V8 and Sr11/12 AVCHD footage - does it work well?

ken c wrote on 4/8/2008, 6:03 AM

Hi - I'm seriously considering buying a Sony SR11 or SR12 AVCHD camcorder, as soon as the bundle specials at b&h are back in stock. Do any of you have experience using one of these with Vegas 8?

I'd really appreciate any quick insights on these questions:

1) Does the footage import correctly, and does it "behave" well with V8?
2) How much slower is it to work with AVCHD HD footage clips with Vegas' timeline, than SD clips? Other workflow issues to be aware of?
3) If I "get it", it looks like I can just use memory sticks with footage (2Gb-8Gb - tips?) and after shooting (for quick clips, 5-10 minutes) remove from the camcorder and insert into firewire/usb port on my pc and copy the footage over to a hard drive, then edit with Vegas... is that right, re workflow?

Thanks for sharing any ideas on this! It could save me a lot of time, eg I do basement greenscreen shoots, if I could get footage on memory sticks to plug into the pc, vs vidcap.exe etc hassle...

Ken

Comments

Bit Of Byte wrote on 4/8/2008, 9:03 AM

Is Picture quality lost when using AVCHD?

Cam

VideoP wrote on 4/8/2008, 9:54 AM

1) Does the footage import correctly, and does it "behave" well with V8?

I have not had any problems importing the files shot with my sr11 into V8. I cannot say the same of HDV which at times had issues with audio dropouts etc.. For this reason I'm happy using AVCHD.

2) How much slower is it to work with AVCHD HD footage clips with Vegas' timeline, than SD clips? Other workflow issues to be aware of?

Much slower with my Intel e4300. Yes it is underpowered but it can handle SD and HDV without any issues at all. Slow to the point where if you like your editing buttery smooth you will not enjoy working with AVCHD. I hope faster chips / V9 will improve upon this.

3) If I "get it", it looks like I can just use memory sticks with footage (2Gb-8Gb - tips?) and after shooting (for quick clips, 5-10 minutes) remove from the camcorder and insert into firewire/usb port on my pc and copy the footage over to a hard drive, then edit with Vegas... is that right, re workflow?

Since the SR11 and SR12 also record to hard drive I suspect you'll primarily record to that. To transfer just simply plug in a USB cable, like a digital camera. The included software will import the files to the directory you specified in your preferences. Once on the machine open Vegas and use the Explorer to locate the files and add them to your project.

Hope that helps

VideoP wrote on 4/8/2008, 10:01 AM

> Is Picture quality lost when using AVCHD

AVCHD is lossy, even more so than HDV. That said I think the picture quality from my SR11 is better than the HDV camera I replaced. HDV is also lossy but not as much as AVCHD.

It should also be noted that after you edit in Vegas you will have to re-encode everything regardless of whether or not you actually made changes to the video. So you will lose something at that point as well. When encoding HDV back to HDV Vegas v8 Pro re-encodes what was changed.

ken c wrote on 4/8/2008, 12:39 PM

Thanks much for the feedback, it's helpful to hear what it's like, sounds like it will be slower to work with, which is a challenge. On the plus side, at least my greenscreen keys (done with Ultra or AE/Keylight) would be sharper since higher resolution than SD via my 3ccd panasonic gs120 I've been using...

Points well taken, Paul re not being buttery smooth ... I'm using a dualcore e6660 w/4 gigs of ram on winxp, so hopefully it'll work ok...

Much of my footage ends up as 480x360 or whatever, low 512 bit rate encoded flvs on the 'net anyways, so I don't really need to produce HDV... it's just the convenience of not having to use vidcap etc, that would be the main attraction, and hopefully better greenscreen shoots.

Ken

lefty wrote on 4/20/2008, 3:43 PM

PaulSTC said "... To transfer just simply plug in a USB cable, like a digital camera. The included software will import the files to the directory you specified in your preferences. Once on the machine open Vegas and use the Explorer to locate the files and add them to your project"

do you actually need to use the software included with the SR11? You can copy the *.mts files on the SR11 to the computer by simply drag & drop. Then open Vegas and use explorer to locate the files... that's what I did anyway. I'm a noob to video editing workflow, so I hope this ok? Are there any issues by doing it this way?

first post :)

Laurence wrote on 4/20/2008, 5:17 PM

I edit AVCHD footage using proxies and the excellent Gearshift script from VASST.com. It works well.

Spot recently mentioned in a post that there is a new product from NewBlueFX called AVCUpShift that will convert AVCHD into a more manageable codec and will cost about $50. This might prove to be an even better approach.

Spot|DSE wrote on 4/20/2008, 8:49 PM

Actually, UpShift is a VASST product in which we partnered with NewBlueFX. Consider it the "next step" from GearShift, as the new app is standalone, rather than relying on Vegas for conversion, and a heckuva lot faster. Given that you can up the bitrate to 60Mbps, there is no loss. I've been playing with CX7 and key, and it works very well.

Bit Of Byte wrote on 4/21/2008, 2:20 AM

What if you work with uncompressed AVCHD footage provided you had ample HDD and chip power?

Woudl this also negate the action of having to re-encode footage if uncompressed?

Woudl this give you a better product?

Bit

busterkeaton wrote on 4/21/2008, 2:25 AM

AVCHD IS A COMPRESSED FORMAT.

THEREFORE YOU CAN NOT HAVE UNCOMPRESSED AVCHD.

YOU HAVE AVCHD OR YOU HAVE UNCOMPRESSED HD.

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/21/2008, 3:46 AM

Hi,

I have also been considering to purchase an AVCHD cam, for the sake of its compactness and the HD-drive (fast loading of material to the PC).

However, my only concern is the responsiviness during edit. I HAVE as supefast machine (still leading the New Rendertest at 82 seconds ;), but I would like to experiment with AVCD material before making my decision.

Would someone be kind enough to provide just a short clip to test with? Or is there a site from where I could download a short AVCHD clip?

Would be interesting to see how a QX9650 PC running at 3,82GHz crunches such material... Wonder if the SSE4 instruction set (with future releases of Vegas) will improve AVCHD handling & rendering?

Albeit its lower bitrate and severe compression, I don't think that AVCHD loses in quality compared to HDV, due to the better quality MPG4 coding (no mosaic effect). Or what do you pro's think - that have had the chance to compare?

Regards,

Christian