I'd say these symptoms are occuring because the precise AVCHD format used by the Sony consumer camcorder models is probably more of a closed technology than folks are anticipating.

The Sony AVC engine (wherever this code was made) is built for compatibility with PSP, PS3 and some of the Blu-Ray players available today. Rather than as a format to layback to the original camcorder a lá DV, HDV and XDCAM/XDCAM-HD IMX.

The situation may improve in what we can target with AVC within Vegas, but even if the encoding is correct there maybe other metadata in the camcorder's native stream that wouldn't be in there in a file rendered from our favorite NLE.

In case I've got this wrong, the only other couple of angles I have on this problem is that there are a pair of custom options in the AVC render panel that could (all 4 variations) be tried:

Profile: Basline or Main
Entropy: CAVLC or CABAC.

Or perhaps 15Mbps is too high, like 9.8Mbps is too high for the MPEG-2 part of DVD-Video's total bitrate.

Consumer AVCHD is probably better than microMV ever was. I just don't think the camcorder is made to receive anything back other than what it (or another camera from the came camp) has made itself.

Early days though, so as this need is clearly there, perhaps it'll become more straightforward inside the roadmap of VegasPro 8?..........

RBartlett - Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give them both a try.

I did want to mention that I haven't copied the rendered file back to the camcorder yet - I'm seeing these errors even when I place the rendered file back on the Vegas timeline.

Thanks again,

John.

P.S. I've placed a Technical Support request with SCS on this. I'll update if I get a workaround from the factory. John_Cline, if you haven't done it already, could you please also submit a Technical Support request so this bumps up on SCS's priority list?

Yes, I've submitted a bug report. By the way, I was seeing this behavior on a disc played back on a new PS3.

John

RBartlet - I looked at the two items you suggested. Unfortunately, they are grayed out when you have MPEG-2 transport stream (.m2ts) selected as the System Format. In that case, AVCHD is the only choice for video format, and everything below that down to frame rate is grayed out (frame size, profile and entropy coding).

I've tried lower and higher bit rates to no avail.

I'm waiting and hoping for good news from SCS.

John.

I have the same problem. I'm using a Sony HDR-HC3, and I see purple areas in the lower part of the frame both on Vegas time line and when playing the video on PS3 when I use the Sony AVC encoder. I have also sent a bug report.

The HDR-SR7 is an AVCHD camcorder (for those who are unclear).

This camera records 5.1 and the AVCHD-compliant file needs to be 5.1 to go back to this camera.

To render a file that you can put back to camera:

1) Set project properties>audio>master bus mode to 5.1

2) Render as "Sony AVC" using the unmodified AVCHD render template (Pal or NTSC depending on your camera model).

Note that these templates will only show up when your project is set to 5.1.

3) Once you are done rendering, use the transfer software app that comes with the camera to put the file back to the camera.

4) You can also burn this rendered AVHD file as data to a DVD data disc using any burning utility- it just needs to be a file on the disc, no special folder formatting or anything else- and you can play it on Blu-ray players and the PS3.