Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: AVCHD now quite practical to edit  (Read 5399 times)

samirkharusi

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 196
    • http://www.geocities.com/samirkharusi/
AVCHD now quite practical to edit
« on: May 19, 2009, 12:16:00 pm »

Just a heads-up for all who have been waiting for easy editing of AVCHD, like myself. I finally had an opportunity to play with the latest Sony gizmo, the HDR-TG1 (and a geat toy it is too!). This is a pocketable full HD camcorder, even with surround sound mics built in! The mics actually do differentiate where the sound comes from, but this is not a review of the camcorder. My main interest was to see how convenient and practical it is to edit the AVCHD. The camcorder records onto Memory Sticks, so I left the clips on the Memory Stick Pro Duo and simply dragged them into the time line of Sony Vegas Platinum 8. First pleasant surprise - they play straightaway, no conversion required. Put in some transitions, a title, etc and rendered the lot into high quality 1080 HD, mpeg2 @ around 25megabits per second. Worked like a charm. Rendering time was only 20% longer than the real time of the video. One minute takes 1.2minutes to render on my Quad PC. This compares to a minute/minute for rendering HDV from tapes. Final file size is about 3x the AVCHD clips total, i.e. 100 megabytes on the Memory Stick ends up at about 300 megabytes in the final version.

In brief, if you have been thinking of purchasing an AVCHD camcorder but was held back by fear of endless waits for conversions, no need to dilly dally any more. At least the Sony AVCHD (no idea about Canon, etc) edits very well in Sony Vegas Platinum 8, presumably also 9 and Pro versions.
Logged
Bored? Peruse my website: [url=http://ww

tgipson

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 49
    • http://www.liminalmoments.net/
AVCHD now quite practical to edit
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2009, 09:36:07 am »

I use Canon camcorders (XH-A1, hv 20, hv 30) and just started using the HG20 (avchd format). I also have a pretty powerful PC (quad core oc'ed to 3.2 gHz, 8GB RAM oc'd, 64bit OS, Premiere Pro 64bit) and native playback is still very choppy. So I convert the avchd file to .avi and then edit. It's not too bad as I can convert formats while editing or capturing my other tapes. However it still takes about 4 hours for conversion of 1 hour of "footage" from the avchd format to avi using either Adobe Media Converter or TMPGe.

The image quality is pretty good, but the editing headaches still have me reserved on its use for more serious video work. At least with Premiere so far, HDV editing is the easiest and fastest.

I mostly shoot live-performance events, (eg lectures, music and dance performances, wedding, and some interviews) so my AVCHD camcorder is set up as a fixed position secondary camera with the close-up work on the XH-A1.
Logged

dfarkas

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 123
    • http://www.leicastoremiami.com
AVCHD now quite practical to edit
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2009, 12:25:07 pm »

Quote from: tgipson
I use Canon camcorders (XH-A1, hv 20, hv 30) and just started using the HG20 (avchd format). I also have a pretty powerful PC (quad core oc'ed to 3.2 gHz, 8GB RAM oc'd, 64bit OS, Premiere Pro 64bit) and native playback is still very choppy. So I convert the avchd file to .avi and then edit. It's not too bad as I can convert formats while editing or capturing my other tapes. However it still takes about 4 hours for conversion of 1 hour of "footage" from the avchd format to avi using either Adobe Media Converter or TMPGe.

The image quality is pretty good, but the editing headaches still have me reserved on its use for more serious video work. At least with Premiere so far, HDV editing is the easiest and fastest.

I mostly shoot live-performance events, (eg lectures, music and dance performances, wedding, and some interviews) so my AVCHD camcorder is set up as a fixed position secondary camera with the close-up work on the XH-A1.

What video card do you use? CS4 Premier Pro takes advantage of Nvidia's CUDA acceleration. So, the more powerful video cards should help with HD playback.

David
Logged
David Farkas
Leica Store Miami
www.leicastoremiami.com

Check out Red Dot Forum for Leica news, reviews, blogs and discussion

jaginthedu

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2
AVCHD now quite practical to edit
« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2009, 11:33:18 am »

Quote from: samirkharusi
Just a heads-up for all who have been waiting for easy editing of AVCHD, like myself. I finally had an opportunity to play with the latest Sony gizmo, the HDR-TG1 (and a geat toy it is too!). This is a pocketable full HD camcorder, even with surround sound mics built in! The mics actually do differentiate where the sound comes from, but this is not a review of the camcorder. My main interest was to see how convenient and practical it is to edit the AVCHD. The camcorder records onto Memory Sticks, so I left the clips on the Memory Stick Pro Duo and simply dragged them into the time line of Sony Vegas Platinum 8. First pleasant surprise - they play straightaway, no conversion required. Put in some transitions, a title, etc and rendered the lot into high quality 1080 HD, mpeg2 @ around 25megabits per second. Worked like a charm. Rendering time was only 20% longer than the real time of the video. One minute takes 1.2minutes to render on my Quad PC. This compares to a minute/minute for rendering HDV from tapes. Final file size is about 3x the AVCHD clips total, i.e. 100 megabytes on the Memory Stick ends up at about 300 megabytes in the final version.

In brief, if you have been thinking of purchasing an AVCHD camcorder but was held back by fear of endless waits for conversions, no need to dilly dally any more. At least the Sony AVCHD (no idea about Canon, etc) edits very well in Sony Vegas Platinum 8, presumably also 9 and Pro versions.


Ahh yes but does it work in  FCP for us mac users? I purchased the first generation Canon AVCHO HD 10 and only recently have I been able to edit  HD in FCP and have not even tried to shoot in AVCHO, anyone been sucessful with it? I'm running FCP 6.0.4

Also looking for tips on the best way to shoot video from a M17 helicopter, shakes like hell, while flying over the Himalayas with port windows open at 12,000 - 18,000 ft,  any help out there.
Logged

Dan Carter

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13
AVCHD now quite practical to edit
« Reply #4 on: August 02, 2009, 01:55:22 am »

I agree. Not sure where all the bad press comes from. Using Sony Picture Motion Browser and Sony Movie Studio Platinum 9 on a Duo Core Vista PC is trouble free for me. I own the latest version of Adobe Premier Elements but it is something of a dog with AVCHD files.

Quote from: samirkharusi
Just a heads-up for all who have been waiting for easy editing of AVCHD, like myself. I finally had an opportunity to play with the latest Sony gizmo, the HDR-TG1 (and a geat toy it is too!). This is a pocketable full HD camcorder, even with surround sound mics built in! The mics actually do differentiate where the sound comes from, but this is not a review of the camcorder. My main interest was to see how convenient and practical it is to edit the AVCHD. The camcorder records onto Memory Sticks, so I left the clips on the Memory Stick Pro Duo and simply dragged them into the time line of Sony Vegas Platinum 8. First pleasant surprise - they play straightaway, no conversion required. Put in some transitions, a title, etc and rendered the lot into high quality 1080 HD, mpeg2 @ around 25megabits per second. Worked like a charm. Rendering time was only 20% longer than the real time of the video. One minute takes 1.2minutes to render on my Quad PC. This compares to a minute/minute for rendering HDV from tapes. Final file size is about 3x the AVCHD clips total, i.e. 100 megabytes on the Memory Stick ends up at about 300 megabytes in the final version.

In brief, if you have been thinking of purchasing an AVCHD camcorder but was held back by fear of endless waits for conversions, no need to dilly dally any more. At least the Sony AVCHD (no idea about Canon, etc) edits very well in Sony Vegas Platinum 8, presumably also 9 and Pro versions.
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up