AVCHD rendering problem

[toupe]

Hello,

I have a problem with AVCHD editing.
I'm thinking about buying a HD cam, so I wanted to check if my PC can handle HD without any particular difficulties.
To test it, I've downloaded some AVCHD samples (1920*1080, NTSC). They play back flawlessly in VLC. Downloaded the trial version of Sony Vegas Studio Platinum 9.0 to edit them and to start with the basics I simply threw the videos one after another on the timeline (2-3 minutes in total) then tried to render the result (in the same format). Here's the problem.


1) It seems that the process goes OK but I cannot play back the video properly.
In VLC it is OK for 15-20 secs then the picture freezes, the audio is OK.
In SMPlayer the picture is OK but the audio cuts out, delays, repeats.
For both players, the counter shows 00:00 for the movie length...

2) If I set the output to AVCHD 1440*1080 the video will play back with sound but sometimes the image gets pixelated (especially when I fast forward/rewind to some other point.

3) All other formats seems to be OK.

I experience the same regardless whether I select NTSC or PAL. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Sorry if this has been posted before... I've tried my best to flick through the forum but I can't even locate the source of the problem.
The PC is: Abit AB9, C2D E6300 (1,83 at 2,6 GHz), 2*1 Gb Kingmax (800 Mhz) - it is tested with Memtest and Orthos.

(If I want to render a longer one, e.g. 25 mins, the CPU stops working after a while but the RAM remains loaded.)

[redwudz]

AVCHD is probably one of the worst formats for extensive editing, as are many highly compressed formats. You may be better off to convert them to a lossless format like Lagarith Lossless Video Codec, then convert it back to the desired format.

If you do have to edit them in the native AVCHD, make sure you only cut on the keyframes (I-frames) or you may have sync problems. If you can play the original file with no errors, then your editing is likely the problem.

And welcome to our forums.

[toupe]

Thanks a lot for the link, I'll give it a try in one of these days and write back what I'll manage with it.
I've noticed that people advise not to use AVCHD. I'm not sticked to it at all, if I can use another, less problematic format without sacrificing quality. 8)