Editing with Corel pro 2

[libby]

I am having great difficulty editing HD video. It is slow and jumpy and if I put a sound track on it almost freezes up. I have 2G ram and heaps of HDD. Any ideas anyone? The file ss about 40 mins of film - is this too much in HD perhaps? Should I split it into 20 mins max?

[Ken Berry]

Hi Libby. But in effect you have given us no information we can work on. What format HD are you using. What is the make and model of your camera? How were you capturing it? What kind of editing were you wanting to do. And very important with HD video, what are your computer specs? In your profile, you only say you use XP... Well so do a lot of people, but we still don't know what you are using it on.

That is important, particularly if as it turns out you are filming in AVCHD format. That is probably the most demanding of all video formats in terms of computer resources. You simply have to have a really powerful computer to be able to edit it, and believe it or not, it is even more demanding of resources just to play AVCHD. It requires at least a Core 2 Duo computer.

So please get back to us with some more information and someone might be able to help...

[libby]

For the life of me I cannot see how to add specs to my profile. I now have all the specs. How do I do this please?

[Ken Berry]

Well, if you look at the top of this page, there are 4 images. And above the one on the left (Movie Factory) is the word Profile. Click that link and you fill out the details there.

[libby]

Have updated my profile at last - I assume you can access it? I am using a Sony Handcam Super Steadyshot HDR SR12 videocamera and have taken HD film, not ACCHD. I simply want to cut clips, put some titles in and add music, nothing too complex.

The paging file is set to twice the memory.

I have tried today and cut the 40 mins film down to 20 mins but it made no difference, still jumpy and onmce I add a music track it is even worse. Can you help?

[Ken Berry]

I hate to tell you this, but in fact your camera *is* an AVCHD one, and a good one too! It films in high definition mpeg-4 using the H.264 codec. It films standard definition in mpeg-2 apparently.

But when you say you are editing HD, I assume you mean high definition -- and in this case it is most definitely AVCHD, which as you would realise from other posts, is the most demanding video format around at the moment. You have a decent Core 2 Duo which can certainly edit AVCHD and play it back. But, even on my Core 2 Quad, playback in Project mode is difficult and choppy and sounds consistent with what you are experiencing.

Essentially, you have two choices: either continue editing the AVCHD in its native format, tolerate the choppiness and render it to its final format regardless. Then play it back in a software DVD player. If it is smooth and the transitions and titles and music are all there the way you want them, good. The choppiness will only be during the editing.

Or you could switch on SmartProxy. It will take some time, but it will produce mpeg-2 proxy files for editing and playback while editing. That will be smooth. Then when you are satisfied, you apply the editing to the original files. Check the Manual for SmartProxy.

You might also want to look at the top Announcement on this Board about a newly discovered patch. It smooths playback in Clip mode, though on my computer, playback is still choppy in Project mode.

[2Dogs]

You have a decent Core 2 Duo which can certainly edit AVCHD and play it back.

In fact the minimum dual core cpu for HD playback would be an E6600 or better. In Libby's case, however, she should be able to use the video card to offload H264 encoding for playback, when using a suitable media player - generally a late version of WinDVD, PowerDVD or similar.

But, even on my Core 2 Quad, playback in Project mode is difficult and choppy and sounds consistent with what you are experiencing.

And unfortunately, VS cannot offload any encoding to the video card.

It might be worth installing ffdshow.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=53761

I think Smart Proxy is the only realistic option - let's not mention Cineform!

[libby]

Thank you I will try that with great trepidation. Not suyre how it transfers all the changes back to the HD files though. Where do I find the patch to which you refer? Where is the "top board"? Thanks.

[Ken Berry]

You are currently on a web board. I did not say 'top board' but 'top of this board'. By that I mean the Index for this Board, and the very top post which is labelled Announcement. But to make thinks easier for you, the link is here:
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?p=175188#175188

For SmartProxy, as I also said, read the program's Manual or consult the Help files for VS...

2Dogs, you said:

In fact the minimum dual core cpu for HD playback would be an E6600 or better.

I am not sure what to make of this. Libby's e6550 is more up-to-date and powerful than a 2 year old T7200 2.0 GHz core 2 duo processor I have in my HP laptop which also has an older NVidia 7600 graphics card. Yet it can play HD/AVCHD perfectly smoothly. In fact, it was the very computer which first showed me more than a year ago that AVCHD I had edited on my old P4 was in fact done correctly. At the time, I thought it had failed since the P4 was unable to play it yet when I transferred it to the laptop, it was quite smooth.