AVCHD ~ is it even worth it?

s k r o o t a y p wrote on 5/19/2010, 6:42 PM
graduating from frustrated to discouraged. used to love editing video. until i got an AVCHD camera. sure the video quality is stunning but you can't edit the stuff!

i was just about to go out and buy a quad core, 6G RAM, 1T hard drive etc., etc, etc. because i initially heard that horsepower was the answer. but the more i search, the more threads i see on choppy preview playback all the way up to plat pro 9. people bought the latest new computers to no avail. the camera won't let you reduce resolution so apparently you have to experiment with a bunch of programs that attempt to do it for you. sounds like endless troubleshooting and additional steps. someone even talked about switching to corel after all the learning invested in VMS. choppy playback totally saps the spontaneity and inspiration out of editing. i love going nuts with effects & transitions and using the program for all it's worth like i used to. i could never live with choppy playback. we're supposed to be going forward here. HD is supposed to be an advance.

honestly, i had more fun (with a load of great help from this forum!) editing from my old sony high-8. is there a straight-forward-one-time answer or should i sell the camera and look to a more friendly form of HD?

t h a n k s !
david

Comments

farss wrote on 5/19/2010, 9:00 PM
"should i sell the camera and look to a more friendly form of HD?"

Yes, if you've got deep pockets. The question really becomes, where do you want to spend your money. On a better camera or on a better computer.

Bob.
John_Cline wrote on 5/19/2010, 9:26 PM
High bitrate MPEG2 footage from cameras like the Sony EX series is currently MUCH easier to edit than AVCHD. AVCHD is in the same boat that HDV was a few years ago, HDV's 25 Mb/s MPEG2 stream was just a little beyond the capabilities of computers that mere mortals could afford. Several years passed, computers got faster (mostly as a result of the Core2 Intel processors) and editing HDV was now pretty much as quick and easy as editing plain old DV was some years before. Let's not forget that people had a speed related issues editing DV in the beginning, now it's child's play.

When computers get a bit faster than they are now, editing AVCHD will finally work as expected. (GPU accelerated functions will help, but it isn't the complete answer. GPUs are essentially parallel processors but there are just some video functions that can't be effectively executed in parallel.)

Personally, I think the sweet spot at the moment is a fast quad-core i7 processor editing high-bitrate MPEG2 footage. It's pretty smooth even on an older Core2 Quad Extreme that I still use.
mtntvguy wrote on 5/19/2010, 9:51 PM
So... if I replace my 386 w/2 megs of RAM my render times will improve? Way cool.
rmack350 wrote on 5/19/2010, 10:05 PM
Exactly! But save that setup for a Ripley's museum.
BudWzr wrote on 5/19/2010, 10:18 PM
"386"? Whew, that's tough, but maybe you can boost the speed using a floppy as a RAM drive.
Guy S. wrote on 5/20/2010, 9:07 AM
I've also been having trouble with AVCHD. At NAB last month, however, I saw timeline performance with AVCHD that was equivalent to what I get on my current workstation when editing HDV - and maybe even just a bit better.

I have a high-end HP workstation with dual dual core Xeons and 8GB RAM, a Quadro graphics card, Vista 64 and Vegas 8.1 (64-bit).

1. My home system, a self-built Core i5 with 4GB of RAM, a low-end nVidia graphics card, and Windows 7 (64-bit) is substantially better when editing HDV and AVCHD.
2. Vegas 9 handles AVCHD incomparably better than Vegas 8, resulting in at least a 50% improvement in timeline performance and overall stability on the same hardware

Speaking with the developer at NAB last month I learned that the playback engine in Vegas Pro 9 had been substantially re-worked to more fully utilize multi-core CPUs, and this is exactly what saw after installing the trial version of Vegas Pro 9: CPU utilization jumped from 20% (ver. 8.1) to 90% (ver. 9.0d) on the same timeline.

FRY's had an AMD Phenom 6-core processor/MB combo on sale last Friday for about $150. Based on what I have seen, I would think that this relatively inexpensive upgrade would substantially improve your editing experience, making it usable, if not perfect.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 5/20/2010, 9:43 AM
"386"? Whew, that's tough, but maybe you can boost the speed using a floppy as a RAM drive."

I can refer you to a website that has tutorials that gives step by step instructions on how to properly tell computer-based jokes.
RalphM wrote on 5/20/2010, 10:47 AM
David,

Pull out some other C.S Lewis tomes and wait for the processors to catch up.....

LivingTheDream wrote on 5/20/2010, 11:46 AM
Guy S.: "Vegas 9 handles AVCHD incomparably better than Vegas 8..."

I see in your post you're using Win7 64bit. I assume the better performance of Vegas 9 you mentioned is for the 64 bit version?

Steve
nanjil wrote on 5/20/2010, 1:59 PM
yes it is a pain. The hardware is not ready and it will take time to get there. I also do not know why software people are not exploiting the superior floating capabilities in graphic cards.

In the mean time you can design a work flow. Render the original file to lower resolution low bit rate media. Do your edits in the low res media. Once the edits are finalized replace the low res with the original media for rendering.
GregFlowers wrote on 5/20/2010, 2:29 PM
To the original poster. Get Cineform Neo Scene. It will solve your problems without many extra steps, without buying a new computer or camera, for about $100.The program quickly transcodes the very difficult to edit AVCHD files to Cineform .avi files with minimal to no loss in quality.

You simple run the Neo Scene program and select the files you want to convert and it does it quickly and automatically. Then you edit the Cineform files just like you always have.
DavidMcKnight wrote on 5/20/2010, 3:38 PM


You can read about using the above two solutions in Vegas with AVCHD (proxy files and Cineform intermediates) here.



Byron K wrote on 5/21/2010, 2:12 AM
Have you tried 9e? I haven't touched Corel Video Studio X3 since 9e upgrade. Working great w/ my AVCHD. Just finished an 1hr:10min 720p dance practice video for a family member no problems.

Used trimmer to cut the dead spots between segments. Total 20 separate segments. Not a single crash or hang up.

The video was very simple, no complex transitions or effects.
i c e wrote on 5/22/2010, 9:20 AM
I really no nothing about anything but thought I would chime in to the original post. I don't have deep pockets, not even close, so I have found a program: Multi-Render from PeachRock Productions and use it to convert all files to .AVI.
Now Editing is a breeze, as fun as it should be. And I don't think that quality is that bad. You can see my one of my vids here

Not what you want if you want HD. But my thinking is I will force myself to by happy with this until the computers catch up. When that happens, I have all my AVCHD files available and will just switch over.

Just my (cheap) idea.

peace

crazy Idea but could I use this same program to convert to HDV? huh?
BudWzr wrote on 5/22/2010, 9:47 AM
The solution is simple.

On the camera, use 720p mode with as low a bitrate as acceptable.

When doing something for the web, render at 640X360 and everyone will think it's HD.

When rendering to standard DVD, use a 16:9 crop no wider than 720 pixels, and you'll fill the tv screen, no letterbox or pillars. Again, looks like HD.
John_Cline wrote on 5/22/2010, 11:42 AM
"The solution is simple."

I suppose it seems simple if you don't know what you're talking about.

"On the camera, use 720p mode with as low a bitrate as acceptable."

What camera are you talking about? Some sort of Flip thing?

"When doing something for the web, render at 640X360 and everyone will think it's HD."

Some people might think it's HD. Of course, they will be wrong.

"When rendering to standard DVD, use a 16:9 crop no wider than 720 pixels, and you'll fill the tv screen, no letterbox or pillars. Again, looks like HD."

What are you talking about? Where did you come up with 720 pixels as a crop value? Are you saying that cropping to 720 pixels and rendering to standard-definition widescreen on an SD DVD looks like HD. Nonsense. I'm certain that it will fool you but not many others.
Steve Mann wrote on 5/22/2010, 5:44 PM
"I can refer you to a website that has tutorials that gives step by step instructions on how to properly tell computer-based jokes."

I am really looking for such a joke site. I have a client who needs some ideas for promoting their products. What's the URL. Or was that a joke?
jabloomf1230 wrote on 5/22/2010, 8:08 PM
It was a joke, but I'm embarrassed to say there are a lot of computer joke websites, even one called computer-jokes.net. I warn you though, the humor isn't very good.
BudWzr wrote on 5/22/2010, 10:45 PM
The answer is in the first five words of the sentence. Here, let me show you:

Look Here >>>>>>>"When rendering to standard DVD<<<<<<<Look Back There, use a 16:9 crop no wider than 720 pixels, and you'll fill the tv screen, no letterbox or pillars. Again, looks like HD."

Did you spot it?

==============================================
What are you talking about? Where did you come up with 720 pixels as a crop value?
John_Cline wrote on 5/23/2010, 12:16 AM
I was questioning the "looks like HD" statement. SD doesn't look like HD.
alltheseworlds wrote on 5/23/2010, 6:54 AM
So is there any prospect of a more edit-friendly consumer format in the near future ?

Surely there's other folks out there even lower down on the edit chain (moms & dads) frustrated as hell over avchd editing ? Surely there's some groundswell for editing ability vs "quality" ?

I'd rather have a lower image quality movie that was tightly edited, than an unedited blu-ray . . .
s k r o o t a y p wrote on 5/23/2010, 7:26 PM
there are 2 resolutions available on the canon vixia hf10. 1440 x 1080 is the lowest. i double checked the manual and i can find no 720p mode. the camera is not only future proof ... it's also a bit present proof. also i've got the mbps pulled back to 7 (12 being highest and 5 lowest).

thanks for all the angles, insights and resources guys!
david
UlfLaursen wrote on 5/23/2010, 10:13 PM
Hi David

You are correct, no 720P on the HF10

/Ulf