Tom Wolsky reckons that FCE will not support AVCCAM

[studio1972]

In case you don't know who Tom is, he's an expert on Final Cut and writes books etc. on the subject. Anyway, according to Tom, he thinks that Apple will consider AVCCAM to be a Pro format, and will therefore reserve suport for FCP/FCS.

I don't know if Tom is basing this on anything other than opinion, but I would imagine he has pretty good info from inside Apple on this sort of thing. I guess there is a logic in saying AVCCAM is equivelant to DVCAM (which also is not supported by FCE).

Thread is here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1807023&tstart=0

Stu

[Hidef1080]

Is not AVCCAM just AVCHD in a pro camera?
We get a higher bitrate in PH mode but outside of that it's still AVCHD right?
The lower bitrates which a number of people use should be supported???

[studio1972]

The lower bit rates already seem to work ok for me. PH mode is flakey. I guess that you could argue that DVDCAM is just a higher bitrate version of DV as well. Obviously, there is no technical reason for them not to support it, but maybe a business reason, like to sell more copies of FCS.

[Barry_Green]

I guess that you could argue that DVCAM is just a higher bitrate version of DV as well.

It's not. It's *identical* to DV. Only difference between DVCAM and DV is that DVCAM was recorded on a faster-moving tape.

(okay, technically there's another difference, locked audio vs. unlocked, but not really because the DVX, HVX, and HD100 all implemented locked audio in regular miniDV so miniDV could have locked audio too).

[David Saraceno]

That's all I saw. A 35% faster tape speed.

If Tom truly knows anything, he simply is not permitted to say it, particularly as the Apple Discussions. He knows that.

There's no secret that AVCHD will be handled natively by the next version of FCP.

It was announced at IBC last September.

[Barry_Green]

If FCE intends to support AVC-HD, then it should support AVCCAM too, because AVCCAM is not a format at all. The FORMAT is AVCHD. AVCCAM is a name of a camera lineup aimed at professional instead of consumer use. But the format is the same as that used by the consumer lineup. AVCHD was always intended to support up to 24mbps.

I don't keep up with what Apple's doing so I am sure Tom knows far more than I do about what Apple has planned, but frankly it would seem bizarre and unacceptable if Apple was to arbitrarily rule that FCE can only support certain types of AVC-HD. I mean, they either support the format or they don't, right? But if FCE didn't support DVCAM then I guess there's precedent. (but how would it KNOW that it was DVCAM? DVCAM was identical. Maybe they meant DVCPRO, which was also data-stream identical except in PAL?)

[David Saraceno]

From what I see Barry, Apple tries to differentiate its product lines:

1. iMovie - free - converts to AIC, no pro res, no support for progressive imports - at least 24p.

2. FCE 4 - $199.00 - supports HDV, DV, and some AVCHD. Again, I don't think any progressive support. Transcoding to AIC again from AVCHD.

3. FCS2 - support for the professional cams/codecs. HMC150 is unusual in that it shoots AVCHD, not AVCIntra - but shoots at full raster and at the limited of 24 mbps.

[Barry_Green]

I guess what I'm asking is - I mean, FCE supports HDV, right? So it supports an XLH1? (but only in 60i, I'm guessing). Or an HD250? But even so, they wouldn't exclude the XLH1 or JVC HD250 simply because they're $8,000+ cameras aimed at pros, would they?

So the HMC150 uses the same AVCHD format as specified in the AVCHD-info.org site, so ... would they specifically exclude a product that uses the format as it was intended? Seems odd, right?

I mean, if Panasonic stepped outside the restrictions of AVCHD to create a new super-format, then sure I could see how FCE wouldn't go out of its way to support that. But I guess I'm saying they're either AVCHD-compliant or they're not, right?

[David Saraceno]

I agree totally.

And it makes no sense.

Apple has its reasons for doing this. It's just that it doesn't make sense to the actual users.

Now, can you bring all your resources to convince Panasonic to port the AVCHD viewer and AVCHD to p2 utility to the Mac?

please?

[Barry_Green]

You know how well that went with P2 Viewer... it took 'em a couple of years. I can of course nag everyone, but I think your best bet is a dual-boot intel mac so you can toggle over to a Windows partition to run AVCHD Viewer and the MainConcept transcoder.