Best to convert AVCHD to cineform for CS5 editing?

J

jcoom

New member
Is it better to convert AVCHD footage to Cineform for editing in CS5. I have read CS5 will edit
fine without converting and that it should be converted. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
 
CS4 with a Core i7 and a mediocre GT 240 can edit AVCHD natively. A few transitons and filters can be applied and played back in realtime but not all. It is best to do cut only editing and then apply the effects using CS4 and a Quad Core CPU.

CS5 is a different story depending on the CPU and GPU in your system. Some one used the MPE hack with a mediocre GT 240 and stated they could play 5 layer of native AVCHD. I have a GT 240 and an i7 CPU but I do not have CS5 to test this claim.
 
jcoom said:
Is it better to convert AVCHD footage to Cineform for editing in CS5. I have read CS5 will edit
fine without converting and that it should be converted. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

It largely depends on what you mean by "edit". If you mean just cutting and splicing with no fancy effects, color grading, etc. then the answer is probably no. You don't *need* to transcode to edit. You still might want to, but that's personal preference.

OTOH, if you want to do more advanced editing, with grading, rotoscoping, changes in colors and/or saturation, contrast, etc. then perhaps transcoding will help. In that case, you'd want to transcode to something that's at least 4:2:2 and more than 8 bits. Why? For more headroom for making your corrections. This will help keep artifacts such as banding at bay.

So... you don't *have* to. But you may *want* to. Depends on what you are doing.
 
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