Most universal codec for editing?

[ASchear]

I shot a client's wedding yesterday. The deal was that we show up, shoot for 5 hours at their wedding, and hand over the raw footage because they want to edit themselves. They are not professionals and will probably be using iMovie or Premiere Elements, etc. We shot on non-hacked GH2's, so all of the footage is in AVCHD .MTS files, roughly 23mbps. I'd like to batch encode and somewhat compress all the files to something more basic so they won't have trouble editing them.

My first guess would be .mov h.264 encoding, but I'm not sure as I've only used this for encoding final products and not prepping for editing. Is that codec easy for editing software to handle? Is there a better choice?

Thanks!!!

 

[David Jimerson]

I don't see how h.264 would be any different from AVCHD if you're keeping the same quality. I'd give them one of the files to test, and if they're OK with it, just give them the originals.

 

[TheDingo]

Editing CODECs are low compression to retain as much detail from your video as possible and to make them quick to edit, but this generates very large files.
( Editing CODECS: Apple ProRes, AVID DNxHD, Cineform, etc... )

Playback/delivery CODECs are high compression to ensure small file sizes and reliable playback on your target platforms.
( Playback CODECS: Mpeg-2, Mpeg-4, WMV-9, etc... )

...So you need two different CODECs for two different purposes: Editing and Playback

 

[ASchear]

Editing CODECs are low compression to retain as much detail from your video as possible and to make them quick to edit, but this generates very large files.
( Editing CODECS: Apple ProRes, AVID DNxHD, Cineform, etc... )

Playback/delivery CODECs are high compression to ensure small file sizes and reliable playback on your target platforms.
( Playback CODECS: Mpeg-2, Mpeg-4, WMV-9, etc... )

...So you need two different CODECs for two different purposes: Editing and Playback

I do understand that, but I feel that you might have missed the point of what I'm asking. Perhaps my thread title is misleading. I need to hand off video files to a client so they can edit it themselves, probably in iMovie. I feel like I shouldn't be giving them raw AVCHD files that their computer would probably have trouble playing back, let alone edit.

 

[ASchear]

I don't see how h.264 would be any different from AVCHD if you're keeping the same quality. I'd give them one of the files to test, and if they're OK with it, just give them the originals.

I agree with you David. This would be the best action to take in a normal situation. However, these clients are from Italy and will head home in about 10 days, which throws a wrench into that plan. They would not be able to do any tests until they returned home. It would take quite a while to send 35GB of originals through Dropbox, so I'd much rather transfer files to their hard drive while they are still in town and not have to deal with trouble later.

I wouldn't mind giving them the originals, but I would also love to give them something that DEFINITELY would work if the originals do not.

 

[Razz16mm]

I do understand that, but I feel that you might have missed the point of what I'm asking. I need to hand off video files to a client so they can edit it themselves, probably in iMovie. I feel like I shouldn't be giving them raw AVCHD files that their computer would probably have trouble playing back, let alone edit.

Give them the original footage as is. H.264 MOV is just an AVCHD file wrapper for web streaming. Both are versions of MPEG4. If their computer can't handle the native AVC files, it won't handle H.264 either. The higher the compression in AVC codecs, the more computer power it takes for the NLE to process them for real time playback as the more frames it has to create on the fly.

In any case I would definitely make a backup copy.

 

[TheDingo]

I feel like I shouldn't be giving them raw AVCHD files that their computer would probably have trouble playing back, let alone edit.

Do you know anything about their computer or editing software?

...To retain the quality of the original GH2 footage, I would make sure you give your client copies of the original camera files ( ideally as card images, so if they want to import the footage, their NLE will be able to read the meta-data and stitch everything back into the full size video files ), and perhaps a second copy as full resolution .MTS files that have already been imported.

Using any kind of highly compressed CODEC will end up throwing away much of the recorded data, and lower the quality of their finished edit.

 

[Nate Haustein]

I use my NLE (final cut x) to re-wrap the structured AVCHD disk images into regular .mov files. In other words, I "pre-import" the files then give them the resulting clips that should just play as QT movies. Takes the confusion out of keeping the card structure intact and allows simple drag and drop functionality in pretty much any modern edit software. No re-encoding necessary, just the original footage in a playable wrapper with the spanned clips already stitched together.

 

[GrahamH]

A format that would be less taxing on their computer would be Cineform, which is near-lossless and both PC and Mac compatible. The downside of course is larger file sizes. The encoder isn't free, but does come as a free 30-day trial which is all you will need to encode the mts files for them. The decoder doesn't expire, so they can play and edit it no problem back in Italy - they will just have to do their final render out to another, playback, format.