Final Cut Pro 7-What does this mean for us?

On my i7 920 @ 3.8ghz with 6gb triple channel, 2TB raid and mid range Nvidia card I can edit full frame 1920X1080 AVCHD in Edius without rendering (straight cuts). In Premiere CS4 (latest) I can preview two layers with effects, titles in RT. I'm sure Vegas is similar to CS4 due to the fact that they both "preview" with a loss in quality to make it smooth. Edius doesn't do this... It's true RT full raster out all the time. No "preview".
All three can edit the AVCHD files right off the SD cards without having to transcode first.
 
David S. said:
Barry Green has indicated here that he is unable to achieve much, if anything, past straight cuts editing with 720p footage.
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I setup this afternoon with some AVCHD, 24p "PH" mode media that I shot last November on an HMC150.

I used my 17" MBP, older version, CS4 Premiere v4.1.0, and was able to run some of the AVCHD footage in the 'small' preview window. I also noted that there was some 'futzing' around Primiere did. Once that had 'completed', the footage ran. but I still saw strange artifacts, which I can only attribute to the processor having difficulty keeping up...

Now, here is the thing... the AVCHD codec was 'designed' to be used on 'cheap' hardware, cheap encoding, cheep decoding... on playback on the HMC150... it plays 'fine', I have a Sony HDR-SR11, and it also does AVCHD, and again it can play to screen via the HDMI cable, as well as to the LCD on the camera...

Yet, here with all this 'powerful' software, powerful computer, it looks like I'm trying to play the damn thing on a Pentium I... nay... how about a 486...

And, both Apple for FCP, and Adobe for CS4 and presumably CS5, are supporting codecs with much higher bit rats than the measly 20-25 whatever the AVCHD PH gives...

And need it be said... when I edited the original movie, having waited for the transcode to AIC... everything played 'wonderfully'... well, since I'm not an RT obsessed worker, it played well enough for what I expect...


I think something in Denmark stinks to high heaven...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Now, here is the thing... the AVCHD codec was 'designed' to be used on 'cheap' hardware, cheap encoding, cheep decoding... on playback on the HMC150... it plays 'fine', I have a Sony HDR-SR11, and it also does AVCHD, and again it can play to screen via the HDMI cable, as well as to the LCD on the camera...
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I think you're messing something up here. AVCHD is no codec, it is a recording format specification and includes much more than just a codec definition. AVC aka. H.264 can indeed be used on lower powered consumer electronics, but AVCHD plays on a much higher level and higher bitrates too.

Also don't forget that embedded systems like cell phones or other portable media playing devices capable of playing AVC have dedicated hardware to do so. That means that they're having DSP chips optimized for sole purpose of decoding or encoding of AVC material and so does every camcorder.
A regular computer CPU on the other hand is a multi purpose CPU and while it usually has enough power to decode high bitrate high resolution AVC per software that's pretty much consuming all the power it has.

Don't be fooled, a cheap dedicated chip which was designed to achieve a special task can still easily outperform an expensive multi purpose CPU for the same task.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Now, here is the thing... the AVCHD codec was 'designed' to be used on 'cheap' hardware, cheap encoding, cheep decoding... on playback on the HMC150... it plays 'fine', I have a Sony HDR-SR11, and it also does AVCHD, and again it can play to screen via the HDMI cable, as well as to the LCD on the camera...

Yet, here with all this 'powerful' software, powerful computer, it looks like I'm trying to play the damn thing on a Pentium I... nay... how about a 486...

.
Click to expand...

Because an NLE is much more than a "player". I can play AVCHD on my kids Celeron 3ghz eMachine just fine.. No problem playing it! Editing on the other hand... Nope. Because of the long GOP every cut/edit needs to be re-encoded just to play it back! The editor is decoding and encoding just to play back the edited video.
Apples to oranges.
 
David S. said:
Yes, it would.

However, I've asked Skilled twice about what his PC set up is capable of doing with native RT AVCHD ingest.

FCP doesn't do native. But if there is a program that does:

multiple video tracks
FX
Titling
Grading
1080 and 720
real time
native
without rendering

then please provide the specifics so we all can assess what software and hardware we should use?

FCP is just tool. I would edit with a broom if it worked better than FCP.
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OK..Let me be more specific for you. If you will take the time to read on of my previous posts...my pc set up is plain to see. Here is my personal experiance with Vegas. All with NO transcodng.

1. Used Version 8.0 32bit, in both 1080 and 720p. As many as 4 tracks all with FX. It was slow..crashed a few times. And was very problematic if not unusable with 72060p footage. Geen frames and other weird stuff..just did not like 60p. Solution was to render to avi intermediats.
2. Switched to 64 bit and it was smother..but same problems.
3. Upgraded to 9 64bit. Most of the smoothness is better preview screen looks better with the 32bit floating enabled. Looks as good as the final render.
4. 9a update fixed the 720 60p issue...no need to trancode any longer. It takes anything I throw at it. Used as many as 4 tracks with FX with no real issues. I still get a little stutter on the first few frames during playback but no crashes or green frames. Also using a high end nvidia card with 1 gig of ddr3 250gts helps.
Note: You cant use magic bullet works for the 9 64bit as it is not supported. However I have been selected to be a beta tester for them because of my set-up. As of yet they have not had anything ready but said it should be soon.

Hope this helps.
 
ATL Media Group said:
Because an NLE is much more than a "player". I can play AVCHD on my kids Celeron 3ghz eMachine just fine.. No problem playing it! Editing on the other hand... Nope. Because of the long GOP every cut/edit needs to be re-encoded just to play it back! The editor is decoding and encoding just to play back the edited video.
Apples to oranges.
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I hesitate to point out that HDV is a 'long GOP' encoding scheme... and of course, this seems to be 'playing' for many people. Further, Sony Vegas seems to handle AVCHD to some set of people's satisfaction, at least at the level of splicing and dicing clips. Perhaps with a time line with 10 tracks stacked on top of each other, people would be complaining... but at the moment a 'single' AVCHD clip is a 'hassle' for anything but Vegas it seems...

I just looked it up... HDV was a joint deal between JVC and Sony, JVC and Apple now support this MPeg2 'long GOP' encoded media 'directly'... which JVC doesn't really 'say it strong, or say it loud', is essentially HDV albeit without the need to compress so low as to go on to mini-DV tapes. Now that they can put the video data to SDHC cards...
 
My point was that on my kids celeron system I can "Play" AVCHD... Can't "EDIT" it even with Vegas. Now, on my i7 I can edit it natively with Vegas and CS4 just fine.
 
ATL Media Group said:
My point was that on my kids celeron system I can "Play" AVCHD... Can't "EDIT" it even with Vegas. Now, on my i7 I can edit it natively with Vegas and CS4 just fine.
Click to expand...


And I was pointing out that Mpeg2 with long GOP seems to be 'playable' and is being supported in 'native' mode, and has been since HDV. The bit rate given for the JVC presentation I was at a few weeks ago, was, I think, about 35 Mbs, which to me is not so phenominally over the 21 or so Mbs of AVCHD as implemented on the HMC-150 (and others.).

And as I pointed out, I can 'accept' the fact that once one builds a more complex time line than a single stream, that there may be degredation of the playback, depending on the power of the processor... but just 'import' and 'play' of the original clip, I'm still unconvinced that the biggest problem is anything but a lack of interest on the part of Adobe and Apple, to really give useful support.
 
Ahh.. Ya. I see.. AVCHD is not the same as HDV obviously. I should have been more specific in my original post. Long GOP is not the only thing that makes it tougher to edit.
 
Clark, if you were skilled at FCS and not at Premier, and considering whether to buy the new FCS or CS4 (for AVCHD) which would you choose?
 
Okay.... I'll give my opinion.. I AM very skilled at Edius. Been a user since 1.0 and a beta tester as well. I use Encore to author Blu-Ray so I decided to switch back to Premiere and am happy I did. For AVCHD I don't need to transcode anything! Just edit right off of the SDHC card! When I'm ready for Blu-Ray it's integrated so I just dynamic link to Encore and in minutes I'm authoring a BD-R.
Go with CS4.
 
Personally I find no difficulty whatsoever in transcoding to ProRes. I don't care one bit that I can't edit avchd natively. All I'm worried about is being able to produce the footage I shot and have it come out great.. and final cut is what works for me. I don't see why there's such a huge emphasis on editing natively when worst case scenario you just take a few minutes to transcode to a format that works for you... whatever that may be.
 
Thomas Lew said:
Personally I find no difficulty whatsoever in transcoding to ProRes. I don't care one bit that I can't edit avchd natively. All I'm worried about is being able to produce the footage I shot and have it come out great.. and final cut is what works for me. I don't see why there's such a huge emphasis on editing natively when worst case scenario you just take a few minutes to transcode to a format that works for you... whatever that may be.
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I used to think the same thing using Edius. I could edit AVCHD but it was cuts only. I would transcode to Canopus HQ files which was pretty quick.
You don't realize how much better/easier/convenient it is to edit the files without any conversion until you actually do it.
 
ATL Media Group said:
I used to think the same thing using Edius. I could edit AVCHD but it was cuts only. I would transcode to Canopus HQ files which was pretty quick.
You don't realize how much better/easier/convenient it is to edit the files without any conversion until you actually do it.
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I've been working with a company that uses a JVC model camera which makes .mov files you can natively work in final cut with. I'll be honest it's been pretty freaken sweet editing natively but it's all perspective really. When I think about capturing tapes in real time getting tape problems.. transcoding seems a blessing.
 
Thomas Lew said:
I've been working with a company that uses a JVC model camera which makes .mov files you can natively work in final cut with. I'll be honest it's been pretty freaken sweet editing natively but it's all perspective really. When I think about capturing tapes in real time getting tape problems.. transcoding seems a blessing.
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Oh ya.. Exactly! That was one of the big deals with the new GY-HM series of cameras (the 700 and 100) that they could capture to QT for direct editing in FCP...

Agreed... file transfer with transcoding is much better than capturing from tapes.

Editing directly is even better isn't it!
 
Thomas Lew said:
I've been working with a company that uses a JVC model camera which makes .mov files you can natively work in final cut with. I'll be honest it's been pretty freaken sweet editing natively but it's all perspective really. When I think about capturing tapes in real time getting tape problems.. transcoding seems a blessing.
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, the JVC '.mov' capability really is because HDV has been in FCP for 'years', and now with the use of the solid state media, JVC can up the bit rate to 35 Mbs, rather than worrying about having to 'squeeze' it onto mini-DV tape.
 
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