Converting AVCHD to AVC Intra Crazy?

Erik Naso

Erik Naso

Veteran
I know your thinking why on earth would you want to do that?

My goal is to not transcode to ProRes or DNxHD or another editing codec. I like native editing with P2 media. Cuts like butter. AVCHD? Not so much. So if I convert the AVCHD card to AVC-INTRA 50 or 100 I get the benefits of having a smaller file than ProRes and a archive in a card structure. AM I CRAZY?

Another reason for this is I need to make the archived media cards smaller. I can't save everything on the stations RAID. I was told to pare it down. I can go through the shoots and delete bad takes and shots that suck and it's still in a native format even thought its not AVCHD anymore.

Here are the file sizes for 1 minute of 1080p30 footage .

AVCDHD= 197.3 MB

AVC-INTRA 50 = 392.3 MB
AVC INTRA 100 = 767.2 MB

PRORES 422 = 1.3 GB
PRORES LT = 877.3

DNxHD 36 = 287.3
DNxHD 145 = 1.1 GB

If my goal is to save as P2 media then AVC-Intra would be a good choice. 50 doubles the file size and 100 almost triples it. Is it worth it? Maybe. I would save space by not transcoding to ProRes so thats a plus and have a archive master thats easy to work with in the future.

The conversion is pretty easy with Adobe Media Encoder and it makes one nice folder with the footage in it.

What do you think? Worth it?
 
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If you transcode 1080p footage to AVC-Intra 50, it will degrade your resolution down to 1440x1080 (720p footage will be degraded down to 960x720). While AVC-Intra 100 will not noticeably degrade your AF100 footage, its file sizes are still about half the size of ProRes 422 files. If that's not a problem, AVC-Intra 100 is likely your most convenient option.
 
Erik

I think you need to find out why your AVCHD is more difficult to cut smoothly. (like hot butter).

I have no problems with it ( Win 7).

I think you are on a MAC somaybe you need to check if other MAC users have the same issue.

BTW - I dfo thing that
 
I agree with Shooter, I too edit with Premiere 5.5 (win 7) and things run smooth as silk, I also have a computer with a quad processor, lots of RAM and two Nvidia cards which makes cutting a easy process.
 
Premiere CS6, Windows 7x64 on a Core 2 Quad with 8GB of RAM and the 2011 MacBook Pro 17" with 16GB of RAM...on both, sometimes AVCHD works fine and sometimes its hell...really depends on what you're doing to it. Just basic cutting, usually fine. Throw on practically any effect and it chugs, even with a yellow render bar. Lots of stopping while the audio continues playing too.
 
Gary ... you also need to see why your system chugs. Its not normal and I wouldnt tolerate it.

Throw on practically any effect and it chugs, even with a yellow render bar. Lots of stopping while the audio continues playing too.
Click to expand...

That is so far from my experience in CS6 (or CS5.5).

I can pile on the FX and the layers to anything I throw on the tracks. Usually AVCHD and ProRes HQ as well as PSD, tiff, jpegs, titles.

It never ever chugs and only occasionally it tells me I need to Render something. eg a MB Vignette, Blurs

Never hesitates on any of the fixed FX ( Motion , Opacity etc)

Common to you and Eric is MAC. Maybe something in that !

Often a Red Bar can be played thru as if it isnt even there. Never even flinches at a Yellow one.
 
It sounds like a Mac thing. I edit on three different Macs with pretty much the same issues.

Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 17” 2.66 i7. 8 GB RAM. GeForce GT 330M 512 graphics card.

Early 2009 Mac Pro 2 x 2.26 ghz quad core intel xeon. 16 gb RAM. Quadro 4000.

The other Mac at work is similar to mine.

Looks like for my home machine I should build a new Windows machine.
 
MikeTexas said:
Erik, I'm assuming you are limited to the stations edit bays. Avid Newscutter or something similar?
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At the station we have two Mac Pros with Quadro 4000 cards. We use an internal 3 hard drive RAID0 for media. We switched to Premiere Pro this year after the FCPX thing went down. I made a decision not to go that way and since we had planned on buying CS6 Production Premium anyway it was an easy way to upgrade our edit bay’s. I like Premiere a lot even with the the issues I have with AVCHD. That’s why I still transcode because it doesn’t playback right. The audio will go out of sync and scabbing doesn’t work very well. I can’t even get audio to playback when previewing clips in the bin. ProRes works perfect in every way. This is the same with all three Macs. Bummer.
 
Looks like for my home machine I should build a new Windows machine.
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Well yes ...and also.. maybe yes.

You do not want to get into cross platform hell but my experience is that I hear of less issues with Adobe Premiere on Win systems than MACs.
Argueable obviously.

Then again...on Forums..one hears more about issues than otherwise.

I never read so much about multi seat high endpro users (eg BBC,) having issues.

At a recent road show in NZ.. I heard the staggering uptake of major users into Adobe NLE... and yet I never see them mentioned in the issues.
 
Shooter said:
Gary ... you also need to see why your system chugs. Its not normal and I wouldnt tolerate it.



That is so far from my experience in CS6 (or CS5.5).

I can pile on the FX and the layers to anything I throw on the tracks. Usually AVCHD and ProRes HQ as well as PSD, tiff, jpegs, titles.

It never ever chugs and only occasionally it tells me I need to Render something. eg a MB Vignette, Blurs

Never hesitates on any of the fixed FX ( Motion , Opacity etc)

Common to you and Eric is MAC. Maybe something in that !

Often a Red Bar can be played thru as if it isnt even there. Never even flinches at a Yellow one.
Click to expand...

You’re getting way better performance than I am. Erik sad:(
 
Do you guys use a dedicated "Scratch Disk” for each type of media like audio on a different drive than video and preview files on yet another drive?
I understand this improves system performance but it seems a bit hard to achieve.

On a laptop is using an external CalDigit eSATA RAID0 better than using the internal drive? I just watched a tutorial that said not to use external drives with Premiere Pro CS6. This doesn’t make any sense at all.

http://www.vtc.com/products/AdobePremiereProCS6/GettingStarted/111342
 
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I'm on the "latest" (2010 that is) Mac Pro (5,1 Westmere) 3.33 6 core Xeon. AVCHD plays smooth (as butter with a hot knife cutting) at full res. Starts/stops smoothly, no audio or scrubbing problems.
Once I get into CC, it stutters very slightly, but still plays OK.

Stock 5770 card, no MPE, getting a GTX 570 very soon, may get better performance?

Just today I cut AVCHD + PSD + JPG + Titles, all went well.

Cheer up, Erik!
 
My media assets are spread across my internal drives.

eg

BOOT, Program and Applications Exclusively
Projects & Sessions (for any applications utilising them)
Audio and Graphics
Video - Rushes and Video Sources exclusively ( eg DIs). I add video drives as required and spread data to them also.
Exports and Final Outputs. ( I never export to any drive containg source files)

Outside this I have a NAS where I can back up and transfer files between suites or 'puters. Not used to edit from ever.
ALSO..Many external drives for Rushes backupS and transfer of assets between facilites.
 
Barry_Green said:
Premiere CS5, Windows 7, quad-core laptop, and AVCHD is easy to work with.
Click to expand...

I have Win7, i7 hexa core 3,2GHZ with 24gb ram and I can't do smooth multicam with AVCHD. (the decoding of the files is noticeably tough in generall)
Like I would never in the world hover scrub native AVCHD its just to slow.
Whats my problem???

Everythings plays better with OP1a MXF or native DNXHD from the Hyperdeck.
 
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Shooter said:
My media assets are spread across my internal drives.

eg

BOOT, Program and Applications Exclusively
Projects & Sessions (for any applications utilising them)
Audio and Graphics
Video - Rushes and Video Sources exclusively ( eg DIs). I add video drives as required and spread data to them also.
Exports and Final Outputs. ( I never export to any drive containg source files)

Outside this I have a NAS where I can back up and transfer files between suites or 'puters. Not used to edit from ever.
ALSO..Many external drives for Rushes backupS and transfer of assets between facilites.
Click to expand...
Intresting. You don’t use a RAID for media?

So you have five drives each with specified content in the order of your post?

What’s your Windows computer system specs?
 
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While AVCHD runs well on a good system, there's no way it's ever going to scrub as smoothly as something like DVCPROHD or AVC-Intra.

I have a 2600k quad core, 16gbs of ram, GTX 570, and AVCHD files, while reasonably smooth, are still not buttery smooth like the above mentioned formats.

Such is the price you pay for a long GOP codec.
 
Erik Naso said:
Intresting. You don’t use a RAID for media?

So you have five drives each with specified content in the order of your post?

What’s your Windows computer system specs?
Click to expand...

Erik, have you seen the suggested drive setup on the Adobe forum, like Shooter's?
 
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