Scene Files for Panny Newbie

[The Mason Jar]

You'll have to transcode in whatever format you shoot in.. or atlesast it's preferable... that.. or any of the footage on this site.. They are all starting to get to a general quality level and be shades off from there

I'm looking to do some real world testing on how long it takes to transcode material. For the most part, I could import and let it run overnight, or leave for lunch (Octo Core 3.0GHZ), but I'm also interested in being able to edit on the spot, as Mark von Lanken does - for wedding receptions. What kind of horsepower would I need to make that expedient?

Might just have to buy a PC laptop with Edius or another AVCHD native NLE for that reason alone.

The difference between the cams is so slight that the cash doesn't justify the extra money IMHO. You can look at the zacuto tests to confirm

Can you link to the zacuto tests. I searched but couldn't find them.

thanks ya,
jones

 

[Mark Von Lanken]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for giving that example and explaining it. On occasion, I have seen "banding" when fading up from black. I wondered what caused it. You really are a wealth of information. Thanks.

 

[Mark Von Lanken]

Why would you have to transcode in EDIUS? EDIUS 5 supports AVCHD natively, as does EDIUS NEO. EDIUS supports every format natively, so whether it's HMC150 footage, HPX170 footage, HPX3000 footage (DVCPRO-HD or AVC-Intra) or XDCAM-EX footage, you can just drag and drop straight to the timeline and edit. Even straight from the SD card, SxS card, or P2 card.

Hi Barry,

I'm running Edius 4.6 Broadcast, which is why I have to transcode. I didn't realize Edius 5 supports AVCHD natively. Thanks for the info.

 

[jscheib]

Barry (or anyone else), do you know if EDIUS 5 has any known issues with native AVCHD editing? I'm thinking specifically of 720p30, which is what I've shot almost a hundred hours of footage in at this point, and which is the format that Toast and other transcoders have been presenting difficulty with. If EDIUS 5 edits 720p30 AVCHD natively, I will strongly consider migrating to that NLE immediately.

This question also applies to Sony Vegas Pr 8c, as I understand it can handle AVCHD natively as well... but any issues with 720p30?

And, as The Mason Jar/jones asked, do we know what kind of machine (specs) would be required to handle that native editing?

In the meantime, I'm PMing a couple of people who have alluded to having success concerning my questions, so if I hear from them I'll post their responses.

Thanks!

 

[Barry_Green]

I haven't received my EDIUS 5 upgrade; I ordered it but it's not here yet, so I can't answer definitively on that.

 

[The Mason Jar]

been poking around trying to determine how big a one minute file would be when converted to ProRes. i've read about 4x the size.

If one can get 3 hours on 32GB in the highest recording mode, that's about 177 MB/min. Convert that to ProRes (x4) and that's about 711MB/minute. Ouch!

Having to buy more hard drives starts to eliminate my savings.

It also has a mode that records 12 hours on a card of the same size. In what ways would I notice a difference in quality?

Thank ya.

 

[jscheib]

ProRes is a little under 800MB/minute for me (from PH 720p30), which translates to 48GB/hr. That's about 2TB for 20 hours of ProRes footage, which as you said is a huge storage issue.

As for the HA, HE, and PA(?) modes, the answer to your question has been answered on other threads in the forum, but I don't know where or what the answer is off-hand. If I recall correctly from another thread (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong!), someone said that the lowest mode's bitrate is 7 Mbps which is basically equivalent to HDV, but that it looks 10 times better (that's an expression, not a technical number). However, from my understanding of the ProRes formats (as again gleaned from this forum) is that it won't matter what mode you shoot HMC150 footage in on your camera if you're transcoding to ProRes or ProRes HQ, as they both have at least 100 Mbps bitrates (ProRes 100, ProRes HQ is higher still - maybe 140?) and will therefore result in the same filesize as determined by the length of the clip, regardless of the original format (that is, regardless of which mode you shoot in on the HMC150). However, this also means that if my numbers are right, you could transcode footage shot in the lowest bitrate mode of HMC150 (the 7Mbps one) into HDV (which edits without a hitch, natively) and maintain small-ish file sizes without losing much if any bit information since the rates are nearly equivalent (HDV may be 10Mbps.. you'll have to check). But, the codecs are different and will present differently, so someone else will have to tell you whether you would notice a qualitative difference after such a transcoding.

Hidef1080 reported that he's editing PH 720p24 (AND PH 720p30 after he did a test for me yesterday)) footage NATIVELY in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c. He very kindly gave me a ton of extremely helpful information about this and what machine he's using, which I'll quote as follows:

I'm on a Sony VAIO laptop.
Vista Ultimate 32 bit.
Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz.
3GB of RAM.
ATI Mobility HD 3400 graphics card with 256MB of memory.
350 gig hard drive spinning at 5400 rpm
I'm guessing that more video ram might smooth out the preview playback or maybe a 7200 hard drive but I think it may have more to do with the video memory.
I plan on going with a 64bit system with 512MB of V-RAM and 8GB of RAM within the next month or so.

He said this while reporting that he's able to edit it natively with no problems except some video stutter on his current machine (as in, low playback FPS).

After he very graciously did some PH 720p30 tests for me, he said the following:

I did a small 2 minute 720 30p PH test and I had no problems at all.
I opened the MTS files off my 16gig SD card from within Vegas 8.0c and I placed them in the timeline without transcoding . My preview playback is still kinda jerky but not really bad.
I output my files as Windows Media HD 720p with zero problems.

I think you should download the 30 day free trial from Sony and see how you like it.
It's a full copy with no watermarks or anything.

So bottom line for me now: unless Apple makes the best of all possible announcements at Macworld in 3 days on the 6th, it looks like I'll likely be switching to Sony Vegas after I give the trial version a whirl. Finally, a solution!

Thanks to Hidef1080!!