AVCHD editing in CS4, transcoding & organizing help!

S

shawn.w

Active member
Hey Everyone,

I'm looking to form an editing strategy for a project im shooting on my HMC150. I'm not entirely sure what the constraints of working with AVCHD (.Mts files) are for CS4 4.1, could some one please fill me in? Ive read some posts that say you MUST retain the original file structure from the card, and others that say just copying over the STREAM folder with the clips inside will be fine.

In my case, this is a long term project, so being able to rename each clip and organize them in their own folders would be a huge advantage. But I will also probably be transcoding, using cineform prospect HD i hope, so do i need to retain the whole AVCHD file structure and names for this to work? Because if not i would really love to just copy over the STREAM folder from now on, delete the clips i know i will not need, then organize and rename the rest of the .Mts files before transcoding them. Is this a sound workflow?

I have heard that the other data outside of the STREAM folder is very useful for playback and thumbnails and finishing to blue ray, but i will be finishing to DVD and the web, and im not worried about playing the clips back on the camera again, so i dont see the need for anything but the STREAM folder, unless leaving the whole structure out will hurt my process somehow that i am not seeing? Please let me know as im very new to this, Thanks so much!

- Shawn
 
Here's what I do.....

First off the original files from the card dont take uip too much space so I keep a back up of every card in folders properly labeled. If there are several cards used in one project it is labeled by what is on that card, For example, A folder named "FILM ONE" will contain other folders labeled by scene, "SCENES 2,4 and 6" and "SCENES 1,3 and 5" and inside those folders are the "Private" folders from the card.

Now I use the Panasonic transcoder and convert to DVCProHD. So once I do the conversion I then use the same system to organize those files. keeping the "CONTENTS" folder in place of the "PRIVATE" folder.

Here I have two sets of the same footage, Only my EMERGANCY back up is in the original format and takes up very little space. And since I have the entire card structure I'll never have a worry. The stream folder is 95% of the private folder so there really isn't too much more on the card that it would make it not worth keeping.

Now to give you a better Idea of what Kind of space your dealing with....
My last film was shot over 4 dys. The footage pulled off my HMC added up to 17.4 gigs total. Once converted to DVCPro HD it became 70.4 gigs.

I hope that all made sense and helped you out in some way.
 
Thanks Zero!

I'll be doing some green screen work and adding in some motion graphics to the footage. Some have said this is a case for using cineform over the free transcoder, what do you think?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top