"AVCUpShift transcodes AVCHD into other formats, FCP does the same thing" was posted by a Justin Miller elsewhere on the 'net.

Is that accurate?

A belated but very sincere apology on my part to dspenc1 since my earlier message was not intended in any way to suggest any distortions of the truth. I merely was reporting my own experiences with AVCHD which ultimately forced me to move Vegas 8 Pro onto a much faster platform (a quad core QX9650) in order to edit smoothly. My 3.0 GHz does great with HDV, and any of the machines will eventually render if you are willing to wait long enough, but the key issue is real-time playback and timeline editing / preview, which just falter / stutter so completely as to make AVCHD unworkable on the 3.0 GHz P4. This amazed me since HDV goes so smoothly. Neither is using an intermediate codec, and I therefore suppose that the sheer decoding workload of h.264 is the culprit.

Larry

Hi,

Anyone kind enough to provide an AVCHD clip (5 to 10 seconds) for experimentation?

It seems that testing is the only objective way to test the responsiveness of your system, during edit. Would not like to purchase an AVCHD cam before testing this...

Christian

couple questions

the original post asked "Can it (an AVCHD mts file) be edited without loss of quality?", and the next reply was "no". in what sense does it lose quality? lose shapness, pixelates, audio down convert, dropped frames.. etc.. ???

and what file format does Upshift create .. what's the file extension? is that process degrading quality in any way? how?

thanks

Here is a good AVCHD clip which I have been using:

http://dvinfo.net/media/canon/austin1.mts

It's from the new Canon HF10.

Larry

Larry,

Thank's a zillon for the link to the clip. Appreciated :)

Christian

Hi,

Tested the clip. Whoever shot it should have used a tripod. I get seasick watching it. It tests more the cam's ability to stabilize the image (not very convincing), than the cam's resolution...

Tested to view it in VP8b on a simple timeline with just this clip. I set the project to match the clip (HD 1080-60i = 1920x1080; 29,970 fps). At 8 bit project setting preview is realtime (29,97fps), however, setting the project to 32 bit (no FX) drops the framerate immediately to 8..9 fps. So - forget 32 bit mode during edit - even without any FX!

Back to 8-bit project settings. Placing two of these clips on the timelime and just gliding them on top of each other producing a simple crossfade - framerate comes dow to a painful 7..8 fps!!! And this with no FX.

I tried this with differenc preview resolutions. The numbers above are with the Best/Full setting. Going to Good/Quarter increases the fps barely to 13..15 fps.

Clearly, AVCHD is not a very edit-friendly format, as stated elsewhere in this forum. UNLESS Sony has something in the sleeve in the upcoming 8.0c version that helps the situation, it's going to be a pain to edit directly AVCHD files. And I'm running a very very fast machine (QX9650 @ 3,8GHz, 4GB of DDR3@1600MHz FSB, Nvidia 8800GP).

During the crossfade (Best/Full) the 4 cores crunches at about 73%, during normal playback at about 43%.

I have ordered a Sony SR12 cam, and would gladly welcome any info about the 8.0c - especiall if there is ANY anticipated improvement regarding playback speed of AVCHD files!!! I'm not very keen of converting to some intermediate format, you just loose the time you gained in not having to capture the files in real time. Probably this conversion takes even longer??? Or should I cancel my order for now and wait for the next generation HDD camcorder. A hard question.

Sad that SCS is so shortworded about already planned or coded upcoming improvements & additions (not to forget bug fixes). That kind of preliminary info would we warmly welcomed by many. I would give much I I knew about what happens in 8.0c...

I noticed that the clip was shot on a Canon. Anyone willing to share a similar length clip shot with Sony SR11/SR12 (without the seasickness factor;)???

Christian

PS: The render-out time was decent, I tried several formats (both full HD and SD, and the ratio varied from 2,5:1 to 4:1. Not bad at all, but then you'll need a screaming machine...

Hi,

I also noticed that the provided clip is probably processed somehow, or then not shot properly.

The picture is washer out (very little contrast). Looking with the scope it is clear that the data is not continuous, about every second greylevel is missing (less than 200 levels for r,g and b), and the black level is at about 36..40. Or is this a compatibility problem when importing AVCHD files from a Canon HDD camcorder to Vegas?

Can anyone help in pinpointing to a clip shot by a SR11/SR12???

Christian