Why is AVCHD harder than DVCpro

D

dzcube

Member
Lots of info out there.
still unclear as to why AVCHD is harder.

both formats require log and transfer, but AVCHD needs to be transoded.
ok, i got that.

but during the log and transfer for DVCpro, it spits out .mov files, so its doing some kind of conversion right?

both formats go thru a conversion before editing, but AVCHD takes just takes a longer due to transcoding.

so then, when people say "DVCpro is easier", it just means it takes less time during that one step. I haven't found anything about why else AVCHD would be more difficult.

Do i have this correct?

thanks!
 
I guess it's 'harder' with FCP (older versions and especially PowerPC Mac's)... I edit the native AVCHD files in Vegas all day long, no worries. Pop the SD card out of the camera, copy the folder to a drive, drag the files on the timeline...and go!

On my old (funny, cause it's really not THAT old) G5 PowerPC & FCP 6, I have to use Toast 10 to convert the files to ProRes before editing.
 
dzcube said:
Lots of info out there.
still unclear as to why AVCHD is harder.

both formats require log and transfer, but AVCHD needs to be transoded.
ok, i got that.

but during the log and transfer for DVCpro, it spits out .mov files, so its doing some kind of conversion right?

both formats go thru a conversion before editing, but AVCHD takes just takes a longer due to transcoding.

so then, when people say "DVCpro is easier", it just means it takes less time during that one step. I haven't found anything about why else AVCHD would be more difficult.

Do i have this correct?

thanks!
Click to expand...

With DVCPro all FCP is doing is rewrapping the MXF files into .mov, so it moves as quickly as your computer can copy over the files. Transcoding AVCHD is a more processor-intensive process.
 
when people say "DVCpro is easier", it just means it takes less time during that one step. Do i have this correct?!
Click to expand...

No. What people mean by that is that decoding DVCPRO HD during playback is easier on the CPU because every frame is independently recorded, as has been the norm for film and SD video forever (and is still used for DVCPRO HD and AVC-I). But with high definition video, a lot of formats (like HDV and AVCHD) don't record every single frame as a whole frame. Those formats use something called interframe or temporal compression, which is a lot more difficult to decode (and which you can read about with some Googling).

That Final Cut Pro is a bit behind the times and can't handle the native footage is unrelated to what people are talking about when they say DVCPRO HD is easier.
 
Nice, i didn't know about the avccam importer, but it seems like it still requires rendering to play in FCP timeline.

i have never worked with a rendering workflow before, so def want to avoid that.

----

i just posted another topic in the post-production section about some tests and comparisons i did this morning concerning the different codecs. appropriate to mention the results here. conclusion is, differences in quality and performance during editing are quite negligible on my machine. disappointing

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...arious-Codec-Comparison&p=2450971#post2450971

thanks!
 
dzcube said:
but it seems like it still requires rendering to play in FCP timeline
Click to expand...

I'm not a Mac user, but I had thought that this plug-in will enable you to play unmodified AVCCAM video clips from the Final Cut Pro timeline. So this isn't the case ?

I could understand if you had to render modified footage ( most CPU / GPU combos don't have the procesing power to process HD video modifications in real-time ), but even unmodified footage won't play without rendering ?
 
I haven't tried out the Panasonic plugin yet, but I was unable to get real-time editing using ClipWrap on AVCHD video on my 3.4ghz i7. I think there are some severe limitations to the 32-bit code and rendering engine of Final Cut. I could sometimes get video to playback on my external monitor in real time, but only if there were no effects added.

Have zero problem editing native AVCHD under Premiere Pro or FCPX.
 
Probably for playback, not sure it would hold up if you started applying effects to the footage.

I just tried the AVCCam importer - as far as I can tell it just runs a background service that allows .MTS files to be viewed within Quicktime. Playback within an H264 timeline in FCP is fine, but as soon as you start adding any effects you get a red render bar. Multicam also doesn't work - even with just 2 angles on a multiclip, video playback is pretty much frozen.
 
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