Making movies with Sony Handycam DCR-SX30, Ubuntu Linux and Kino

The Sony Handycam DCR-SX30 is a digital video recorder (DVR), that stores video clips in the MPEG program stream (PS, MPEG-PS) container format, that multiplexes one digital video channel and two digital audio channels. The video channel is MPEG-2 at a 16:9 wide screen frame resolution (dimension) of 720 x 576 pixels at a rate of 25 frames per second (fps). The digital audio channels is Dolby Digital (AC-3) at a sample rate of 48 kHz and 256 kbps. The DVR can record in three different qualities. These are named HQ, SP and LP. However, these all use the same aspect, resolution, frame rates and so on.

PS is used on stable media, such as a memory stick or a digital video disc (DVD). The related MPEG transport stream (TS, MPEG-TS) is used in unstable media, such as transmitting over the internet.

In this example, we will go through the proces of making movies from the video clips.

We turn the DVR on and attach the USB cable to the DVR and the computer. On the DVR, we select access to internal or external memory (memory stick) as necessary. The operating system Ubuntu presents the MPEG-PS video clips, which we transfer to a local directory. It is not recommended to edit video clips, that is stored on a network file system. This might result in problems – and the operating system behind the network file system might even backup the huge amounts of temporary files.

In our example, the video editing program Kino is not installed yet. We install it from Applications and Ubuntu Software Center.

We are now ready to edit our video clips from the DVR. However, we do not run Kino from Applications, Sound & Video and Kino. Instead, we right click the first MPEG-PS video clip and open it with Kino.

This is important because Kino reads aspect settings from the first frame. If no frame is available at run time, then it defaults to wrong aspect settings, that will result in black borders and wrong aspect settings. This is a bug, that has never been fixed. Also, we go to Edit, Preferences and look under Default. We confirm, that the aspect ratio is correct. If not, we change correct it and close Kino. This setting is only read on start. This seems to be another bug.

Kino offers to import and convert our video clip into raw digital video (DV, DV-DIF) format, which is used in video editing. The resolution and the frame rate of the video channel remains the same. The sample rate of the audio channels remains the same. We drag the MPEG-PS video clips into Kino.

We are now ready to edit the video clips. We go to Edit. The purpose of this step is to end up with a series of scenes. Use the drag, cut, copy, paste, split, join and timeline tools. Keep it as simple and as short as possible. Save the project at this point.

We can now add special effects as necessary. This is done in FX. There are two types of effects. One is scene effects. One is transition effects. The scene effects are applied (rendered) on one scene at a time. If transitions effects is needed, such as cross fading, then render these.

If titles are needed, then prepare a scene of reading time length and render these. We can recommend the following themes.

Theme  Font               Opa  Colour  O  Opa  Colour  Align   Fa
Pinky  Market Regular 56  200  F52AF5  1  202  451342  Center  25

If audio dubbing or mixing is needed, such as adding background music, then render these. If other video or audio filters are needed, then render these.

Kino is now ready to export the final movie. Save.

Now, we are almost done. We will now want to export our series of scenes into the final movie. This is done in Export. We select every 1 frame of all.

There are different movie formats available. You should choose the movie format, that suits your purpose. If your final movie is to be uploaded to YouTube or Facebook, you might want to choose Flash. This format is also a good choice for MPEG1 video clips with bad frame rates and aspect settings.

In our example, we choose the MPEG1 format. We open the MPEG tab. Set File to the filename of the final movie.

An example of a valid filename is “mpeg1″ or “flash-broadband”. Do not include a complex path, the home hyphen or a file type suffix in order to avoid weird errors, such as “Error writing to KINO/MJPEG audio – aborting”.

We set the File Format to Generic MPEG1. This format can be viewed by most users and does not require the DivX software. We click Export and Kino now writes the audio track (MP2), write the video track (MPV) and join (multiplex) them (MPG or MPEG). The multiplexer is MJPEG. The final movie is stored in the user home.

The following are other acceptable test results of a scene with a duration of 6,5 sec.

Encoding                    Time   MB  Pixels  fps   kHz kbps
Generic MPEG1               0:54  1,1  720x576  25  48,0  224
Generic MPEG2               0:29  2,6  720x576  25  48,0  224
Flash / Broadband           1:52  0,7  384x288  25  44,1   NA
DivX Single / Broadband     0:56  0,5  512x288  25  32,0   64
DivX Single / Medium        0:54  0,5  512x288  25  44,1  128
DivX Single / Best          1:20  4,3  720x576  25  48,0  192

We copy files as necessary and delete the temporary files.