Loss of video quality after adding clip to project

[terryjb]

I am a complete newbie to video and have not yet picked up on the jargon so may not describe things too clearly.

I have a Panasonic HDC-SD9, my first camcorder, with which I am delighted.

I purchased VS Pro X2 recently and am delighted with its functionality. But I do have a problem.

The quality of video output direct from the camera media is exceptional, crisp, colourful images on PC or 50 inch TV screen.

No problem importing to VS where the clips play equally well.

This all changes once the clips are added to projects. Now when played as part of a project there is fringing and pixellation of images. This is not the case if I switch back and play the clip.

If I burn to disk the quality replicates what I see playing the project in VS, very disappointing.

I have read many posts and am starting to learn about the challenges, but have either not found a solution or not recognised it when I saw it.

Any help would be welcome.

[Ken Berry]

terry -- welcome to the forums! But I wish it were in more positive circumstances. If you use the Search button above and simply add in 'SD9' as the search target, and set Video Studio as the forum to search, you will get a ton of messages. Unfortunately, they indicate that VS has a particular problem with your camera. Apparently, Panasonic uses its own codec which is not necessarily the same as that used by other cameras or VS. The program that comes with the camera can handle it correctly, but of course, that is made by Panasonic! But people say it is far too simple. Anyway, read some of the threads from that search. Maybe you will get some hints as to other programs which might be able to handle the SD9 footage.

The other problem of a more general nature is that AVCHD in general is a most demanding format. It requires a lot of computer resources even to be able to play it correctly.

But good luck...