AVCHD experience sharing - Panasonic SD9

pangwu · Post by **pangwu** » Tue May 06, 2008 1:56 am

I have recently purchased Panasonic SD-9 and experienced AVCHD editing in VS 11.5 Plus. My PC configuration is as follows

CPU: E6400 2.13GHz (overclock to 3.2GHz)
Memory: 2GB
Harddisk: SATA II 320GB
Video Card: 7600GT

1/ Importing AVCHD file from SDHC card is fast.

2/ I have enabled smart proxy. Playback in VS and trimming the movies are ok.

3/ Converting from AVCHD to .mpg (DVD) file will take about double and a bit more duration of the movie. E.g. 4 mins movie will take 9-10 mins conversion. Just bear in mind that the field order must be the same (Upper Field First)

4/ Once converted to .mpg file, I use the "Create Disc" module to create a disc image rather than directly burn it to DVD (because I experienced problem of directly using VS to burn disc). The processing time is fast due to the fact that there is no conversion is needed.

5/ When disc image is created, I use Ulead Disc Image Recorder (come with VS 11) to burn the disc image into DVD. Again, it's fast and have no problem

The playback quality (DVD) is pretty good. But there is one thing I recenly observed. After such conversion and burning workflow, I found the color of the movie is less saturated (maybe good because panasonic SD-9 produces a bit over-saturated movie). This is something I didn't noticed in the past when I was still playing mini tape DV. Not sure if it is because I have applied color profile (using Spyder 2) early this year for my photo editing.

Anyway, the AVCHD editing experience is good so far. Will do more test when have time.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue May 06, 2008 5:59 am

Thank you for sharing your work flow with us and I look forward to the results of your further tests you mention.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue May 06, 2008 8:22 am

One question, though... Have you tried it without SmartProxy turned on? I ask because your computer, being Core 2 Duo, is theoretically capable of editing AVCHD without Smart Proxy. I can certainly do it without SmartProxy with my Core 2 Quad, and I have done it once with my Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz laptop. But I was wondering if others have tried it without SmartProxy and succeeded.

sherman39 · Post by **sherman39** » Tue May 06, 2008 1:16 pm

Perhaps I am missing the point but by creating an mpg is this not effectively creating an SD DVD rather than maintaining the HD quality of AVCHD.

Regards

Paul

Post by **lancecarr** » Tue May 06, 2008 2:30 pm

No, you can create an MPEG to HD specifications. The tape based HD camcorders actually record HD to tape in MPEG.

pangwu · Post by **pangwu** » Tue May 06, 2008 4:59 pm

[quote="Ken Berry"]One question, though... Have you tried it without SmartProxy turned on? I ask because your computer, being Core 2 Duo, is theoretically capable of editing AVCHD without Smart Proxy. I can certainly do it without SmartProxy with my Core 2 Quad, and I have done it once with my Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz laptop. But I was wondering if others have tried it without SmartProxy and succeeded.[/quote]

I observed 1 thing while I tried to disable smart proxy. This effect would happen regardless of whether smart proxy was enabled or not. I dragged the imported AVCHD file (.m2s extension) into the video track. I used the slider to quickly fast forward the movie and VS 11.5 Plus crashed. Then I tried the same thing but this time I used "Multi-trim" to fast forward the imported AVCHD file (.m2s extension) and crashed again.

After that I tried to drag another AVCHD file which was directly copied from SDHC card (that means not going through VS 11.5 Plus import function). This time I experienced no crash.

Strange behaviour. I'll do some more testing by using the same movies but this time using .mts rather than .m2s. Will see if VS 11.5 Plus crashes.

sherman39 · Post by **sherman39** » Tue May 06, 2008 9:51 pm

Lancecarr.

Thanks for the clarification. Presumably such an HD mpeg DVD needs to be played in an HD compliant DVD player--Bluray?

Regards

Paul

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue May 06, 2008 10:50 pm

Actually, the HDV format was meant to play on HDV discs in HDV players. But Toshiba has now discontinued that format. However, yes, HDV can also be burned in high definition to Blu-Ray discs...

pangwu · Post by **pangwu** » Wed May 07, 2008 6:08 pm

I just found out 1 thing. Whenever I use slider or mult-trim to fast forward imported AVCHD file, VS 11.5 Plus will crash and complain error on h264vdechpdll.dll. Seems like this DLL is not stable.

pangwu · Post by **pangwu** » Thu May 08, 2008 3:22 pm

Just did some more testing.

1/ VS 11.5 Plus has no problem to convert AVCHD file (.mts or .m2t) to MPEG2 as long as you don't do any cuting or fast forward playback

2/ For AVCHD file (~11Mbps bit rate), fast forward playback has no problem. But if using bit rate above, it will crash if you use slider to fast forward or multi-trim

3/ Using HD writer 2.5e (bundled software), playback and simple cuting absolutely has no problem

So I think VS 11.5 plus may have some problem to fast forward playback or multi-trim (there is a fast forward function inside multi-trim) Panasonic SD9 (may be because of full HD) files. Please note normal playback and conversion is smooth and ok.