Premiere Elements 7 coming soon -- will have AVCHD capability

[jg0001]

I'm looking for a decent program to take in AVCHD source, cut it up a bit (if that), do little if nothing else, and spit out a nicely MENU'd AVCHD disc WITH the source's 5.1 sound intact. I had hoped Studio11 would do that, but it (a) seemed to re-encode things anyway which took forever and (b) can't create menus despite what the box would suggest (the manual suggests not using menu's on avchd discs!

Anywho... I read that Premiere Elements 7 is going to have AVCHD abilities. Anyone know enough about the prior versions to know if the authoring and disc creation is anygood (does it actually create AVCHD discs or just edit the video?)?

[edDV]

I'm looking for a decent program to take in AVCHD source, cut it up a bit (if that), do little if nothing else, and spit out a nicely MENU'd AVCHD disc WITH the source's 5.1 sound intact. I had hoped Studio11 would do that, but it (a) seemed to re-encode things anyway which took forever and (b) can't create menus despite what the box would suggest (the manual suggests not using menu's on avchd discs!

Anywho... I read that Premiere Elements 7 is going to have AVCHD abilities. Anyone know enough about the prior versions to know if the authoring and disc creation is anygood (does it actually create AVCHD discs or just edit the video?)?

The problem is this. AVCHD is so compressed that it takes a high end computer and accelerated graphics card just to play it 1x. "Editing" requires searching or scanning or at the extreme "scrubbing*" a file to find an edit point. If a computer struggles to to play 1x, it can't deal with searching for an edit point.

Consumer programs thus far have addressed the weak CPU issue by converting AVCHD to MPeg2 on import (yes lossy) which can be edited with computers like yours. If you were working at the Premiere Pro, FCP or Vegas Pro level, the answer is to convert to a "digital intermediate" format like Cineform or Apple Intermediate Format. The iMovie solution is to take one AVCHD field and reduce it to 960x540 for editing tossing the other. Premiere Elements 7 might take that approach.

[jg0001]

"With a computer like yours"? Is that a general reference to someone not running a workstation? FYI: I'm running 2 Q6600's at 3GHz and 1 Q9450 @ 3.6GHz, the latter of which is on Vista 64 with 8GB of ram. If I can't do the simple things I want, no consumer PC can.

I don't think it's really as complex as you may make it out to be. Studio 11 had no issue putting video on the timeline, it's just that it couldn't seem to spit out a project without unnecessary re-encoding of frames that I didn't even touch.

My frame of reference for AVCHD disc creation is based on Sony's included software, "Picture Motion Browser". Though very basic and probably skipped over by many, it actually does AVCHD disc creation with plain vanilla menus quite well -- and it does it with no re-encoding at all. I created a 25 minute 3GB AVCHD disc with 27 video clips on a single layer DVD in approximately 12 minutes. I then played it back on my PC with a BluRay reader and Nero Showtime (Nero8) and checked it's specs -- 1440x1080 [same as the source (non-square pixels) - scales to 1920x1080] with 5.1 audio intact.

If all I want to do is take it up two notches, I don't see why a supercomputer is needed. Notch #1 = better looking menus. Notch #2 = cut editting (trimming only, no actual video mods). The old TmpgDVDAuthor did this for DVD quality video, I'm hoping the new can do it for AVCHD.

[edDV]

Read your computer profile and edit it.

3.2GHz CPU x850 graphics?

[jg0001]

Ah... I haven't changed that since I created my account. Fixed. Thanks.