Copy AVCHD to PC or use shotput pro?

F

firehawk

Veteran
I'm wondering what you guys recommend concerning editing the avchd footage. Do you just copy the entire sdhc card contents to your hard drive to edit, or use shotput pro to copy and verify?
I don't own shotput pro and I'm new to avchd.
My computer is a dual processor macpro dual booting to vista 64 and running cs5.

Any help is appreciated as I want to do this right.
 
First thing I do when I get home is copy all the cards from both video cams and still cams onto an external drive so I have the footage safe !! Whew?? I think you are going to struggle with a dual core machine!! I'm not a Mac user but my Win XP DuoCore used to stall on most even 17 mbps clips...you might need something with a bit more horsepower or, for now, maybe transcode the footage down to something like HDV which the DuoCore will handle a lot better. I used to transcode all my AVCHD using New Blue's software called Upshift....worked very well and no noticeable difference either !!

Chris
 
Thanks for the response, Chris.

So just copying the footage is safe enough, so long as I copy the entire contents?
I was concerned after reading about it being safer to use something like shotput pro to verify integrity and a possible safer offload.

The macpro I have has dual quad core processors, (8 total cores) and 20 GB RAM with a 2GB nvidia quadro 4000 with CUDA, so I hope it can do ok with the AVCHD footage.
As soon as I can I want to get another computer with an i7, more RAM, and a matrox mojito card, but for a while, the macpro is going to have to do.

I'll look at new blues upshift also. That may be useful. Thank you.
 
On a secondary note, if I use upshift to convert the AVCHD to mpeg, do you think my other (lesser) machine could handle it then? It's XP 32 bit 3.2GHz dual core, 4 GB RAM with SATA drives. I've edited uncompressed HD on it before but never any of the highly compressed HD codecs.
 
I don't use AVCHD I normally use AVC-Intra 100 on my MacPro. I always use Shotput to verify and to copy to two locations for back up. I have used this method
for about three years and its saved me twice. I'm sold on verifying the copy and copy at least two places using some kind of program. Shotput works for me, there
might be other programs that will work just be sure it will verify the copy.
 
Looks like going price for shotput pro is about $99 and upshift is about $79 from what I've seen. is that about right? I dont see vista 64 listed as supported for shotput pro, though...
Both look very useful.

Thank you also Scott
 
I have two machines and the i7 with 8GB ram handles the native file without any issue. The DuoCore with XP Pro and Vegas 10 32 bit running used to struggle!! That's when I bought Upshift and converted the MTS files to MPEG2 at a 50 mbps bitrate ...quality seems much the same and the DuoCore handles the footage fine...however rendering is quite slow (about 8X realtime) On the i7 it renders in about 1/3rd realtime when I'm going from HD down to MPEG2 SD ...sadly all my brides seem to have awesome flatscreen TV's at least 42" or even bigger BUT only have a standard DVD player!!

The MAC should breeze thru the footage!! There is certainly no harm in backing up to two locations!! I just copy to a 2TB external drive but I keep the SDHC cards from the shoot to one side as a 2nd backup and only re-use them once the project is done and delivered!!

I would definately transcode the MTS files with Upshift if you plan to use the XP machine but still backup the MTS files too!! The only minor issue I found was the extra time needed to transcode!!!

Chris
 
Thank you, guys.
I'm glad to hear my macPro should be up to the task. I think I'm going to get upshift because it would be great to still be able to transcode and have XP machine available to edit shorter projects. I'm going to get shotput pro once I find out if it supports vista 64. The website for v4 sounds like it doesn't, but I found elsewhere that v3 said it did. It's worth $99 to me even if it only saves the day once a year or so. And my workflow plan is to keep the SDHC cards set aside until the project is finished and delivered.
Thanks again. I'm looking forward to editing and compositing with AVCHD.
 
Hi Firehawk

Just remember that the more complex the project is, the harder the CPU has to work...you can manage simple single timeline video on a DuoCore but add a few more video tracks, some compositing and titles and it will grind to a halt, PDQ!!
You can set Upshift to save the transcoded files in the same folder (which I used to do) but it's better to put them in their own folder as they keep the MTS file name and it's easy to drag an MTS file instead of an Mt2 onto the timeline by mistake...transcoding is non destructive so your original MTS files are still there for editing on a faster machine..you will simply end up with two sets of clips. Things like Mercalli Stabilizer and MBLooks will eat into your processor and slow everything down so rather use the faster machine for that sort of project!!

Chris
 
firehawk said:
Do you just copy the entire sdhc card contents to your hard drive to edit, or use shotput pro to copy and verify?
Click to expand...

I do not use ShotPut Pro. I simply copy the entire contents of the card into an organized collection of folders on a hard drive (usually "Project Name"/Footage/Card 1/ and so on). I do this both on OSX and Windows. I have never had an issue with a straight copy messing up. I then get it copied to as many different locations as possible for backup purposes.
 
How does hdv mpeg (using upshift) compare with dvcpro hd?
I've edited dvcpro hd on the lesser system before. Panasonic was supposed to have a free AVCHD to dvcpro hd transcoder available, but all my searches either lead to a dead link, in circles, or back to their avccam page where I do not see it even available. Looks like it was avsilable back in 2009 and 2010...
 
I think they discontinued Version 2 last year sometime and removed all links...You have the option to either transcode to DV-AVI (which I used) or DVCPro which I never used. I might still have a copy on my backup disks if you want to try it?? It was a free download from Panasonic only for AVVCAM cameras so there is no serial numbers needed and I'm pretty sure that it's quite legal for you to have a copy....I never tried the DVCPro files cos with Sony Vegas you needed the Raylight plugin which I never had!!

Chris
 
I sure would like to try it. I've had no luck finding the AVCHD to dvcpro hd and dv avi online. It looks to be very useful as we still shoot SD as well.
 
Hi Firehawk

Play with it and see what you think?? Just realise that you can only input AVCCAM files but can output either SD files (in 3 different configurations) or output to DVCPRO ...The SD file conversion is not too shabby at all..I started off transcoding my less important Realty shoots in the early days directly to DV-AVI and then edited in SD and the result was quite good.

You can grab the pack from my server at : http://www.softweigh.com/transcoder.zip

Enjoy

Chris
 
ChrisHarding said:
Hi Firehawk

Play with it and see what you think?? Just realise that you can only input AVCCAM files but can output either SD files (in 3 different configurations) or output to DVCPRO ...The SD file conversion is not too shabby at all..I started off transcoding my less important Realty shoots in the early days directly to DV-AVI and then edited in SD and the result was quite good.

You can grab the pack from my server at : http://www.softweigh.com/transcoder.zip

Enjoy

Chris
Click to expand...

Thank you very much, Chris.
I really appreciate the help. I hope someday I can help you out. I'll give it a try. I like the idea of maintaining 2 available NLEs just in case I need it. Having the option to transcode AVCHD to DVCPRO HD (with that program) or MPEG (with upshift) means I can still do some work with the old system if I need to. And downconverting to SD looks useful too.

And thank you to everyone else that has chimed in and that will respond after I type this. This site has so many helpful people.
 
I really like the dvcpro transcoder. Works great!

I have another question.
My older PC is running production premium cs2 (premiere pro 2).
I realized it doesnt seem to be able to import dvcpro hd .mxf files.
I haven't bought the upshift mpeg2 converter yet.
Can pp2 work with those files?
I pp2 lists these types:
Adobe HD sdi , which are uncompressed,
Adobe HDV 1080i25 1080i30 (sony60i) 720p30
And then canon hdv

My guess is once I convert the AVCHD to mpeg-2, pp2 might be able to work with only 1080i and 720p.
 
Upshift creates a standard run-of-the-mill MPEG2 HDV file that's 1440x1080 with a 3:1 Pixel Aspect Ratio so even the older NLE's should have no problems at all reading an HDV file as it's an older format than AVCHD or DVCPro . Pop me off a PM and I'll link you to a test file that will help you decide and you can try it out.

Chris
 
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