and a related question: what does AVCHD editing mean in Studio ?

Does it make sense to make an HD movie from SD source tapes, (8mm and d8)?

Does one make HD movies ONLY when the source camcorder stream is HD?

 

 

1)  AVCHD is a format for recording and playback of high definition video. Video is compressed in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format, and audio is recorded in Dolby Digital.^[1] AVCHD and its logo are trademarks of Panasonic corporation and Sony corporation.  Studio will edit AVCHD and you can make movies with the formats allowed in Studio.

2)  You can't get HD from an SD source.

3)  With an HD source, you can make SD movies as well.

Rstrong pretty much got things covered. If you have more questions let us know.

I see that the avchd format is encoded in mpeg4. I thought that the quality of mpeg 4  is less than steller--  more compression, more lossy, the format I select when I am going to youtube. But I also assume that HD is BETTER quality. please clarify - is the quality of avchd better than an avi?

idicmike:

I see that the avchd format is encoded in mpeg4. I thought that the quality of mpeg 4  is less than steller--  more compression, more lossy, the format I select when I am going to youtube. But I also assume that HD is BETTER quality. please clarify - is the quality of avchd better than an avi?

Hi Mike,

If you record and AVCHD video in good conditions (light etc) it will be better than an AVI file recorded in the same conditions.  MPEG4 quality produced from good AVCHD video for uploading to the web is good quality. It all depends on the quality of your inputs.  Studio has never let me down in producing good MPEG4 files for upload.

Yes, HD is better if produced by good equipment in the right conditions.  Lighting is a critical factor with AVCHD.  If in doubt, check the many relevant posts from Bhurst on the topic. 

pinshel, thanks. OK, the corollary to gigo (garbage in, garbage out) is apparently  GOOD STUFF in GOOD STUFF out). interesting to hear that mpeg4 is not more lossy than AVI. I assumed that since it is going to the net and for small screens, the compression cd remove a ton more data bits.

another quick question on your HW rig: you seem to be an avchd practitioner, yet have a processor less than the 2.66 clock speed recommended by Studio (to do certain resolutions). How does your QCore 2.44 fare with St12 doing ?

idicmike:

pinshel, thanks. OK, the corollary to gigo (garbage in, garbage out) is apparently  GOOD STUFF in GOOD STUFF out). interesting to hear that mpeg4 is not more lossy than AVI. I assumed that since it is going to the net and for small screens, the compression cd remove a ton more data bits.

another quick question on your HW rig: you seem to be an avchd practitioner, yet have a processor less than the 2.66 clock speed recommended by Studio (to do certain resolutions). How does your QCore 2.44 fare with St12 doing ?

Hi Mike.

Just to clarify one thing.  Mpeg4 is a lossier format than DV-AVI due to the higher compression involved.  If you render Mpeg4 to Mpeg4 and repeat, you'll soon see a degradation due to the high compression format.

My workflow involves producing a working copy HDV2 (Mpeg2) from my AVCHD, then after editing the HDV2, I usually produce a final Mpeg4 for upload to the web.  I usually shoot in anamorphic (1440x1080) AVCHD which the 2.4Ghz quad core handles well.  The process is slower with 1920x1080 AVCHD, but can still be done.

Studio 12.1 handles AVCHD significantly better than S12.0 or s11. 

AVCHD quality can be very good, and I think you have gotten lots of good feedback from the forum. Here are a few points that haven't been mentioned yet.

Going HD Can Be Expensive—When I went HD, about three years ago, I had to by a new camera, but that was just the beginning. I went with an HDV camera (Sony FX1) because that was the best option for me at the time. I quickly realized I needed a new PC to edit and play back my new HD content. And of course, I soon felt I needed a new TV ... I was still using a CRT-based model ... so I bought a 1080i plasma, which was the highest resolution available at the time. And then, I had to buy a DVD player that could handle my new HD discs. I went with HD-DVD, but have since also added a BluRay player.

AVCHD Requires More Computing Power—A PC that will adequately handle HDV (MPEG-2, 1440x1080i, 25mbps) editing won't necessarily be good enough for editing AVCHD. Anything less than a quad-core will be problematic for AVCHD editing. When I first starting using AVCHD, my first step in editing was always to convert all the AVCHD content to HDV to make it easier to edit. With my current system (see signature below), I don't have to do that that anymore, but if you don't have a quad-core, I would recommend it.

Does it make sense to make an HD movie from SD source tapes?—In most cases, no. But if you have some really good SD content, and you want to get the best quality possible when you post to YouTube, I would suggest up-converting your final output to 1280x720p so that YouTube will create an HD option. At present, YouTube's HD option appears to be 480p, but you must upload at 720p, or higher, for YouTube to recognize the content as HD.

Good luck!

B

One more comment about AVCHD editing. The amount/seriousness of problems you'll have editing AVCHD with Studio is greatly dependent on the nature of your projects. If you have a project with a few longer clips ... several minutes each ... a quad-core will be great. If your project has dozens of shorter clips ... a few seconds each ... even a quad-core will choke at times.

B

 

To edit AVCHD with a multi-core is no big sweat, until a project contains 100s of clips, effects, and transitions.  Alternative solutions:

1. Do all the basic clip selection and trimming first, add your titles and menus, and add transitions and special effects last.  Don't even try to preview a half-complete project until the background rendering is done.  If you can "dead reckon" the approximate output without preview, turn off the background render, complete all your eding, and then export or burn.
2. Do your main project in several small units, export them as HDV, and then assemble the files in a final timeline to set up any titles, chapters, or whatever for the final version.
3. Convert all raw clips to HDV first, whether through some batch application or by a quick and simple approach to #2.

AVI is no help, since it is 640x480.  Once converted to that, there is no way to restore the higher native resoultion of HD.

JKoch:

To edit AVCHD with a multi-core is no big sweat, until a project contains 100s of clips, effects, and transitions.  Alternative solutions:

As I have related several times before, my first native AVCHD project had about 50-60 clips of just 2-3 seconds each ... no transitions, no effects. With my older quad-core PC, this project took almost 10 minutes just to open, and editing was almost impossible. After just about ever edit, the program was unresponsive for 30 - 60 seconds.

B

JKoch:

AVI is no help, since it is 640x480.  Once converted to that, there is no way to restore the higher native resoultion of HD.

AVI is not limited to any specific resolution, but I assume you are talking about miniDV AVI capture. Of course, you can shoot SD in widescreen with most miniDV cameras, and you would have the option to upconvert that widescreen to 1280x720p to take advantage of YouTube's HD feature.

Of course, the upconverted SD video would not be true HD, but the upconverted SD looks better when played in YouTube HD player than the SD video looks in YouTube's HQ player.

B

Pinnacle is not necessarly the best tool for AVCHD editing. There are some freeware tools which do much better job in basic AVCHD editing.

I don't know innards of Pinnacle but AVCHD requires new approach to NLE; not a brut force approache (which apparently is Pinnacle way). Maybe in the long run brut force will turn effective, who knows. I prefer solutions which produce decent results on average hardware than spending small fortune on latest and greatest gear every second year.

The "brut force" approach works for me

More CPU, more RAM, more video memory!

B