I want smart rendering for AVCHD video

[Hidef1080]

I'm not sure if this needs to be in the Post Production section or in the HMC-150 Workflow section but I'm currently using Premiere CS3 and I plan on upgrading when CS4 is out but I could jump ship...


If I'm working with native AVCHD files and I'm outputting to AVCHD files will Premiere Pro “Smart Render” only the areas with fades, dissolves and extra audio or will it “re-encode” the entire project?


Some of my projects in the past have been very simple and if Premiere or any editor would only render those parts of the project that have changes I could save some time.

Does anyone know if Premiere will do that when CS4 comes out or is there another PC based editor that can do that?

 

[Averdahl]

If I'm working with native AVCHD files and I'm outputting to AVCHD files will Premiere Pro “Smart Render” only the areas with fades, dissolves and extra audio or will it “re-encode” the entire project?

Does anyone know if Premiere will do that when CS4 comes out or is there another PC based editor that can do that?

No, Smart Render is not present in CS3 and will not be present in CS4 either.

Native AVCHD is *very* sluggish in CS4 even on a *very powerful* computer and going native will cost you time. However, you can download the Panasonic AVC-HD to DVCPRO Transcoder and transcode your AVCHD footage to DVCPRO HD that PPro CS3 and CS4 edits like a charm.

Panasonic AVC-HD to DVCPRO Transcoder is free and its fast and user *all* cores on your computer when it transcodes.

/Roger

 

[Hidef1080]

Thank you Averdahl.

I've used the Pany transcoder while working with some test footage I downloaded but I was not too happy with the quailty. The speed was fine however.
I used WinDVD 9 Blu-Ray player to playback the AVCHD MTS files an they looked great!!!
Very great!!! The way I want my finale images to look when burned to DVD or Blu-Ray disc.

However when I transcode and output to different formats from within CS3 the images don't look as clean and that's why I wanted to work with and stay in the native format.

If I have to give up speed for better images then I'm willing to render while I sleep.

I really wanted my cake and to eat it too with faster rendering and good quailty but "you can't alway get what you want" as they say.

Thanks again for your time and input.

 

[Mike Harvey]

Native AVCHD is *very* sluggish in CS4 even on a *very powerful* computer and going native will cost you time.

Define *very powerfull*. I have a Vista64 machine with a Q6600 processor (quad core, 2.4ghz) and 8gig of RAM. Am I going to need to invest in a 3.0 ghz quadcore?

Because honestly, like HiDef I wasn't really thrilled with the results of the transcode to DVCProHD

 

[Averdahl]

Define *very powerfull*. I have a Vista64 machine with a Q6600 processor (quad core, 2.4ghz) and 8gig of RAM. Am I going to need to invest in a 3.0 ghz quadcore?

Because honestly, like HiDef I wasn't really thrilled with the results of the transcode to DVCProHD

I tested it on a computer with an Intel Extreme QX6800 (Quad Core 2.93GHz), 8Gb RAM, ASUS EN8800GTX for graphics and Vista 64-bit and the video stutters and there are lots of artifacts in the footage while playing back. I know anoher person that has tested this on a similar system with a Intel QX6850 and he had similar issues with native AVCHD footage. All testing was done with Premiere Pro CS4 at Adobe Nordic Systems in Stockholm with AVCHD footage from several vendors.

I will probably test it on a HP xw8600 with two Xeon's E5450, 16Gb RAM, Vista 64. That computer has a total of eight cores and i love to see how it performes.

I will probably buy the Panasonic HMC151 and will capture its footage via the cameras HDMI with my Intensity Pro card and thus dont have to worry about native AVCHD.

Intereresting that you both are not thrilled with the transcoded footage. When i get my hands on the camera i will compare native AVCHD, converted footage and footage captured with the Intensity Pro card. Premiere Pro is not known for downconverting HD footage to SD with great results, so that may be the reason behind the dissapointment.

/Roger

 

[MikeGunter]

Hi,

I've transcoded from the AVCHD thoughtfully provided by Shrigg (Darren) and didn't think the results in DVCPro looked that bad.

I'm quite willing to be wrong (I'm old enough to have been proven so often), but the DVCPro conversion looked really nice to me.

The 4x4 microblocks on the PH AVCHD content 'should' look good, that's the point.

What were you folks seeing?

My best,

Mike

 

[Averdahl]

What were you folks seeing?

I see pristine quality in the footage in Premiere Pro when i transcode AVCHD to DVCPro HD. I have not burned any DVD's yet though.

Without knowing, i think the others are referring to the footage Premiere Pro outputs since Premiere Pro is known for not downconverting so good, making the downconverted footage look slighty blurry. CS4 is around the corner though and things may change.

/Roger

 

[Mike Harvey]

The 1080p stuff of Shrigg's that I transcoded actually looked good. The 720p stuff, however, just looked... I dunno... like it lost resolution. Granted it DID since DVCProHD is 960 to AVCCam's 1280, but it looked like there were artifacts left when I played it back. Incidentally, this was out of an Intensity card to a Samsung T24HD moniter, so it was HD all the way.

I thought of investing in Cineform's codec and doing what you want to do... just capture from the camera and not worry about it. Have you captured anything using the BlackMagic Mjpeg codec? I haven't yet... how is that to work with?

 

[Hidef1080]

The 1080p stuff of Shrigg's that I transcoded actually looked good. The 720p stuff, however, just looked... I dunno... like it lost resolution.

That's how I saw it too!
It was like it went from HD to SD.
I only worked with 720 24 and 30p but after I saw how it looked I stopped and started looking into native workflows.


I think I'll give it another try with some 1080p to see.


Also to Averdahl's point, when I output to different formats via PP CS3 there seems to be a quality drop going from “no way” to “close but not a good as good as the AVCHD files”.


The best I could do was outputting to Mpeg2 Blu-ray.
I'll keep testing for now but based on what I'm hearing I may have to transcode for a while because I priced some quad 4 laptops from Dell and the price is far out of my budget for post.
And then too I think my ATI graphic cards may be letting me down because I saw “blockiness” that I'm not seeing on my Nvidia machine.


I remember when I use to shoot any old thing and edit it on any old computer.... Them dayz is long gone!!!!


Thanks again to all.
This is a great site.

 

[mcsmooth]

Averdahl, some interesting comments, I'm not sure if this contradicts something Barry said recently:

I had a chance to see Premiere Pro CS4 with HMC150 footage. Realtime native editing. Saw the guy drag the clips right off the card and edit at full frame rate.

I am doubting they were using a machine that was much faster than what you were using, so I am wondering if the stuttering you mention is unbearable or if scrubbing just isn't as smooth as you'd like. Or maybe that demo was bogus? There shouldn't be artifacts or they need some work on the decoder they are using. Any difference in performance between 720 and 1080 projects/files? CS4 isn't 64 bit, any chance that could be effecting performance?

I have to agree that transcoding to DVCPRO HD in 720 degrades/changes the picture quite a bit. It does make editing pretty smooth even on my aging single-core computer. Until I upgrade, this is a nice option, but I have to say I'm not satisfied with the final output (and do not want to use 1080). I'd be happy with a workflow where I can edit with the DVCPRO HD, then switch to the AVCHD clips when ready for color correction and rendering. This may even work with the AviSynth method now. Does anyone remember the way to replace source files in the bin? Maybe you have to take them offline?

So was "smart rendering" never offered by Adobe with mpeg2? If so, I think we would need to use Main Concept's plugin to get this ability. From what I can tell, that means buying their $490 plugin, weak. People are going to want to be able to quickly cut up footage without re-encoding like they have been doing with DV for years. Might be a bit expensive with PPro.