1. Cam vs. DSLR - 2. AVCHD vs. MP4 (all in VP10e)

Soniclight wrote on 1/16/2016, 2:42 PM

As some of you know, all I have is a consumer dinosaur -- a Canon HV30 (MiniDV tape - yup, that ancient stuff). But even so, due to my particular visual style with the help of Vegas, I can pull of some decent results. As some also know, I live on limited Social Security disability income so money is tight, but it's time for me to upgrade.

One main reason is that 1080 60i can be a pain in the derriere due to jaggies. Most camcorders, even low to mid range DSLRs do 1080 60p now. Yes, I know Hero cams and their Sony, etc. clones are out there, but I do far lower light, often interior shots (i.e. low light quality is important) so probably not the best fit. Slo-mo on those cameras are usually also only 720p (at 120 fps).

Question 1: Cam vs. DSLR

DSLRs have come a long way even in the consumer class. I know there are limitations in terms of how long one can take a 1080p video, i.e. 12 minutes. That doesn't bother me. But do the video capabilities or settings match a consumer video camera (I shoot raw footage, I don't use on-board effects like sepia, b&w, etc.)?

Again, remember that I'm in the low economic zip code area, not like most of you who live in the pro cam one.

Question 2: AVCHD vs. MP4

I am neither planning nor needing to upgrade my VP10e and it is my core NLE. My HV30 exports or Vegas imports the footage as m2t, Most camcorders and even DSLRs give the option of those two formats. Over the years here, I've seen a slew of posts of people having problems with AVCHD in Vegas. Again, I have VP10e and so if any improvements in later versions have occurred within Vegas on that, it's not applicable.

Which format is "better" -- and most important, easier to work with in VP10e?
And/or if AVCHD is superior, how can I reduce problems with it in same NLE?

(As to MP4, not sure at this moment if the cams or DSLRs that I could afford do H.264 or H.265 or how much difference there is between these two...)
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Last, of course, there is the not-advisable option to buy a used prosumer or pro camcorder, but unless it would be from someone I trust such as a member here who has taken impeccable care of their gear, way too many obvious risks of boo-boos happening due to it being second-hand. And even used, probably out of my wallet range.

Anyway, the two questions above are the most important.
Thanks for your input.

And belated Happy New Year to all.

~ Philip

Comments

rraud wrote on 1/16/2016, 3:18 PM

"Cam vs. DSLR"
- From an audio standpoint, A 'real' video camcorder records decent enough audio for most ENG type work (I won't go into mics, placement, ect.), whereas DSLR's record audio very poorly.. even w/ top-shelf audio gear upfront. So you would want to factor in the cost of a separate audio recorder, cables, recorder/cam/mounts, ect. (and probably sync software like PluralEyes).

john_dennis wrote on 1/16/2016, 4:17 PM

Abandon any consideration of h.265 as it will drive your processing requirements above your budget if you can get it to work.

Soniclight wrote on 1/16/2016, 4:25 PM

Thanks for replies.

"From an audio standpoint, A 'real' video camcorder records decent enough..."

-- Probably should have included that audio is not important at this juncture and may never be. My stuff is mostly using my own music compositions, and if I decide to do a voice-over or sing vocals, I can handle that independently (use Cubase and mike).

"Abandon any consideration of h.265 as it will drive..."

-- Good to know. Besides, as far as I know H.264 is decent enough -- and most common.

PeterDuke wrote on 1/16/2016, 4:37 PM

How do you intend to watch your videos? If DVD or BD you should look at the constraints that implies, such as interlacing. If computer, media player, or internet then progressive MP4 is most common. If you can play both MP4 and progressive AVCHD, then it does matter. Just stick to what your camera takes.

musicvid10 wrote on 1/16/2016, 6:21 PM

2. AVCHD is an acquisitoion and transfer (transport) format.
Mp4 is a delivery or playback (program) format.
Both use the same h264 codec.

Soniclight wrote on 1/16/2016, 9:14 PM

OK, thanks for further education.
____________

2. AVCHD is an acquisitoion and transfer (transport) format.
Mp4 is a delivery or playback (program) format.
Both use the same h264 codec
____________

From what I've seen, the cams and even DSLRs I've seen seem to give the option of (recording?) both in AVCHD and MP4. So far as acquisition/export format, let's say I shoot in 1080 60p or 24p and and even though both are H264:

1.
2.

I may be asking the wrong questions here, if so, feel free to correct me. I'm simply wanting to get the best source footage into Vegas and have as few hiccups editing whatever is best to have land in it . I tend to use several FX due to my particular "artistic" visual style, including "Glint," rays, and other light-enhancing ones.

Below is a quick-sketch example of my style -- a very basic, slow zoom-out using a low rez smartphone still pic of someone's girlfriend in a bikini. Temporarily parked at YouTube. Original pic was day time shot with apartment buildings in window. Did a bit of creative ambiance tweaking.

FX are custom PI ones, music is recycle of one of my earlier compositions (a bit flat mix-wise, not enough low ends, but passable).

- 1:07 min.[/link]

musicvid10 wrote on 1/16/2016, 9:26 PM

"2. Which one is less problematic editing-wise in Vegas (10e)? "
If there are AVCHD transport stream errors, which are allowed, but are not too common with camera-acquired footage, the AVCHD will not open in Vegas, although it will seem to play fine in a player; in that case, it will need to be sanitized and muxed to a program stream (2 separate operations) in order to drop the errored frames and be friendlier with Vegas. Can you see where this is leading? "It's a container format."

Maybe this will make it easier:

AVCHD = Hardware
MP4 = Software

That's oversimplified, of course, but it will get you a failsafe place to start.

ushere wrote on 1/16/2016, 10:53 PM

DSLRs have come a long way even in the consumer class. I know there are limitations in terms of how long one can take a 1080p video, i.e. 12 minutes. That doesn't bother me. But do the video capabilities or settings match a consumer video camera (I shoot raw footage, I don't use on-board effects like sepia, b&w, etc.)?

i have shot with both. each has it's pros, and also it's cons. unless you spend VERY big on a camcorder you'll not get the quality you can get shooting raw on a dslr.
that said, you wouldn't be editing raw on anything but a very heavy duty pc - which would cost about 3>4X$ value of a regular pc.
if pics is your thing, and you're willing to sacrifice audio, and ergonomics. and spend a bit more on necessities such as monitoring and some sort of cage, etc., you can't beat a dslr
however, if you want good quality hd with good audio and fexibility, hd camcorders are to be had reasonably cheaply - i'd be looking at a min of say a sony z5, ex1, etc., both of which can now be had for a couple of grand - and their output will be editable on your existing system...
i would avoid a camera that shoots only avchd, unless you have a umphy pc or are willing to transcode...

Soniclight wrote on 1/17/2016, 1:52 AM

OK, thanks to both of you for your 'splanations. Some of angles-of-approach you've mentioned are new to me, so need to digest what it all means to me in practical terms.

Soniclight wrote on 1/17/2016, 2:18 AM

OK, thanks to both of you for your 'splanations. Some of angles-of-approach you've mentioned are new to me, so need to digest what it all means to me in practical terms.

I certainly don't have a pro PC but it's also not a toy laptop either. It's a 6x actual (not virtual) cores AMD based system Soon turning 5 years old, and below are the basic updated specs. Not sure if providing this info is useful to your recommendations to me.

I tried doing 3D polygon-based rendering (E-on Vue), but gave up for it just doesn't have the processing power to do any kind of animation beyond a postage stamp resolution. Even an HD or 4K still takes forever. But 2-D HD 1080p or lower out-render projects in Vegas run pretty well, even with all my FX chains.
____________

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, up to date.
CPU: AMD X6 1090T Phenom II Black Edition 6x 3.2 Ghz - no overclocking
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-880GAA-UD3HU
RAM: 16 Gb. DDR3
Hard Drives: System/Progs: Samsung SSD 128 Gb. Others: Multiple SATA2/3 7200 Rpm. 2 of which are 3 TB.
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 430 GT w/ DVI & HDMI out
Video Capture: Onboard Firewire TI chip IEEE PCI card or USB 2.0/3.0 (never used so far, current camcorder is Firewire out)
Monitors: Consumer Dual 24” Samsung – LCD (non-LED)
Sound Card: M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 (Analog I/O)

PeterDuke wrote on 1/17/2016, 5:23 PM

AVCHD really defines more than the video file; it also includes the folder structure used in the camera. The video coding is a certain subset of H.264 (MPEG4 AVC) in an enhanced MPEG2 transport stream container. File names use the 8.3 max character all caps format as used in DOS. The video file extension is .MTS.

Another constraint of the file system used in cameras is that the file size is limited to 2 GB or 4 GB, depending on the manufacturer. Long scenes which would exceed this limit are chopped into 2 or 4 GB chunks accordingly, and need to be concatenated directly or indirectly before they can be used, or else glitches will occur in both the video and particularly the audio at the joins.

AVCHD is based on the Blu-ray Disc standard, and can be thought of as a sub-set of it. Once video files have been transferred to NTFS disks, file names may have upper and lower case letters, and a .m2ts file extension as used in Blu-ray.

When we loosely talk about AVCHD we are only talking about the video file. Since AVCHD is a subset of Blu-ray, it is the best format if you intend to make a Blu-ray disc.

More recently we have Progressive AVCHD (also called AVCHD2) in which we can have full high definition at 50 or 60 frames per second.

PeterDuke wrote on 1/17/2016, 6:21 PM

In deciding whether to use a "video" camera or a "still" camera (I use quotes because each can shoot both formats these days), don't overlook the ergonomics.

If panning by hand, a video camera shape is much easier to handle than a DSLR.

In bright light outdoors, images on LED screens can be difficult to see. A view finder is much better. DSLRs have an optical view finder for stills (photos) that is non-functional while taking movies. Non-reflex cameras such as the 4/3 type may have a LED viewfinder, but check out that the resolution is good enough. Note that the cheaper video cameras do not have a view finder these days.

DSLRs usually have a much shallower depth of field than video cameras, because of the larger size of the sensor. If you love shallow depth of field and focus pulling, go for the DSLR. I generally prefer a deep depth of field with as much in focus as possible.

OldSmoke wrote on 1/17/2016, 7:37 PM

I would also ask what is the OP's budget? DSLRs usually don't. one with a lens and to the combination camera + good lens can get expensive. A Sony HDR-CX900 is a great camera that shoots good stills too. The 1" sensor will give you some DOF and you get high bit rate XAVC-S and AVCHD in one camera. The DSC-RX10ii is the opposite; a DSLR with a fixed lens that shoots great videos too.

PeterDuke wrote on 1/17/2016, 7:44 PM

If you have AVCHD and you want MP4 you could always convert it losslessly with say VideoReDo. I took a 48 minute AVCHD file and converted it to MP4 in 2.5 minutes. The PGS text (metadata) stream was stripped out in the process.

PeterDuke wrote on 1/17/2016, 7:49 PM

"The 1" sensor will give you some DOF"

Do you mean shallow, moderately shallow, intermediate, moderately deep or deep DOF? (As distinct from no DOF and complete DOF). I think we can say that all lenses give us some depth of field.

OldSmoke wrote on 1/17/2016, 8:50 PM

@PeterDuke

This

might give you an idea of what the 1" sensor can do.

Soniclight wrote on 1/17/2016, 11:03 PM

Thank you for all of your additional replies. It's 9 p.m. and I've had a long and somewhat stressful day so will have to come by later tomorrow to read your responses, and if necessary follow up with comment/s or question/s... with a clearer mind. But thanks again for taking the time to respond.

~ PSK

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/18/2016, 8:54 AM

With the specs of your computer, I would highly recommend that you keep shooting HDV. I'm serious. You really need an Intel Core i7 to work comfortably with AVCHD or DSLR footage. You can get buy with a Core i5 with some slowness. Your AMD is going to be extremely slow and jerky and take forever to render these newer camera formats.

Check out the Passmark score for your CPU. It's 5685 which is weaker than a Core i5 at 7150 and no where near the Core i7 averaging 10,000. All of the horror stories you've read about AVCHD being hard to edit are from the days when your computer was brand new. So they all still apply to you. :( DLSR footage is even harder to edit than AVCHD.

I would also advise against getting a DSLR if you are planning to stick with Vegas Pro 10. Vegas Pro had a lot of trouble with DLSR footage back then and it was not until around Vegas Pro 12 that it really got all sorted out. So when you said that you don't "need" to upgrade from Vegas Pro 10... you "will" if you buy a DSLR!

Balance is the key. If you're going to upgrade to a newer cameras that use codecs that are extremely compute intensive to decode, you need to upgrade your computer as well with it to keep up with these newer more highly compressed video formats. You also need to upgrade your software to handle the newer formats as well. You can't just buy a new camera and expect it to work with 5 year old hardware and software.

As for which camera? Call me old fashioned but I like to shoot video with a video camera and stills with a still camera and would never buy a still camera just to shoot video. I also prefer industry standard AVCHD over who knows what's inside MP4 files. Forget about DLSR's that shoot QuickTime MOV files unless you own a Mac (like I do). Vegas Pro edits AVCHD very smoothly on a modern Intel computer but first, you need a modern Intel computer. ;-)

If you really can't afford to upgrade your computer or Vegas Pro 10, then a video camera that shoots AVCHD is probably your best bet.

~jr

OldSmoke wrote on 1/18/2016, 11:16 AM

This was my very first test

with the AX100; it was shot in 1080 60p because I didn't have a sufficient fast SD card to record 4K at that time.

Soniclight wrote on 2/2/2016, 5:16 AM

Thanks for both of your additional replies - albeit a tardy response at that. Right now, due to some financial challenges, I'll have to punt this all down the road some. But thanks for the additional input. NRN.

~ Philip

PeterDuke wrote on 2/2/2016, 9:44 PM

"If you really can't afford to upgrade your computer or Vegas Pro 10, then a video camera that shoots AVCHD is probably your best bet."

I presume JR means the original AVCHD (e.g. 1920x1080 25/30 frames per second interlaced). These days cameras are able to shoot AVCHD2 which gives you 1920x1080 at 50/60 fps progressive. The latter would have a higher bit rate and present more work for Vegas and the computer.

Soniclight wrote on 2/11/2016, 1:19 AM

Thanks for the clarification on AVCHD fps and how it relates to one's computer's "muscle."