Trancode or Not to Transcode...That is the Question

Wouldn't it be amazing if the NLE's took care of this by letting us drop interframe codec on the timeline and do a background render to a transcode during idle CPU time? ;)
 
TigerFX said:
Wouldn't it be amazing if the NLE's took care of this by letting us drop interframe codec on the timeline and do a background render to a transcode during idle CPU time? ;)
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The only problem is, I am not ever really "idle" when rendering.

You can always transcode on a different computer.
Nowdays I edit mostly on portable usb hard drives..so far it has been fast enough for me.

If I were worried about transcoding time, I could just put the portable usb drive on a different computer to do that, and then when finished, plug that drive into my editing laptop.

In many cases, I shoot all day,
then come home, set up the transcode and go to sleep.
When I wake up, everything is ready.
 
agree with hornet, i always find time after a shoot to tell my computer to transcode, usually overnight.

i depend on transcoding in order to edit realtime. the extra time it takes to transcode (equivalent or faster than capturing, and much more convenient) is more than made up for by the time saved editing/scrubbing realtime without hiccups and stuttered playback.

however, i was getting pretty lazy lately and exporting my master from the transcoded files (canopus HQ avi codec) and couldn't figure out why all my images were so soft. after extensive testing i discovered that unless i transcoded to a max quality lossless codec, i was losing most of my sharpness. so now i've gone back to the tried and true workflow of using the transcode only as an intermediate, replacing the easy-to-edit .avi files with the original .mts to render the final export.
 
Barry_Green said:
Because Vegas struggles to play most AVCHD files in realtime. If you want screamingly fast performance, transcoding to an editing codec (like cineform) can give you much snappier performance.
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Barry - I have use Vegas 9 and I am working with Canopus files and i am struggling with the render process. I need to render my project for Dvd and web delivery. When I try to render 30 minutes of video and it takes 3 to 4 hours to render to a 512 Wmv file or Dvd Ntsc file. What am I doing wrong?
 
3 to 4 hours doesn't seem terrible for thirty minutes to DVD. It took hours for me to transcode about that much a few years ago, so if your computer is a little old it'd make sense. How fast is your processor?
 
Great discussion here. Being new to all of this, I'm doing my best to keep up with the conversation.

I've been editing AVCHD on CS4 (machine = dual core, 4gb RAM, Geforce 9800) and for the most part has been working out okay. I do notice some stuttering or hiccups when I'm working with 60p footage or I have a layer of color correction on top of my footage.

If I'm understanding correctly, it's better to transcode my footage into something like Cineform?

Appreciate the feedback.
 
Brentium said:
If I'm understanding correctly, it's better to transcode my footage into something like Cineform?

Appreciate the feedback.
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Yes. Right now, AVCHD is not a reliable editing codec. Think of it as an acquisition codec. That then needs to be "unpacked" to edit properly.
 
ikander said:
Yes. Right now, AVCHD is not a reliable editing codec. Think of it as an acquisition codec. That then needs to be "unpacked" to edit properly.
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I beg to differ,,, sure if you are on a Mac but if you've got a PC with a quad core cpu, good video card and 3 or 4 gig of ram its quite painless now. Vegas 9c kicks butt with AVCHD.
 
I'm running CS4 on a Quad Core witrh 12GB's ram, and 1GB video card and edit AVCHD natively with no problem. It's the way to go. With strong computers now getting cheaper and cheaper, it makes good financial sense as well, especially if you shoot and edit for a living.
 
shaun1970 said:
I beg to differ,,, sure if you are on a Mac but if you've got a PC with a quad core cpu, good video card and 3 or 4 gig of ram its quite painless now. Vegas 9c kicks butt with AVCHD.
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Vegas 9 has made definite improvements in the arena (so has the update to Premiere), but there's still some issues to iron out.

If it works for you, great, but editing off a compressed file format just doesn't jive well in my head. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but isn't editing native AVCHD a lot like editing a form of h.264 video? So, essentially you are editing a delivery codec, right? Again, I may be wrong, but I was always taught never to cut "delivery" codecs.

Plus, trying to do graphics and compositing work with AVCHD is a nightmare in After Effects.
 
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I'm working on an i7 machine with windows 7 and 6gb of ram. editing in premiere. I usually don't transcode and can play two streams in real time perfectly. But the problem comes when I need to send the files to after effects. After effects hates avchd, the video stutters and I can't do anything to solve the problem. So When I plan to use after effects I usually transcode to dvcpro hd (for greenscreen for example).
Transcoding is not a problem because with the pansonic transcoder tool I can transcode the files way faster than realtime.
 
After Effects is long overdue for a major update. Premiere has seen several but AE is about two years behind. With CS5 and the move to full 64-bit code there should be some major improvements.
 
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