Slow processing of AVCHD

[newfielander]

Was wondering could anyone tell me why my Corel VideoStudio ProX4 program is having a hard time to run AVCHD MTS files.Seems like they are slowing my computer to a crawl.Causing the program to quite. My computer is a quad core, 3.00 GHz 4g's of ram.Lots of hard drive space.I don't understand it.
Any sugestions?

[Ken Berry]

You post had nothing to do with the thread in which you posted it (finding special effects), so I have split it to avoid confusion.

As you may be aware, AVCHD is the most demanding format on computer resources. I too have a Quad, but it moves slowly for me too.

But it may depend on exactly what properties your AVCHD has. For instance, if it is from a camcorder which films in 50 or 60 fps full progressive, then VS cannot handle that if it is not 1280 x 720p. I have been pressing Corel to rectify this, and perhaps it will come in the next version. But not now. And if indeed your camcorder shoots such video, then it could also have a bitrate of 27 Mbps, which VS also can't handle.

Please right click on one of the clips in the VS timelineand copy ALL its Properties here. Then we might have a better idea of what is going on.

But otherwise, a good way of speeding things up is to enable Smart Proxy and use that. It creates a copy of your AVCHD in a small standard def format. You edit that, and when satisfied, the edits are applied to the AVCHD.

[newfielander]

Hi , I apologize for having my question in the wrong area,but thanks for your responds,thanks so much.
The properties of the clips are
Video
File format NSTC HDMV
Video type H264 video,Upper field first
Attributes 24 bits, 1920x1080,16:9
Frame rate 29.970 frames/sec
Data rate Variable bit rate (Max.16800kbps)

Audio
Audio type Dolby Digital Audio
Total samples 1,417,417 Samples
Attributes 48000Hz 5.1 Channels
Layer None
Bit rate 384kbps

[Ken Berry]

No. Those properties are absolutely standard, middle of the road AVCHD, and with a bitrate like that, I would guess the camcorder is a couple of years old or more. So your computer should be able to handle it.

All I can do is underline my final suggestion above to use SmartProxy. It is enabled by default, but you might want to check in Preferences that it is in fact enabled. In preparing the proxy files, VS does take some time, so you have to be patient. And in fact if SmartProxy *is* enabled, then it could be that VS is preparing the proxy files while you are editing, and the slow responses could be attributable to that.

[newfielander]

Hi, thanks for the responds, but your guess of the age of my cam is incorrect, its one of the lastest panasonic camcorders, TM900. Just for a trial,I put 8 clips totalling a time of 2:25 in the time line and save them without doing any editing,all i changed was I selected AVCHD(1920x1080), join them all as one big file? and it works fine, but i did notice that the file size was greatly reduced, from lenth of time of the 2:25 to 47 seconds. How do you explain that?
what i simply did was in the drop down option of Create Video File I selected AVCHD, than the third one down, AVCHD(1920X1080) I'm guessing the P at the end makes the difference.

[newfielander]

HI
For curiousity sake I again save the same project as AVCHD(1920X1080P) and VS runs the file fine. Seems the only trouble VS is having is playing the clips before they are made into one big file.and the other difference is the total size of the files before joined to one is 2:25 in lenth and 276MB is size, where after saved to one file as AVCHD(1920X1080P) its 2:26 and 308mb.

[Ken Berry]

FWIW, my Quad also has difficulty playing back AVCHD in Project mode, which is what I think you are talking about. This is because VS is trying to throw a complete project together, using complex and demanding video (AVCHD), plus transitions etc and possibly some background music and other effects, but having to do it on the fly.

Actually rendering it to a new file which then plays back smoothly is doing what it should do.

I can't account for the extra second, but the larger video file probably results from the fact that you used the default bitrate in the AVCHD output setting, which is IIRC 18 Mbps. And the basic rule is that the higher the bitrate, the bigger the file.

The reason I thought your camcorder might have been an older one is that 16.8 as a maximum bitrate was common in camcorders two or three years ago. These days, they tend to use 18, 24 or even the new maximum of 27 Mbps.

[newfielander]

Hi Ken, there is no transitions involved, no music, nothing only the video files
Also someone is confused, cause the cam has a much higher bit rate than 16.8, even though i know the properties of the file is say that.I guess I'll have to do a bit more research.

[Ken Berry]

It probably has different quality settings|: HQ, SQ etc. And it could be that you are using a setting which does not automatically use a higher bitrate. That will of course be in the camera manual and menu.

[newfielander]

The one thing that bugs me is , i have another simple editing program ,and it will run the clips fine, but the program don't have any nice effects like my VS.

[Ken Berry]

What's the other program? If it's the one that came with the Panny, then yes, it is of course optimised to work with the camera. One of the minor irritants in life is that Sony and Panasonic in particular, and now also some of the other major camera manufacturers, have introduced their own tweaks into the AVCHD codecs used by their camcorders. But it is then left to general software makers like Corel to accommodate these differing tweaks into one piece of software...

[aljimenez]

While the camera can record higher bit rates, not all subject matter will use the highest bit rates. These cameras are quite sophisticated and they will not use any higher bitrate than necessary for the subject being recorded... Al

[newfielander]

Hi Ken, the program is Nero.

[Ken Berry]

I find Nero quite good -- even sophisticated -- these days when it comes to authoring/burning a video disc. But I agree it's more limited when editing.