AC160 Two MAJOR problems I had with AVCHD footage on my computer

cherchieh

cherchieh

Member
First of all, I have to say I'm glad with Ac160's performance so far, apart from a few minor hiccups of hunting focus (which is not a big issue with the way I use my AC160), change of white balance for no reasons, seriously sub-par audio mic, and some little pests. :D

However, I am having two major major problem with it:-

1. Patches of footage that AC160 failed to capture.
To put it out in words it is like in the situation of me shooting a video of one minute in length and let say the "patch" comes at the 40th second. In my PrPro editing, the PrPro will freeze when I play the clip up until the 40th second, and it doesn't unfreeze until all one minute is "played", with only audio and no video. I once had a footage which is about 10 minutes long, and the patch came on the first minute...So I have to wait a freaking 10 minutes every time i pass that "patch" for PrPro to unfreeze!

And then when I export it to media, that patch will become a green screen for as long as the length my AC160 decides to make it green. Normally a few seconds at most. I tried with different cards, different slots, the problem is still there.

The problem existed since my first one day shooting with AC160, but weren't showing that often. The last wedding I shot, I had 197 clips, and a whooping 8 of them had this problem!

2. Stuttering / Repeated Frames after export
OK, this might not be AC160's problem, but my problem is that of all the videos that I've taken with videocam, DSLR, AVCHD from Canon, Digicam, exchangeable lens, videocam...This is the first time I face this problem. The footage appears to be OK in PrPro editing, but when it is exported it will have this stuttering. The last video that I've exported, I had 85 clips in in and the stuttering appeared 6 times!

I tried exporting into different format, different fps, different quality, the problem still exists. But you look into the PrPro timeline, everything seems perfectly OK...No repeated frames, no stuttering effects. And I tried to export it before and after I render by pressing enter, the problem is still there.


I really do love AC160 despite the problems...But this two major problems is really stopping me from trusting the cam 100%. I would love to know that the problem actually lies in me...Maybe I had shot in wrong modes, or there is something that I should do but I didn't that caused the problems.
 
Do the blanking and stuttering problems exist when you view the original files directly off the SD cards that were used in the camera? What type of memory cards are you using?

- Greg
 
Patches in footage: Have you played back these shots on the camera? How are you loading into PrPro? Are you copying the cards directly to your computer first? I had an issue once copying cards to my Mac laptop that gave me some stuttering clips. My solution has always been to do nothing else on the computer while the cards are copying.

Stuttering: Does your camera frame rate match the frame rate of your sequence? Can you step through the exported video file and see the stuttering or repeated frames?
 
I also recommend viewing the footage from the camera. I am certain that you will find the footage on the cards is just fine and that there is nothing wrong with your camera; instead I suspect you have a file transfer issue with your computer.
 
looks like a premiere cs4 problem. try using cs5.5
ive encountered all those problems in cs4. or cs5

if you're stuck with older premiere pro , your only solution is to transcode the footages in 5DtoRGB
 
Editing this footage in Premiere Pro CS5 daily and haven't had a single issue with the clips. Shot over 20 hours and no issues.

Not sure what may be causing your issue. Some suggestions:
- Match your sequence settings to your clip format
- Format your cards in the camera before shooting
- Lock your cards before inserting them in your card reader to offload footage
- If you're using CS4, upgrade to CS5 or 5.5 (or wait about 30 more days and get CS6)

Let me know if you've already tried all that and are still having problems.
 
Thanks for all the help, let me answer your questions one by one:-

1. Greg, I'm using SanDisk Estreme HD Video 32GB, with 30MB/s card bought from bhphoto.

2. jchristie, what do you mean by step through the exported video? I load the card into video by locking the card, inserting into my PC card slot, and like Barry suggested I pulled all the folders and save it into my PC. I do nothing at all with the PC while waiting for it to transfer. And yes, the frame rates are matched.

3. Barry, I took all my cards out again and view them with the camera and found only ONE patch remain...all the others that were having problem in my PrPro seems not existing in the card, so I'm happy. But, that one patch is a mystery! But lucky enough the camera didn't freeze like my PrPro did. and lucky enough that patch wasn't on important scenes. Anyway, any idea why that patch would exist? Card problem? My handling problem?

4. dcloud, YES! I'm using CS4! and I'm stucked here! But I had no issues when I'm using CS4 with other cameras...

5. scapsinger, glad to know that you had no issues with the camera, it's somehow assuring to me that my investments aren't wasteful. And yes, the sequence settings and clip format are matching, and I do format my cards before shooting but I usually put my card back to my PC to copy the scene file from Barry's book before using it again in the camera, and yes i lock the cards after using it...and yes I'm stucked with CS4, haha...

Thanks guys! So it seems I'm putting my blame onto the wrong object! I think when I had no problem of such when working with other cameras, I took it for granted and assumed my CS4 and my PC and my workflow are all OKAY...I'm happy that the problem doesn't come from AC160, but then I'm unhappy at the same time because now I have to check where the problem came from. What do you guys think? The first suspect is my CS4?
 
yeah maybe there wont be a problem in cs5

anyway... all those issures are from cs4. ive always encountered them before.

heres a workfow for cs4
go to http://rarevision.com/5dtorgb/
download the 1.5.4 32 bit version
convert your footages to dnxhd, 1.8 gamma (google batch 5dtorgb 1.5.4 to batch process in windows :))
footages will look flatter and better :D
editing will be faster

support & donate to rarevision 5dtorgb
 
Last edited:
I'd suggest getting a small SD card (maybe 4GB) to keep the scene files on instead of keeping them on your primary card. For one thing, once you've loaded them in, you don't need them on the card again unless you're changing a scene file out. Secondly, every time you write to the card you reduce it's remaining life (solid state media DOES have a lifespan). Your computer, whether PC or Mac, will usually write it's own files to the media when you insert a new disk, whether it is a hard drive, USB drive or SDHC card. That stuff can cause problems with your recording media.

Again, just trying to throw out all the considerations here, it may be none of these things or may be all of them that are contributing to your total problem. But yes, you can be reasonably sure that your camcorder is working quite well. Good luck!!
 
That's why I always say dvxuser is the best place to come regarding video issues! The main concern about the empty patch is basically "solved"...And how lucky was I? I just had a wedding couple who requested I shoot their march in, exchanging vows and rings, basically the whole ceremony in ONE shot, without stopping at all. So that's 20 over minutes in one clip...and the "patch problem" strucked a few times in the first minute alone. So, I had to wait 20 over minutes each and everytime I accidently hit the "patch"!

So, I remembered dcloud saying about transcoding it...But I didn't have internet connection at that time and I have no idea of how to do it, so I used Adobe Media Encoder to encode the AVCHD to mpeg first. I know it's different things I did, but at least it gave me the "inspiration", haha. :D and I'm glad I did that and I managed to edit the footages in time for the couple. I can't actually see the quality dropped, but just wondering would what I did affect the quality?

And I'll keep that in mind, scapsinger. I'll head out to buy a smaller capacity SD card later. I haven't tried using the scene files without the SD card though, mainly because I assumed the scene files must be with the camera to use them. That's why I saved them there. Again, Thanks a lot guys! Hopefully I'll get to upgrade to newer CS suite though...
 
cherchieh said:
I haven't tried using the scene files without the SD card though, mainly because I assumed the scene files must be with the camera to use them. That's why I saved them there. Again, Thanks a lot guys! Hopefully I'll get to upgrade to newer CS suite though...
Click to expand...

As for the scene files....nope, you load them onto your camera and that's it. Read the Barry Green book, it gives more details, but I think you can load a few different sets of scene files onto a card, or you could have multiple cards logged with all the potential scene files you'd want to use and just load the set you want when you go out to do a shoot. No need to keep them constantly loaded onto your shooting card. :)

As for Adobe, there's an online thing tomorrow where they will be previewing the Adobe Creative Cloud. It's probably worth checking it out. There's also this sneak preview for you to enjoy: https://vimeo.com/38593381
 
cherchieh said:
So, that means Adobe Creative Cloud is the new Adobe PrPro?
Click to expand...

No, Creative Cloud is the new Creative Suite (sort of). Creative Cloud is kind of like a bundle of all the Creative Suite applications (all of them. All. Of. Them.) combined with a few web-based services. It's subscription based, so you're looking at a monthly bill of $49 for an annual contract, or $69 for month-to-month billing. The nice thing about the monthly thing is that if you only need the Creative Suite for 3 months out of the year, it'll only cost you $225 per year.

The Creative Suite and all the software will still be sold like it always has, in standalone packages for design, web and production. However, the Creative Cloud subscribers will not only have access to ALL the applications, but also have access to a bunch of other things that Creative Suite owners won't get, PLUS (and really, this is the whole point of Adobe going this route) as new updates and tweaks are completed for the apps, the Creative Cloud subscribers will get them immediately, so you'll see much more frequent updates. Think about it like the apps on you smartphone or tablet, they get regular updates every so often and no one really knows much of the difference between v1.0, v1.2.5, v2.1, etc. Folks who only have the standalone package will still get occasional updates, it just will be with less frequency due to the nature of standalone package deployment.

In the long run, it's a great deal for people who have been upgrading their copy of the Creative Suite Master Collection with each new release. It's still a good deal for Creative Suite Production owners who also upgraded each time. And it's a fantastic deal for folks who really only use their software once in a blue moon. Over the long term you can probably expect prices to go down but for now it's still probably worth your while. For me, since I have the production suite but also pay separately for Dreamweaver and Acrobat Pro, I'll be glad to have the Creative Cloud subscription and I'll be able to pay for my software monthly instead of writing a giant check once every year or so.
 
Just remember, AVCHD is great for compressing HD video during acquisition, but it wasn't really meant to be an editing format. Even with the newer NLE's that play nice with AVCHD, it can still be quirky. I always transcode first and never have any issues during edits.
 
D.R. Gates said:
Just remember, AVCHD is great for compressing HD video during acquisition, but it wasn't really meant to be an editing format. Even with the newer NLE's that play nice with AVCHD, it can still be quirky. I always transcode first and never have any issues during edits.
Click to expand...

I've yet to encounter an editing issue with AVCHD myself. I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but I know our cameras show a combined 400+ hours of operation, and we generally keep the cameras turned off unless they're recording, so I'll just guess that we've edited about 400+ hours of AVCHD in the native format and never had a single hiccup yet. There was one clip (very recently, last week) that lost the free run timecode and I don't know exactly how that happened but it wasn't a problem that would have been solved by transcoding. I think that one of my camera ops forgot to run preset TC until the second set of shots, and just did a CYA job when I asked him about the timecode issue. :)

Even though AVCHD is not the friendliest format to edit, it has no inherent problems in the edit once you get over the processing hump. With the low cost of computer components the last few years, that's an easy hump. And in Premiere Pro, GPU processing via the Mercury Playback Engine makes it like a hot knife through warm butter.

I just personally have no need or desire to transcode and eat up more disk space with intermediate files when my very average system cuts AVCHD so easily. There's no advantage, as Barry Green and others have pointed out previously, except for a bit more speediness in editing on some systems, but as long as you have a decently configured system and a proper GPU card, cutting AVCHD on Premiere Pro is excellent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top