Timecode?

Phil B

Phil B

Active member
I edit on Premiere CS4 4.1 and it does not pull the TC from the AVCHD clips, which is quite frustrating. I have been going back and forth with Adobe on this and the latest thing that they have said is that AVCHD does not support TC. Do any of you that edit Native AVCHD on other NLE's have this problem? I know that the TC is there if I transcode to something else so obviously the TC is actually there.

Thanks
Phil
 
So you cant get it to work in Vegas either?

It appears in that post that most people are talking about trying to sync the cameras, and the one answer that was given about how to setup Vegas to sync using the timecode is only "Assuming" that it is actually able to see the TC. Premiere has a similar setup for syncing using the TC but I cannot get it to see it. Everyone one of my clips start with 00;00;00;00.

Then today the Adobe rep on their forums said that it is AVCHD that does not suppport TC and not Premiere. Below is his quote from their board.
I know that some people had an issue around AVCHD timecode and the fact that everything in Premiere Pro starts at "00:00:00" timecode.

Well, I learned that this is in fact part of the AVCHD spec. I even looked at the wikipedia page for AVCHD and looked at the diagram and there is nothing there to describe timecode. I sent this question to the product manager and group product manager of Premiere Pro and received the answer that there is no timecode in AVCHD. Panasonic's AVCCAM is designed to overcome this issue which is something that we are currently investigating.
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It kind of sounds like he is saying that since the footage is AVCCAM and not really AVCHD that it is not fully supported by Adobe yet. I went on to tell him that it was my understanding that AVCCAM is just Panny's "Professional word" for AVCHD and below is his response.

From a picture point of view, I would tend to agree. I would liken the Panasonic rep's saying to him saving DVCPro (25) and DV are the same thing. DVCAM or DV would be similar as well...
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I had also mentioned to him that I knew that TC was there because of when transcoding you can see the correct TC and here is what he said.

The HMC150 is an AVCCAM camera and has timecode in it. Premiere Pro CS4 to my knowledge does not currently support it.
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Again sounding to me like he is passing the buck saying that the 150 is AVCCAM and not really AVCHD, Premiere does not support it.

This is very frustrating to me. One of the things that I liked about the 150 before we bought them was the ability to sync the TC. It is of no use to me unless I transcode which I would rather not do, but on the projects where I really need it I guess I have no choice.

If anyone is using a NLE that can see and use the TC from the 150 please let me know.

Phil
 
What's even more frustrating is that Premiere has a function to let you go in and manually set a clip's timecode... but it doesn't work for AVCHD clips.

My workaround for my latest project was to transcode to Cineform using NeoScene (which also isn't reading the TC), then go in and manually set the TC in Premiere.
 
Phil B said:
Then today the Adobe rep on their forums said that it is AVCHD that does not suppport TC and not Premiere. Below is his quote from their board.

It kind of sounds like he is saying that since the footage is AVCCAM and not really AVCHD that it is not fully supported by Adobe yet. I went on to tell him that it was my understanding that AVCCAM is just Panny's "Professional word" for AVCHD and below is his response.

I had also mentioned to him that I knew that TC was there because of when transcoding you can see the correct TC and here is what he said.

Again sounding to me like he is passing the buck saying that the 150 is AVCCAM and not really AVCHD, Premiere does not support it.

This is very frustrating to me. One of the things that I liked about the 150 before we bought them was the ability to sync the TC. It is of no use to me unless I transcode which I would rather not do, but on the projects where I really need it I guess I have no choice.
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Well, at least they understand it correctly. True, there isn't timecode in the stream like you get in tape formats (dv, hdv, etc), there is only a start timecode stored with the metadata in the playlist file. They just need to simply pull this number out of there for each clip!!! And while they are at it, why not make use of the other metadata like they are touting you can use in CS4. I find it a little odd they missed this considering they boasted specfically getting clips from the 150 working in 4.1, so they must be pretty familiar with the format.

Mike Harvey said:
What's even more frustrating is that Premiere has a function to let you go in and manually set a clip's timecode... but it doesn't work for AVCHD clips.
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Holy crap, you're right! I had always thought that was the (annoying, but simple) work around... but never tried it with those clips. That is a major flaw... why shouldn't you be able to set the start timecode for ANY type of video? Completely kills the multi camera features.

Phil, I think you should point out this flaw in that thread first as it applies to ALL AVCHD cameras and kills the work around. That needs to be implemented before they can start reading the timecode anyway (if and when that ever happens). So the current work arounds are transcoding (the point of cs4 is to NOT have to do that) and painfully aligning clips up manually, unacceptable.
 
I have already filled one out for the TC not working with AVCHD but I will fill out another one about the setting your own TC not working...

Thanks for the heads up.

I will also let the Adobe rep know about it on the Adobe board...

Thanks

Phil
 
SInce Panasonic has the only line that actually has Timecode functions for there AVCHD cameras, I wouldn't be surprised it Timecode is indeed not considered supported in AVCHD.

Still, the information is stored in the Meta-Data and does indeed transfer when you transcode it with the Panasonic P2 format converter.

Since I don't have two HMC150's, I never really tried this. I am actually glad that you mentioned this though because I have been wanting to do this for some of the productions that I work on.

Unfortunately, having to transcode sure would take the fun out of my Adobe CS4 Premiere workflow. It's functionality with the entire CS4 suite is indeed handy and very time saving.

Not only, with the upgrade to 4.1, I am finally getting smooth native editing with AVCHD. What use to take days, now only takes hours. I cannot stress how much time this saves me.

Sincerely,
Anton
 
works with FCP

works with FCP

As a user of both PPro and FCP I can confirm that within FCP's log & transfer process (where you transcode MTS files to mov's) all TC is present. Just found out when I tried to edit a multi-camera shot (w/ HMC 151) in PPro CS4. Would have loved to do the edit in my favorite NLE but now I'm glad that I can do it at all.....

cheers
Martin
 
tvc1598 said:
SInce Panasonic has the only line that actually has Timecode functions for there AVCHD cameras, I wouldn't be surprised it Timecode is indeed not considered supported in AVCHD.

<snip>

Sincerely,
Anton
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The new Sony NX5U AVCHD camera has full function linear time code functions also. So it is here to stay in AVCHD.
 
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