Capturing Full-HD and “Scene-detection”, but with MSP8!!

[Wim Kok]

I’m considering to buy a new Panasonic 3MOS HD camcorder HDC-HS700 or HDC-SD700,
so switching from DV to AVCHD, but I don’t want to give up MSP8. Because I have not yet a HD camera I can’t try certain operations in practice. Conversion of the MPEG 4 output of the camera into MPEG 2 wil be the first step to make, I think. But can I do so by simply downloading the footage from the SD-card to my computer and use a videoconverter suitable for these formats? What happens with “Scene-detection” (is that still available with HD?) And when it comes to “capturing” , what is left be captured (from a tape), because there is no tape and the footage is as MPEG 2 on my HDD. Just “Insert Video file” and that’s it?
You can ask me many things about a lot of camera’s between my first Kodak-box (from the time when sex was dirty and the air was clean) and my actual DV camera. But for the switch to HD, or AVCHD I really need some help. Hope somebody can answer my questions about scene-detection and capturing. Thanks in advance, regards W.K.

[Ron P.]

The only form of HD MSP8 supports is HDV, which pre-dates the more recent AVCHD.

With the camcorders that use hard disk drives or SD cards, you are just copy/pasting the video files from the camcorder's disk drive or SD card to your computer. No "real-time" transfer or capturing. Once you have the files on your PC, you just insert that file into your video editing program. Sadly MSP will not be able to edit them.

[Wim Kok]

Thanks Ron, that is a very clear answer. There has been a MPEG 4 Plug-in; is that a possibilty if such a plug-in can still be found? Regards, W.K.

[Ken Berry]

I suspect that plug-in was for standard definition H.264 mpeg-4, not high definition AVCHD H.264. And as Ron said, MP was simply not made for AVCHD, period.

I notice that you have not filled in your Profile, so we have no idea what your computer specifications are. For AVCHD editing and playback, you will need at least a decent Core 2 Duo.

Also, most AVCHD cameras come with their own software, which is usually pretty basic. But it is often better to at least use that software to transfer the video from the camera to the computer, instead of relying on VS to do that. Once it is on your computer, you then Insert in the usual way into VS.