25 Replies Latest reply: Mar 28, 2011 6:20 AM by Michelmnr RSS

    Working with .MOD clips

    Michelmnr Community Member

      Before I go on I can see I'm asked if I want to use or delete the recovered version (of this content?) I'll do nothing if i can until I know what it means!   Now about .MOD - Since I could not see much listing about the topic I'd like to share my successful finding about it.  I have had my share of trouble with my HD clip and thank the forum for all the help I received to get me through and so I hope this will help others who have trouble with .mod files.  Yes after my trouble with HD I thought I'd be cruising with my friend footage in SD. You'd thought Adobe would have handled something like this the easy way - no "format not supported"! This is when I googled and eventually found the right answer. The trick is to "convert" these .mod clips into (I think mpeg2), That is to change the extension to .M2V (as you can see it's not a real conversion)  - This may seems simple for many as for me all I could see in the directory was name without extensions! Ah, you may say, you need to un-hide them. But what about the .MOI? I can see them and I don't think it is because I'm French (moi je suis vraiement Francais! ). Further more if you right click on one of these clip's name and choose "Rename" You still won't see the extension and if you add one, although you can't see it it's actually added to the invisible extension so you'll end up with xxxxx.mod.m2v although you'll see only xxxx.m2v! Luckily, I came across Turkov's Blog:(http://eturkov.blogspot.com/2008/05/working-with-mod-files-in-adobe.html) "Working with .mod files in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3" - (I use CS4)  Now I've given the site I won't explain in details how it's done. as you can check it for yourself. It is very well laid down with clear screen shots. but you must follow all the steps thoroughly. Back to the ext. name change - it is done through "cmd" command and needs a little juggling for those like me who used it once in a decade, but again it's clearly indicated.   The other and first thing a should have mentioned is to enable pp to accept .m2v you need to download a .dll file and put it to the adobe root directory. Again I was not too sure how to do it but went into the Adobe collection then Premiere CS? and there saw all those .dll so added to it (I can feel all the sneering, still I'm proud of myself!). as for the renaming I had little trial and error about entering the renaming command as it was not quite clear whether or not there were spaces in it. I found that:>space ren space *.mod space m2 v (> ren *mod *movEnter) was right for me! I also read somewhere that the renaming can be done through Adobe Bridge, but I have not used since CS2!  The cmd approach will rename easilly a whole folder.  Happy as Larry I imported the folder into PP and all was so good, I played a few clips with no problem.  Half way through my clips suddenly all went very wrong. Screen ghosted, PP not responding any more, non adobe stuff appearing in my source monitor - total stuff up.  Back to the instructions... Last step about conforming the clips, so eager I missed it! One needs to select all the new imported clips and open the "interpret the footage" I'm using PAL and used the only "wide screen" option available that is a little different than NTSC example But it must have been right! I also noticed that the "interpret footage" field was ghosted under "file" but worked when I right clicking within the project window.  There you are, 'hope it helps....After re editing this I hope I have not been to enthusiastic as I seem to have a lot of difficulty rendering my clips on the time line getting a lot of program freeze.

        • 1. Re: Working with .MOD clips
          Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

          Thanks for posting.

           

          That "Use Recovered, or Delete?" is caused by you getting logged-out, or doing something else, and not posting initially. That can be a useful option, when the forum is acting up (as it has been a lot). I have begun doing a Ctrl+A (Select All), then Ctrl+C (Copy), before I even try to post, as there are many problems right now, and posting has become a chore. I hate loosing all of a long reply, just because the servers are shut down, or I get logged-out every few seconds.

           

          Again, thanks for the post.

           

          Hunt

          • 2. Re: Working with .MOD clips
            Michelmnr Community Member

            Thank you for that Bill, so I ignored it and things seem to be ok in this regards... Now I'll have to learn to put a blank line in my posts as I can see you have on yours. Simply to use Return/ Enter, even several times, does not seem to work. As for my post, may be I should have completed the whole project before sending it. I've got the beginning and the end of my time line rendered. I tried several part of my time line to see if there would be any difference). Finally I thought may be I didn't wait long enough after the freeze so let it on for the rest of the night but without any joy - still frozen. (at this stage the application is still running acc. to the task manager. It's only when I want to stop the frozen rendering that PP ceases to respond). So my post now turns into a question! why is this happening? It certainly will make my project hard to get through as this is only one 20th!  I

            • 3. Re: Working with .MOD clips
              Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

              As for the Hard Returns, that might be a function of one's browser.

               

              Going back to when I used IE7, and did my wordprocessing in WordPerfect, Word, or WordPad, I had to add 3 HRT's to get the clear line.

               

              Now, and with Chrome, the standard 2 HRT's in those programs will give me the clean empty line, as it should be.

               

              Until a few weeks ago, I also had Spell-Checking in Chrome, but with some change, I lost that. Now, it's back to WordPerfect, but at least I do not have to remember that for the Adobe forum, I have to add 3 HRT's, so all is not lost...

               

              Hunt

              • 4. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                Colin-B Community Member

                Remember there's also SDCOPY which was designed for this. It does the copying and renaming and also fixes the widescreen flags within the video stream so that it really is widescreen - so there should be no need to interpret footage as widescreen.

                • 5. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                  Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

                  Colin-B,

                   

                  Thanks for that. As I have never had to work with MOD files, I was totally unaware of SDCopy. Is that a utility for processing the MOD files?

                   

                  If you have a moment, can you diagram a workflow with it, and I will add it to the MOD & TOD Files article, to help others.

                   

                  Appreciated,

                   

                  Hunt

                  • 6. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                    Michelmnr Community Member

                    Thank Guys for all this, I have no idea of what is SDCopy may be will need to have a look at it. I'm using Chrome so will hit 3 returns to create a space!
                       I also mentioned earlier that I could not find any listing here for this topic but since found "What is the best way to handle .mod files in Premiere CS4", with much contribution and interesting material. One needs to widen question format to get result!   I just tackled the next folder of such clips with bizarre  behaviour. I first went through the cmd rename routine then imported in PP cs4 with unpleasant result as the system was quite instable. The size of this folder was 1.79 gb (it also contained .xmp file, not imported but puzzling, as I don't know where they come from since I sorted the original folder, not containing such files, and imported only .mod in the new folder within to rename!) I then deleted the lot and decided to import one clip at the time, then interpret the footage and put it on the time line, reduce the size to fit safe area and hit Enter to render. So far it went well so I increased the number of clips import gradually and up to 500 meg. still no problem. However my last import, about 300meg. freezed about on the first quarter. I looked at the content and found one file about 100mg that seemed to be at the problem spot. I removed it and tried to render the remaining, had no more problem! That clip was actually one where my friend forgot to switch the camera off (lucky for him he was wearing good looking shoes!) And lucky for me since I did not need it.
                       Some of the reading I have done seems to imply that renaming is not the best way to go about and it looks like I should remove the manufacture mpeg 2 "envelope" through a proper file conversion. What I have got now is 2 .AVI  file that don't look too bad and need to edit as the only edit i have done is bring the clips to the safe screen size in the program monitor. (it's a good fit in the source monitor but far to large in the program monitor!?). I can't really tell if I have lost a lot of quality.  I still wonder why 90% of these clips are ok but some give me such trouble.

                    • 7. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                      Michelmnr Community Member

                      No triple "enter" did not work but  "smaller than" and "greater than" symbols with BR in between did

                       

                      It did when I re-edited the post

                       

                      let see now if it works if i use these symbols in original posting!
                      yes it did! :)

                      • 8. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                        Colin-B Community Member

                        Conversion or transcoding should not be necessary. MOD files are not some strange format or obscure variant. They are just fixed-length-packet MPEG-2 Program Stream files - there doesn't seem to be anything special about them except that they are given a different file name extension.

                         

                        MOD files are ALREADY mpeg-2 files.

                         

                        Re SDCOPY, there are one or 2 demos on youtube, such as this one

                         

                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0o-4Bs9GDI

                         

                        It also has 2 pages of help text built into the executable.

                         

                        All SDcopy does is perform a file copy while changing the embedded widescreen flag values, and giving the dest file a different name. The rest of the file contents and structure are UNCHANGED.

                         

                        It can also change the source files directly instead of producing a separate output file. It can do this because it is not making any fundamental changes to the file contents or structure - just changing the occasional bit value.

                         

                        There is a slight complication which may cause confusion - the Microsoft MPEG-2 decoder seems to be doing some extra logic and decides that the file is widescreen even when the flag is set to 4x3. So if you are using any software which uses the Microsoft decoder it might display/decode as widescreen while other decoders would display it as 4x3 (as per the widescreen flag setting).

                        • 9. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                          Michelmnr Community Member

                          Thank you Colin, I thought "the so called envelop" played an important role, but all this is a little beyond me!


                          I had a look at the youtube demo, the audio was quite good but the screen shots difficult to make out, anyway I hunted the pgr that seems to have a lot of broken or unavailable links, but in the end found it in a forum.
                          http://members.aon.at/sektionschef/SDcopyV1.999851dbeta.zip
                          and installed it. I was overjoyed when I sourced one of my directory and imported the output to premiere, imported all the clips on the timeline, reduced them to the safe area and rendered the lot without a glinch! Alas when I redone the first folder that gave me so much trouble, it gave me the same trouble again! But SD copy is definitely a big improvement in renaming comparing to DOS command :)
                          I think I would feel safer to output in a different folder just in case! Is there any way to get the source monitor in Premiere to output it's content automatically in the safe area? Although it's not really hard to do it manually.
                          • 10. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                            Ann Bens CommunityMVP

                            Save area is not for setting the boundery of your video.

                            Its a means of letting you know that everything beyond the safe area may not show on every tv. The black boundery will certainly show on a pc.

                            My suggestion to you is make your video always 'full screen'.

                            And when you are filming make sure your subject is not on the edge of the screen.

                             

                            action safe.png

                            • 11. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                              Michelmnr Community Member

                              thank you Ann, I know this departs from .mod topic but it was good to remind me the purpose of safe area, I actually knew but reduced to Title Safe which I realise is a little of waste as it seems that "action safe" should also be ok for most tv. I just thought I was super safe!


                              When you say "make your video on full screen" do you mean whilst filming? Else I just use PP program setting on PAL DV, this days with wide screen 48kHz with action safe 10 and title safe 20
                              • 12. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                Ann Bens CommunityMVP

                                By full screen i mean as show in the example, dont make your video fit the safe area but the whole screen.

                                The safe areas are just an aid to set titles and stuff.

                                Set your video like into the frame.

                                 

                                safe area 1.png

                                And not like this unless you have a special reason.

                                 

                                safe area 2.png

                                • 13. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                  Michelmnr Community Member

                                  Thank you again Ann, so I'll have to go one notch more up! that is after realising I should have used the Action safe area instead of Tittle Safe area, just like you  said I should fill the whole frame!   I found this a little confusing because I thought that was the whole point to use those safe areas, that they show either the titles or the movies in they shot size on most TV. For you to give me this advice you must have good reasons, I'll give it a go


                                  Now I brought a new directory of the same holiday from my mate and this time it shows all in 4:3! As far as I know he does not play with the settings! Amazing journey!
                                  • 14. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                    Ann Bens CommunityMVP

                                    Check the Interprete footage and set it to widescreen.

                                    • 15. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                      Michelmnr Community Member

                                      I must have forgotten to do it, anyway redid it with sd copy - ok now! Ann, I'm still curious to know as to why full screen is a better option. I this because most tv now a day will display the full screen? Thanks again

                                      • 16. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                        Ann Bens CommunityMVP

                                        That is the proper way to make your movie, regardless of the overscan of your tv set.

                                        • 17. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                          Michelmnr Community Member

                                          Thanks again for that :)

                                          • 18. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                            Michelmnr Community Member

                                            I also seem to noticed that after importing either .m2v or mpeg (with SD copy) that I renamed and then .m2v need footage interpreted and conformed to (for me) pal wide screen 16:9, people my clips seem to be squashed. I thought the interpret footage could keep the correct ratio. Do i miss some steps somewhere. Thanks to any one who can shed a little light on this. Perhaps I should not use wide screen if shot on 4:3?

                                            • 19. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                              Ann Bens CommunityMVP

                                              Depends on which media player you are using, some you have to set it to widescreen before playing.

                                              Burn your movie to a dvd-rw and play it on the tv and see how it looks.

                                              • 20. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                                Michelmnr Community Member

                                                Thank you, Ann will put some on a rewrite to try. I wonder if there is a rule on using video shot on 4:3 and exported in 16:9 format. so far what I read about it was more like trimming the top and bottom of the clip through so called conversion programs. But I realise something has to give to keep the ratio ok

                                                • 21. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                                  Michelmnr Community Member

                                                  I'm a little puzzled that several ways to convert those .mod files recommend to use wide screen setting as if it is a must. Yes I'm wondering why because my project definitely looks better for me if I don't! I'd though if it was not the case there would have been mentioned to do so according to the original footage ratio. I wonder if I can use those 10 .ppr to redo them in 4:3 (Standard instead of widescreen without starting from scratch , may be resizing the lot? Yes resizing works after un-ticking the "uniform scale" I set the width to 80.5 (I'm no Einstein and wonder if this is a 4:3 ratio, but it looks ok!) Yes I know some would probably think "that a little bit of common sense would not go astray either"!

                                                   

                                                  I also started another thread asking if any one has some idea why the clips that where taken when the camera was not intended to be working but was taking footage in whatever position or place it was, would not render on the time line and so cause problems until removed. But I did not get any reply yet. I called the the question:

                                                   

                                                  JVC clips not rendering when video camera has been left on accidentally, (in this forum),BR> After all this I guess it actually was part of this thread as it still is about working with .mod files!

                                                  • 22. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                                    Colin-B Community Member

                                                    Futher to this thread, I've just been doing some further digging into the MOD file format - especially the widescreen flag problem.

                                                     

                                                    I've posted the results in this article which hopefully explains the format, and how the widescreen problem has arisen. I'd welcome any comments.

                                                    • 23. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                                      Jeff Bellune CommunityMVP

                                                      Very well-written and informative, Colin.  I think the most relevant thing to Premiere Pro CSx is that while .MOD is not a supported file format, .MPG is.  So changing the file extension from .MOD to .MPG and then properly interpreting the footage after import should make those files usable in Pr.

                                                       

                                                      -Jeff

                                                      • 24. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                                        Colin-B Community Member

                                                        Thanks Jeff. Quite so.

                                                         

                                                        I had been meaning to look into this properly for a while. It was difficult to believe that all widescreen MOD cameras had such a bug/fault/whaterever-you-want-to call-it. I was pleased to find that there really wasn't one.

                                                        • 25. Re: Working with .MOD clips
                                                          Michelmnr Community Member

                                                          Thank you too, I'm not "Techy" enough to appreciate fully you're article but retained, that as it's been said many times now .mod are just Mpeg 2 and will be treated as such when the extension is changed. I tried both .mpg through SD Copy then .m2v extension (in my case I had to interpret the footage in 4:3 ) and now understand it can be an option to take wide screen or standard shot resulting in .mod files so the wide screen interpretation as to be in accordance to these facts. In retrospect  I think if one does not know, it would be a good idea to import just one clip after renaming and decide what aspect it is. I also should add that playing the .mod file on window media player 11 it was not showing a 16:9 ratio.   I was advised to create a dvd to this effect but from what I experienced in CS4 I think my project window already showed me what it was.


                                                          I hope I'm not being too pressing but i'm still curious about my question on bad footages not rendering properly on the time line. or should I deduct that no answers means no such experience encountered outside myself!