Problems with AVCHD

[cybagooseuk]

Hi i am new to this high definition lark so any information would be useful,

i have bought a Panasonic HDC-SD100 camera, and the footage looks excelent when played back through Hd writer which came with the
camera, it stop's when it gets to the first transition in Videostudio Prox2,

it says media studio stopped working then shuts down,
the computer i bought to go with the camera is an Advent QC-Quad core,
8gb ddr2 memory,nvida geforce 9600gt graphics,

also when i put the files in videostudio it doesn't give me the option to

change the project settings to the same as the video file,the files are AVCHD, H.264,1920-1080,

can anyone tell me what project settings i should be using,

or is it something wrong with the media player,

happy for any information about the camera ,media player or the computer i'm using.

[Black Lab]

Moved to VideoStudio forum.

[Ken Berry]

Welcome (if that is the right word! ) to the forums! And to the "wonderful" (NOT) world of AVCHD!

Unfortunately, when you search not very far on this forum, you will find any number of people have any number of problems with both editing and playback of AVCHD. The short answer to just about everything is that X2 still has difficulties with AVCHD -- partly because the format itself has not yet 'solidified' around a constant set of properties. More to the point, the various camera makers seem to use their own proprietary version of the codec which only seems to work properly with their own proprietary software which comes with the camera. The problem there is that this software is usually pretty basic, allowing only the most modest of editing.

(Some people also simply do not have computers powerful enough to edit, let alone play back AVCHD. A good Core 2 Duo is the basic requirement, though a Quad seems to deal with it better, though still with problems. Your own computer is more than powerful enough.)

That does not excuse Corel/X2 for claiming that X2 can handle AVCHD generally. For one thing, it does not appear capable of dealing at all with AVCHD using the new highest quality setting of 24 Mbps (though your Panny has a maximum of 17 Mbps, I think). But Panasonic cameras in particular seem to present problems of their own. One user of a camera very similar to yours was kind enough to send me a DVD with raw output from the camera. He had been having trouble getting VS11.5+ to play it and edit it properly -- as had any number of Panasonic owners using different software packages on different forums... And I am sorry to say, I could never get it to work properly using either VS11.5+ or now, X2, though I had a bit better luck when using SmartProxy. (If that is turned on, X2 will create an mpeg-2 'proxy' version of the AVCHD/mpeg-4 original. You do the editing to the proxy file, and when you are satisfied, it applies the edits to the original. All this takes a lot of time, however...) The consensus at the time seemed to be that Panasonic used its own AVCHD H.264 codec which was not fully compatible with the one used by VS.

So far, though, the only reported successes seem to come from using a Cineform codec and associated program to first convert the AVCHD. The downside is that the Cineform package costs more than X2! See http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?p=179486#179486

So all I can suggest here is that you ensure you have installed the X2 patch which fixed some AVCHD-related problems, but by no means all. And ensure you have the latest version of DirectX installed. The current one is dated March 2009 and can be found at http://tiny.cc/qb58I

Note that it updates both DirectX 9.0c (XP) and 10 (Vista). The number of your DirectX installation will not change, but the patch gives extra functionality in a number of areas and corrects other faults in VS11 in particular -- and now also in X2 -- which appear linked to Windows updates.

Note that DirectX is not included in the usual pattern of Windows automatic updates. It has to be done every so often by the user manually. So unless you have recently done this, you are probably still using the original, non-updated version of DirectX which came with your computer.

As for your question about setting project properties which match your video, I have to add that no, VS does not allow that with any HD video, whether AVCHD or HDV. I don't know why, but have learned to forget about it. The other problems with AVCHD make it pretty moot anyway. But in essence, you don't really need to set the project properties anyway. The important step is not that, but ensuring that after you finish editing, you output your project to a new AVCHD file (Share > Create Video File > AVCHD) and X2 works fine there.

One other footnote is that I have learned never to use SmartRender with any HD (both AVCHD and HDV). I am criticised by some for this, and admittedly, SmartRender is a good feature of Video Studio generally, and it *should* work with HD. But in practice, it often causes new anomalies, particularly with AVCHD, but also with HDV. It certainly takes a lot more time to render without SmartRender enabled. But I simply go away and do something else, and get video without the anomalies, so I am happy enough. Also, since I maintain the identical properties to the original, I personally cannot detect any visible degradation in quality on my 46 inch 1080p HDTV. It is inevitably there since mpeg-2 and mpeg-4 are both lossy formats. But with just one render, and by maintaining the same high quality settings as the original, I don't believe that it is detectable by the human eye.

[JohnDale]

Hi cybagooseuk

First batch convert the AVCHD files to HD mpeg2 using Videostudio X2 and then editing is quite easy. Then you don't have to buy the cineform codec. Quality wise I would say there would be not much difference if any.

[Ken Berry]

That's certainly true -- and HDV/high def mpeg-2 is my own preferred format. But doing that conversion rather defeats the purpose of having the much smaller high def mpeg-4 format which is of equal quality (but still relatively impossible not only to edit, but often also to play...)

[JohnDale]

I can play the AVCHD with no problems on my system using windvd9. As for the benifits of mpeg4 and a HDD camcorder I have been using tape based camcorders for about 20 years now (my daughter is 20 and I have her on tape as a baby) starting out with full size VHS tape then VHSC and then mini DV. I have to say that I am so glad that I don't have to fiddle with tapes any more and the poor quality audio they produce due to mechanism noise.

[sherman39]

Hi cybagooseuk

Further to the comment by Johndale. If you search on my username you will find a posting by me with a blow by blow account of how to batch convert from AVCHD to HDV.
Hope you find it useful.

Regards

Paul

[cybagooseuk]

Thanks to all that took the time to help me with the problems i'm having trying to edit and playback AVCHD files, i'll use the information you have given me and let you know how i got on.