Lightroom 3 doesn't import/see Panasonic GH2 video files?
- Thread starter khina
- Start date
memphishills
Active member
Lightroom updated to allow it to view the .MOV files that came off the Canons and Nikons, but it isn't designed for AVCHD, to advanced a codec for Lightroom right now, maybe soon though.... hopefully.
thanks every one. How did you do it? I just found out from Adobe that it will not read AVCHD. I'm going crazy. I hope I'm not wasting money on Lightroom.
What software GH2 owners are using for archiving and organizing?
Ben_B
Veteran
A nifty little thing called "Finder." It sorts everything on your computer with icons representing each file, and then lets you put them into folders (which you can name.) The folders can then be accessed via a hierarchical directory structure. Files can then be browsed via list, column, thumbnail, and coverflow views, or searched for (it keeps an index of everything.) It comes free with every mac, there is a PC equivalent though called "Explorer" that matches a lot of the same basic functionality, although its a little more unwieldy and the interface is not as well designed.
I do the archiving and organizing myself. I find the file on the SDHC card and copy it to a folder in my CPU. Private>AVCHD>BDMV>STREAM> copy file to hard drive. Then just open Lightroom and away you go. I shoot only in AVCHD at the moment.
dan.carter
Well-known member
khina, If you're using Windows 7, both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Picasa 3 (no sound for AVCHD) do a very good job. Windows Live Movie Maker will edit your AVCHD files as well. Both program are free.
Good luck.
khina, I must be missing something. Lightroom 3 is a digital still photo darkroom/shoebox. It may be able to import and organize MJPEG video files, but that's as far as it goes with them. Lightroom is for still photos, not video. As has been pointed out before in this thread, whatever functionality it has regarding video management is wholly duplicative of the free and built-in Finder (Mac) and Windows Explorer (PC) utilities you already have on your computer. If you bought LR3 thinking it would be your video files manager, you either got bad advice or you didn't research this.
I do feel your pain, though. This is an area for which neither platform has really come up with a no-brainer solution. With still photos there are any number of good, easy shoeboxes, some of them free like Pikasa, others cheap as chips like iPhoto. Pros and enthusiasts can upgrade to Aperture on Mac and Lightroom on Mac/PC. But for video files, we all have to sort of kludge our own shoebox solutions. This is due to the sweeping changes in consumer video hardware and formats -- normal people just weren't shooting high quality HD video on solid-state media cards a few years ago, and most people simply don't have a big enough hard drive to store all the HD footage they shoot like they do with still photos. It's a problem that will be solved in the near future on both platforms, but right now it's a bit of a crapshoot.
The easiest solution for most people regardless of platform is to simply buy a 2TB hard drive and delegate it to HD video shoebox duty. They're cheap enough now at $80-100 and that's enough space to last you a good long while. Plug it into a USB port or better yet mount it internally via SATA if you can, and just treat it as your video shoebox. When you plug your camera or card reader into your computer to dump video, just drag the PRIVATE folder (for AVCHD) or the DCIM folder (for MJPEG/MOV/MP4) over to the 2TB drive and give it a new name like 022811. Then you can erase the media card in your camera and free up space for more shooting, and your videos will be saved in their native state on the 2TB drive, ready for editing.
The closest thing I've found to an iPhoto/Pikasa-like shoebox for video is Apple's iMovie, but even then it's not a perfect solution. It transcodes AVCHD to the lossy Apple Intermediary Codec which is quite good but not transparent, and the shoebox aspect of it is not terribly intuitive -- it does save your videos and organizes them, but buries them in a folder structure that makes manual file management a hassle.
Finally, you could do what some guys I know do, and that's keep buying cheap 4 or 8GB SDHC cards and never reuse them. When one's filled up, it joins the pile on the shelf, just like in the good old MiniDV cassette days. I think this approach would be insane even if the cards were free, but hey, whatever works for you. Of all the workflows out there I think the dedicated 2TB drive shoebox is the best and easiest for most people.
I do feel your pain, though. This is an area for which neither platform has really come up with a no-brainer solution. With still photos there are any number of good, easy shoeboxes, some of them free like Pikasa, others cheap as chips like iPhoto. Pros and enthusiasts can upgrade to Aperture on Mac and Lightroom on Mac/PC. But for video files, we all have to sort of kludge our own shoebox solutions. This is due to the sweeping changes in consumer video hardware and formats -- normal people just weren't shooting high quality HD video on solid-state media cards a few years ago, and most people simply don't have a big enough hard drive to store all the HD footage they shoot like they do with still photos. It's a problem that will be solved in the near future on both platforms, but right now it's a bit of a crapshoot.
The easiest solution for most people regardless of platform is to simply buy a 2TB hard drive and delegate it to HD video shoebox duty. They're cheap enough now at $80-100 and that's enough space to last you a good long while. Plug it into a USB port or better yet mount it internally via SATA if you can, and just treat it as your video shoebox. When you plug your camera or card reader into your computer to dump video, just drag the PRIVATE folder (for AVCHD) or the DCIM folder (for MJPEG/MOV/MP4) over to the 2TB drive and give it a new name like 022811. Then you can erase the media card in your camera and free up space for more shooting, and your videos will be saved in their native state on the 2TB drive, ready for editing.
The closest thing I've found to an iPhoto/Pikasa-like shoebox for video is Apple's iMovie, but even then it's not a perfect solution. It transcodes AVCHD to the lossy Apple Intermediary Codec which is quite good but not transparent, and the shoebox aspect of it is not terribly intuitive -- it does save your videos and organizes them, but buries them in a folder structure that makes manual file management a hassle.
Finally, you could do what some guys I know do, and that's keep buying cheap 4 or 8GB SDHC cards and never reuse them. When one's filled up, it joins the pile on the shelf, just like in the good old MiniDV cassette days. I think this approach would be insane even if the cards were free, but hey, whatever works for you. Of all the workflows out there I think the dedicated 2TB drive shoebox is the best and easiest for most people.
Dan, I was under the impression that Windows Live Photo Gallery is limited to 25GB, and has a 50MB file size limit. Is that no longer the case? Both would limit its usefulness as an AVCHD shoebox. I'd love to be able to recommend this option to Windows clients. Okay, I'm going to test this out on my VMWARE Win7 right now.
dan.carter
Well-known member
stonebat
Veteran
For photo, I've been using LR3 editing directly on ext hdd #1. Just create a catalog on ext hdd and import raws to the hdd. Then periodic incremental backup to ext hdd #2.
For video project I've been creating this file structure. Yes keeping the original files under each logical project.
<<top project name>>
original - original files
modified- modified from original files. transcoded, image stabilized, trimmed, etc.
export - exported files
pp-cs5 - folder for pp cs5 project
ae-cs5 - folder for ae cs5 project
When I'm done with a project, manual copy to ext hdd #1. Then periodic incremental backup to ext hdd #2.
For video project I've been creating this file structure. Yes keeping the original files under each logical project.
<<top project name>>
original - original files
modified- modified from original files. transcoded, image stabilized, trimmed, etc.
export - exported files
pp-cs5 - folder for pp cs5 project
ae-cs5 - folder for ae cs5 project
When I'm done with a project, manual copy to ext hdd #1. Then periodic incremental backup to ext hdd #2.
Really? Are you sure you're storing AVCHD folders? With my GF13 shooting 50Mbps Fast-Action LPowell patch, 50MB would limit me to less than 30 secs a clip. Or am I missing something in your workflow?
dan.carter
Well-known member
Yep. I'm currently cataloging 250GB of Photos and video with both WLPG and Picasa. Even the smallest Canon 7D files are over 100MB and their AVI converts are 4 times the original file size. I also catalog my finished projects which average 1GB file size.
I import all photos and videos (including AVCHD files) into a project folder using WLPG's or Picasa's import manager.
The recent Windows 7 Service Pack (last week) has also improved the Windows 7 codec support for AVCHD.
My system is 64bit.
Ugh, I hadn't seen that marketing bit of Adobe's till you just pointed it out to me. See, even Adobe's greatest program, Lightroom, can't escape the Adobe Suck DNA. They have no business marketing Lightroom as a DSLR video manager/organizer. It's not really well-suited to the task, and personally I dislike having my photos and videos all stored in the same place. The whole idea of folders is to separate different media, make it easier to keep organized.
The good news is even though you bought it for video management, you now have Lightroom 3 for your stills, which is a huge win. LR is phenomenal. It will change the way you manage and process your digital photos, if you spend some time getting comfortable with it.
The good news is even though you bought it for video management, you now have Lightroom 3 for your stills, which is a huge win. LR is phenomenal. It will change the way you manage and process your digital photos, if you spend some time getting comfortable with it.
So that stuff about 50MB file limit and 25GB Sky Drive storage limit is now outdated? What are the new #s?
Are you cataloging 250GB in the MS/Google clouds for free or are you being charged at this level of storage?
Are you cataloging 250GB in the MS/Google clouds for free or are you being charged at this level of storage?
dan.carter
Well-known member
Now I see where you're getting those numbers... I'm using these two programs to catalog files on my local drives, and backups to 1TB eSata drives. My only cloud usage is Vimeo, YouTube and Picasa to share a few photos.