or MKV file using H264 or HEVC ( H265) codecs BUT DO NOT export to these formats from Resolve! This is because Resolve (and Premiere and Final Cut) ALL suck at encoding to compressed formats. If you export directly to H264 or HEVC you will have a release of mediocre quality, with artifacts in darker scenes as well as color banding.

6. From Resolve, export your final edited movie to a QuickTime container (MOV) using the Cineform codec set at best quality (Resolve no longer has Prores exports due to licensing issues). For a 2 hour movie in 4K, expect the resulting filesize to be around 300GB for Cineform. If you were to use DNxHR HQX you would have a file around 600 GB with slightly more “lossyness.” I personally recommend Cineform (Film Scan 2) as an intermediate codec because it provides virtually lossless visual quality at a lower filesize with its variable bitrate. DNxHR in my opinion is very bloated with its constant bitrate. The ‘best” Cineform quality setting in Resolve corresponds to the Cineform “Film Scan 2” setting with a lossyness of “minimal.”

See this chart for confirmation on my quality assertions about Cineform 10-bit Film Scan 2:
https://blog.frame.io/2017/02/13/compare-50-intermediate-codecs/

It is better to process only the video in this step (no audio) to avoid problems with the export process. But if you want you could process the audio into the QuickTime container as well (as an embedded 5.1 channel WAV).

7. After the QuickTime video exports, then export your audio in a separate 5.1 channel WAV file if you didn’t include it in the QuickTime container.

This huge file or files will be your master video and audio files to be re-encoded.

8. Import your master files into Staxrip for the final conversion to MP4 or MKV. Avoid Handbrake if possible. Staxrip uses a full 10-bit pipeline while Handbrake always reverts to 8-bit in the process. However, it is critical to set up a debanding filter in Staxrip to get the encode to look good. Otherwise you will have a clear 10-bit picture with very clear and awful banding artifacts.

I suggest using the following x265 parameters in Staxrip:

In the x265 options:

Under basic choose a quality between 20 to 22. 22 should work for 4K encodes, and 20 for 1080p encodes. Be sure the Depth is set at 10-bit.

Under Rate Control, change the AQ Mode to “AQ Auto-variance with bias to dark scenes”

Under Loop Filter, change the Deblocking strength and threshold to -1 and -1. Also uncheck the box for Sample Adaptive Offset. SAO is the enemy of quality.

Under VS filters, go to Add > Restoration > RCR > ColorBanding. Then select f3kdb.

Select edit on audio settings, then change the codec to AAC, uncheck the Normalize box, and change the Quality to 1.00. This will result in perceptually lossless, variable bitrate audio with a 5.1 channel average audio bitrate around 750kbps. This audio should work well in home theatre systems, but be sure to keep your original project audio files or at the very least keep your master audio file if you plan on making additional changes to your edit in the future.

Alternatively, for super HQ audio use the FLAC codec instead of AAC (5.1 channel). This would be the true equivalent of DTS-HD at a much smaller filesize.

If Staxrip is too difficult to set up and use and you like the ease of Handbrake, it will still create a nice looking encode, it just won’t be “true” 10-bit.

Hope this guide was helpful.
Thank you this is very helpful.

I use MakeMKV to rip my Blu Rays but then HANDBRAKE to convert to MP4 to get into Davinci Resolve 16. Then rendering as an MP4 and using Handbrake AGAIN to reduce the file size(usually from about 20G down to 5G).

My only question to you or any experienced fan editor is....

Should I go back and redo all my fan edits? Is that what you guys would do?
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Thank you this is very helpful.

I use MakeMKV to rip my Blu Rays but then HANDBRAKE to convert to MP4 to get into Davinci Resolve 16. Then rendering as an MP4 and using Handbrake AGAIN to reduce the file size(usually from about 20G down to 5G).

My only question to you or any experienced fan editor is....

Should I go back and redo all my fan edits? Is that what you guys would do?
I'd recommend swapping out handbrake and use avidemux and you'll have a better source file as it isn't reencoding and degrading the source file.
 

PanteraSteel

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I'd recommend swapping out handbrake and use avidemux and you'll have a better source file as it isn't reencoding and degrading the source file.

ok cool, thank you. This whole thread is very helpful. I'll definitely download these programs and check back on this thread before I start a new edit. Now I just wish I checked here before I made my previous fan edits. Live and learn I guess.
 

Last Impressions

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So I converted my MKV to Prores 444 (.mov) in Hybrid and ended up with a 600GB file for a 2 hr film...which is fine. The file opens smoothly in Vegas 19 but the colour of the video is washed out and HDR is not applied. Have i missed a step in the conversion process?

EDIT: Just realised i didn't have the HDR10 switched on 🤷‍♂️...now lets try and do a test render🤞
 
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krausfadr

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In Resolve I’ve been importing MP4’s and having luck editing directly in HEVC. But the moment it gets laggy I’m ready to switch it out for Cineform.
 

Last Impressions

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n Resolve I’ve been importing MP4’s and having luck editing directly in HEVC. But the moment it gets laggy I’m ready to switch it out for Cineform.
I am going to try HEVC myself after my current 4K prores process but as you say in your initial post "HEVC is still compressed". Vegas 19 doesn't like Cineform that's why i opted for Prores

EDIT: Well i dropped the Prores file in my Vegas timeline- clicked the HDR10 settings and added REC709 colour space but its still laggy...should this be happening? I have an all singing and dancing rig - so am baffled at the lag.
 
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Last Impressions

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After a bit of playing around i manage to convert my 700GB ProRes file to a 10bit HEVC using Handbrake. I now need to mux my 4gb Audio WAV file to the HEVC video inside a container. TS Muxer doesn't support these files and i cant find an option in Handbrake to add Audio. Any ideas?
 

krausfadr

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Quick question, if this WAV is for editing in Vegas, why not just import the WAV separate from the video file?
 

Last Impressions

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@krausfadr . I did a separate audio only render of my edit in Vegas using w64 and converted the w64 to WAV in sound forge. Vegas & Windows don't allow renders above 2GB in WAV...So i had to convert to keep uncompressed surround sound audio. I could have gone the simple route as i have done in the past and rendered AAC or AC3 but i would like to keep the audio as uncompressed as possible.

So i have a HEVC 10BIT file and a separate WAV file that i want to MUX together....any suggestions?

Just to clarify : i am rendering the master file for distribution / playing. The edit is complete.
 
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krausfadr

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I'd just split the wav file in half then piece the halves back together in the NLE.
 

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I've decided to go with another full 6 hour render using the Voukoder Vegas plug in- for some reason the in built ProRes 444 render in Vegas is laggy and takes forever. I will render the Audio inside the .mov container rather than separately and then will put it through the Handbrake HEVC10bit pipeline.

On another a note : does anyone know of a DVD architect software that allows me to make Bluray discs / menus for HEVC /10 Bit / UHD discs (50GB) . I am old skool and like to have physical copies of my edits. ..or will i have to compress to .264 to achieve this.
 
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