AVCHD and Previewing....New to Video Editing

[Jeffreyg]

I searched the forum and cannot find answers. I have a new Canon AVCHD camcorder and purchased Videostudio 11.5 to handle the video files. I am new to working with this, so some of this mught be basic. When I try to preview my project on my computer prior to rendering it, the video is unwatchable. It jumps from frame to many frames ahead and is out of synch. Can anyone tell me if this is just the nature of "preview" or if there is a problem. I am running XP Pro with duo core processors and 2 gig RAM so I think my resources are ok. Also, when I try to render to a file for iPod viewing, the rendering gets through about 90% (takes hours to get there) and then crashes the program. If anyone has any experience with this, or tips, or books/tutorials it would be appreciated. I know AVCHD is new.

Thanks

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forums -- and the wonderul world of AVCHD (NOT!!!!)

You say you have a 'duo core' computer. Is that a dual core or a core 2 duo? The difference is important since the general experience here is that you need at minimum a Core 2 Duo or, preferably, Quad, to be able to play back AVCHD smoothly. It's the most demanding of computer resources of all video formats -- a simple Google search will reveal that! I have a Quad and a Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz laptop and both have no difficulty with the format.

But my 'old' P4 with HT 3.0 GHz computer did not. However, the P4 did come within the Corel/Ulead specifications to be able to use SmartProxy for AVCHD work, and yours certainly will too. In effect, SmartProxy produces temporary standard definition versions of your high def originals. Editing is done in real time to the proxy files, but at the end, are applied (slowwwwly) to the originals.

But you may still have trouble playing the edited AVCHD files back smoothly. You might need to test that on a software DVD player like Power DVD or WinDVD. The other option is to burn the AVCHD in that format to a hybrid disc using a standard DVD instead of Blu-Ray. They will play back, in full high def, on a Blu-Ray rated player, which includes the Sony PlayStation 3.

[Jeffreyg]

Thank you for the reply. To specify, my computer has Core 2 CPU @ 2.13Ghz. Sorry, my posting was unclear. I will try your suggestions. My final product came out pretty good, although I burned it in standard def since I have not yet purchased a Blu-Ray. I plan to get one soon, however. If I render to AVCHD format on a standard DVD, wil that play in HiDef on Blu-Ray/PS3 or do I need to burn to an actual Blu-Ray disc?

[Ken Berry]

I would have thought I was pretty clear. So to repeat:

The other option is to burn the AVCHD in that format to a hybrid disc using a standard DVD instead of Blu-Ray. They will play back, in full high def, on a Blu-Ray rated player, which includes the Sony PlayStation 3.

And the quality is amazing -- if of course you have a Blu-Ray player or PS3, a HDMI cable and HDTV!

I have also discovered with the PS3 that it will play an edited high def file in whatever format (AVCHD, HDV etc) back even if it is just copied as is to a large enough USB stick or external drive. The only limitation for the PS3 is that it can only see drives that use FAT32 filing system and not XP or Vista's NTFS. (AFAIK, all USB sticks are formatted with FAT32, and most external hard drives also come formatted with that too.) But FAT32 imposes a maximum file size limit of 4 GB -- but that still allows for a fairly large AVCHD file. You can also burn high def files in their original format to a standard DVD being used as a data (as opposed to video) disc. The PS3 will recognise the format and play it happily. Believe me, it's wonderful.

The hybrid disc I described, by the way, burns a Blu-Ray structure onto the disc. Because of the higher bitrates used in high def video, however, you can burn less video to a standard DVD than you could with standard def video. Although I have burned 56 minutes of AVCHD to a single layer DVD using a bitrate which averaged around 12000 kbps (max. 15000), while it played back in better condition than an SD DVD, I have given that up because to me it wasn't quite high def quality. So now I burn them using a Constant Bitrate of 16800 which is the default setting for many of the AVCHD cameras. That allows me up to around 40 minutes or a little less per DVD, but the quality is excellent. And after all, blank DVDs these days are literally 100 times cheaper than a Blu-Ray disc, so who cares how many I have to use???

[Jeffreyg]

Thanks again for the reply. Being new to all of this I didn't realize that the "Hybrid" you were referring to was simply a standard DVD in AVCHD format. I'll get it all figured out eventually.

Thanks for all of the advice. I will use your suggestions as I get experience with video editing. I am learning that it is a science unto itself that requires time and attention.

One last question: If I am not a "gamer" would you recommend still getting a PS3 or would a Blu-Ray player be better. I know the PS3 is more versatile in its ability to play games, but I have heard that both the picture and sound quality on a standard Blu-Ray player are noticably better on Sony Blu-Ray than on PS3. I don't know if this is really true since I haven't been able to do a head to head test myself.

[Ken Berry]

Well, I am not a gamer at all, and bought the PS3 specifically for playing back high def video. And I bought it after reading about half a dozen reviews, including the computer magazine to which I suscribe, all of which reached the conclusion that it is, apart from anything else, the best (and most versatile) Blu-Ray player currently on the market. So I don't know exactly what you have "heard" or its source. But if the Sony stand-alone player is noticeably better than the PS3, then it must be startling indeed!! (Sony, of course, makes the PS3 and as far as I am aware uses the same engine in it as its stand-alone Blu-Ray players. And of course PS3 games are burned on Blu-Ray discs...)

If you *do* buy a stand-alone player, of whatever brand, though, you need to be aware that not all of them can play these hybrid discs. You would need to ask about this or check the manual or perhaps on-line information from the makers. I think it may even be marked on their box and casing -- a little like the markings on a SD player saying that it will also play VCDs, Photo discs and even DivX discs. But you would need to be quite sure about this before purchase.

And I should add that I simply don't know if any of these stand-alone players, including the Sony one, can play back edited HD video in its native format using a USB stick, external hard drive or data DVDs. Something else you would need to check on if you adopt any of these routes... Mind you, I didn't know the PS3 could do that either when I bought it -- just discovered it by chance when using a 16 GB USB stick which had a PS3 update patch on it. That is what I was doing, following the PS3 Manual for updates. But the USB stick also had not only an AVCHD file on it, but also a HDV one. And the PS3 happily recognised them both and played them with no problem.

And another footnote -- all of this presupposes that you have a decent HDTV to play the high def back on, and preferably a HDMI connection between the player and HDTV. I only recently bought a 115 cm LCD HDTV with true HD (i.e. 1920 x 1080p). And at the risk of hyperbole, playback of HD, whether a hybrid disc or native format, via the PS3 connected via HDMI, is simply fantastic. To tell the truth, I now have difficulty watching SD-sourced material on it and tend to use an old Digital TV set-up for that!

And yet another footnote (sorry if it seems I am rambling... ). You might want to look into this further, but I am pretty sure you can simply copy your edited AVCHD video back to its SD card (or hard disk in a HDD AVCHD camera) and connect your camera to your HDTV (again via HDMI if your camera has such a connection -- and I think your Canon will have. My Canon HV20 certainly does).

With the HDV cameras, you have to make sure the exported video is in the identical transport stream HD mpeg-2 format as the original in the camera, and VS11.5+ has a glitch in this regard with Canon HDV cameras. Curiously, I can export back to my camera using VS10+ with a Canon patch. I am not sure, though, about the situation with the format settings of edited AVCHD exported to an SD card or HDD AVCHD camera. But using your camera as a high def playback device is another interim option you need to explore.