Desperately need advice on video format

othersteve wrote on 1/16/2009, 5:04 PM
Hey guys,

So I've got a problem and it's killing me. Thank You very much in advance for listening and offering your expert advice, because I'm apparently far from an expert myself.

Here's the situation. I write for/run a web site that covers videogames and technology. We're headed to E3 this year as usual for our videogame foray (the site's new, the staff is not), and we're planning some pretty serious breakout HD footage. I need a new camcorder to facilitate all of that, and I plan to get one of the new Canons I saw at CES just a week ago.

However, here's the eternal problem: I'm not sure which media format to go with. I realize that AVCHD would be *perfect* for our needs, as it's increasingly future-proof with faster hardware and cheaper flash memory, and there's no fooling around with capture. However, I've heard nothing but horror stories about the amount of time it takes to edit with AVCHD files, and quite frankly, it's scaring me toward tape. (Case in point: I posted another thread on another forum asking for similar advice and was met with people who were shocked that I was even considering an AVCHD camera.)

My current machine is as follows:

Dell XPS M1330 laptop
Sony Vegas 8.0c
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.4GHz w/ 3MB L2 Cache (mobile processor)
4 GB RAM (3.5 usable in 32-bit)
160 GB 7,200 RPM Hard Drive
X3100 Integrated Graphics chip

So I've got two questions...

1) With that machine, how painful would editing/encoding, say, 720p/1080i AVCHD video be? Or perhaps more importantly, about how much longer would it take than working with HDV (after taking the video off the tape is finished I mean). Twice as long? Five times as long? Or just a *little bit* longer? I ask because at E3, everything is hectic and insane... and getting video edited and posted to the 'net quickly is one of the most important things you can accomplish.

2) My second question is this: What, if anything, can I do to expedite the editing/rendering process of AVCHD video? I'll probably be dealing with 24Mbps 1080i/720p if I had to guess based on the camcorder I am looking at--we won't be shooting in 1080p if that matters at all. Should I consider upgrading to Windows Vista 64-bit/Windows 7 64-bit with Vegas 8.1, or will that not help my cause? Upgrading the processor is impractical at this time, though I may spring for more RAM if the jump to 64-bit would be worthwhile.

THANK YOU again!

-Steve

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/16/2009, 6:14 PM
i know some people who did video @ quakecon in 08, I believe they went with 100% tape because it was faster to edit. I never edit @ the shows but I use tape.

bad part about tape is you'd need a few, but I normally wear cargo jeans/pans & load up on tapes plus take be duffel bag loaded with camera, tapes, batteries, AC adapter, etc. everywhere, so I never worry.

From watching videos @ these events though, imho HD is a WASTE. People watch the videos for the content, not the quality. How many shaky-cam's of a new game do we have? :)
othersteve wrote on 1/16/2009, 6:43 PM
"From watching videos @ these events though, imho HD is a WASTE. People watch the videos for the content, not the quality. How many shaky-cam's of a new game do we have? :)"

So you really think we should stick with SD? It sure would be nice to have the option...

I mean we aren't planning on 1080p or anything, but 1440x720 was hopefully in the cards.

Actually I have much better question I think. What EXACT video format could I create for an artificial clip to play around with editing HDV vs. AVCHD? I tried this:

For the AVCHD file:
1920x1080x32 29.97fps progressive
48K Stereo audio AAC

For the HDV file:
1920x1080x12 29.97fps progressive
48K Stereo Audio MPEG Layer 2

Are these indicative of what I'll be getting from the cameras?

I rendered both files to 1280x720 AVC H.264 using the Mainconcept encoder, which is our planned delivery format via our site. Here are the times I came up with:

Rendering from the AVCHD file: 2 minutes 48 seconds
Rendering from the HDV file: 2 minutes 29 seconds

That's a difference of 19 seconds, or roughly 13%. Is that it? Or is there much more to the story...?

Thanks again guys... this is much harder than I had anticipated.

Steve
Coursedesign wrote on 1/16/2009, 7:43 PM
Get a Canon HF11.

I just saw video of a panel discussion shot from the audience compared with the coverage done by the pro AV company's results with tripod-mounted large cameras.

The HF11 footage looked better, and even the sound was good (built-in mic).

And the shooter edited on Vegas to full satisfaction.

Unless you have unusual needs, that's an incredible camera, and it is certainly light enough to schlep around the show floor.

And no "capture" afterwards.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/16/2009, 8:21 PM
So you really think we should stick with SD? It sure would be nice to have the option...

Perhaps shoot in HD & deliver in SD. But normally people don't really care about getting an HD version of stuff like this because it's not something you'll sit & stare at for a while. Editing in HD in Vegas could very well be faster but you have to capture the tape, so add 1hr to all estimated editing times. AVCHD doesn't capture, just drag/drop files, so that goes down to minutes, but could render somewhat slower.

HDV = 1440x1080. Normally it's all interlaced unless you get a camera that lets you choose progressive.

but I'd say go with what's recommended above, he knows about about AVCHD then I do (i still prefer tape! :D )
othersteve wrote on 1/16/2009, 9:34 PM
You guys rock. You have no idea how much it is helping me to simply listen to you kick around different ideas. Currently I am choosing between the upcoming Canon HV40 or the upcoming Canon HF S10... assuming they actually end up being better than their predecessors.

Here's what I've got so far by the way, assuming my math is correct:

Vegas Pro 8 rendering, both projects converted to 1280x720 AVC 29.97fps 4,000,000 avg. bps, "Good" quality...
Both source videos were identical except for encoding; total length is exactly 1:30 for each video.

Source: Various AVCHD 1440x1080 clips, 29.97 frame rate, 15 Mbps
Total time: 12' 29"

Source: Various HDV 1440x1080 clips, 29.97 frame rate, 25 Mbps
Total time: 9' 21"

However you also must add 1:30 capture time to the HDV figure, yielding 10' 51", which is only around 1.5 minutes away from the AVC total encoding time. If this is to be trusted, that's only around a 10% difference worst-case scenario.

I don't know though; that's still an awful lot of rendering time either way you slice it. What I may in fact do is purchase a Canon HF S10 camcorder and, as suggested above, record in 1440x1080... but then encode MOST videos to some lower resolution such as, say, 1066x600, which still looks very nice. That seems to cut out around 3 minutes when using the clips above (a total of 9:00 or a little longer for a 1:30 video at 2,000,000 Mbps), which is significant. Now we're looking at a rendering time of around six times the video length... which seems much more bearable to me.

What do you guys think?

Steve