Newbie questions about HD camcorder etc!

[n33712]

Hi

I would like to ask people's advice and opinions on what i imagine are going to be some very newbie questions to you!
I have bought my first camcorder just before christmas. It's a HD camcorder that i know at the moment i probably will not get the best out of as my pc is too slow for editing etc (if i want to edit, not sure if i will) But i needed to buy a camera that would last. The camera i bought is a Sony HD-SR10E and am very happy with it. My wedding last year was filmed on the older model of this so i know what it can do.

My pc is a single core 2.6ghz pc so watching HD footage is out as it is all jumpy!
My main tv is a 32" but non-HD and i only have a standard dvd player (this will of course change over the years)
I do have a 19" Sony tv which can handle HD and it is linked to a PS3.

There are 4 settings to record in on the camera:

HD FH - 16m 1920 * 1080
HD HQ - 9m
HD SP - 7m
HD LP - 5m

What do you recommend that i record on? Does it make much difference? Is it like a digital camera where you should always take photos at the highest setting!

If i was to record in a higher res' then to watch the videos i will either need to use my PS3 or convert them to a lower format or put them on a dvd (obviously this will be a lower res') in your opinion what are the best ways to do this? I currently have some software:

Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate
VoltaicHD
Oxygen AVCHD Player
VLC Player
Nero 8 (Vision etc)
Tunebite

I have lots more questions but these are the two mains ones before i can really get to play and experiment with the camera. My Mrs is pregnant and is due in May so would like to know what i am doing by then! This is the main reason for getting the camera in the first place.

Any help / advice / opinions i would be most grateful!

Matt

[JohnnyMalaria]

Re which setting to use, the best thing is to try each one. Make sure you record something with lots of movement and/or detail. The difference between the settings will be the amount of information thrown away (esp motion and detail) to achieve the necessary bit rate (I assume that the 16m means 16Mbps, not 16min).

Playback may not necessarily be due to a single core 2.6GHz processor (I have a single core 1.5GHz laptop that can play HDV files). Other reasons: embedded graphics - i.e., no separate graphics card (makes a world of difference) and playing files from your main system drive (a second internal or an external drive is always a good idea and usable in a new PC, too).

Hope this helps.

[n33712]

Hi mate

Thanks for the advice, shall give all the settings a try.
That is interesting as i was told you needed a minimum of a dual core processor. I have a good 512mb graphics card and the file has always been played from my main hdd (i think your saying that that is better)

Cheers for advice

Matt

[JohnnyMalaria]

A separate card is good. Playing from the main HDD can really hurt.

[n33712]

Oh okay. Well i have a 2nd hdd in my pc. Will that be okay?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Yes - that would be better than an external drive as long as it isn't heavily fragmented.

[n33712]

Okay, cheers!

[racer-x]

This camera is an AVCHD camera It will require the corect codecs and lots of CPU power to play back smothly on your PC. When asking questions about your camera, make sure you state it's an AVCHD as apposed to an HDV camera, which requires significantly less CPU power to play back and edit.

You could edit with your weak PC, but it will make life miserable. Vegas 8 can edit AVCHD or you can use dgavcindex and edit with Avidemux or Virtualdub via an Aisynth script.

You probably have some lame Sony s/w that will let you burn an AVCH disk on a dvdr, if not then you can use TsMuxeR. You can the play back that disk on your PS3 or Blu-Ray player.............

[n33712]

Thanks for the advice. Sorry about not being clear in my original post.

I have managed to burn a AVCHD DVD and also convert the files and burn a normal DVD from the AVCHD files so that any dvd player can play it (less quality but it's still pretty good) with Roxio 2009.

Seems pretty good software. Am aware that my pc is showing its age now but there is no chance of me upgrading so shall just have to live with it.
Just out of curiosity what sort of spec pc is good for watching and editing AVCHD files?

Thank you

Matt

[racer-x]

You should be able to play it back smoothly on a dual-core CPU using CoreAVC. I wouldn't go anything less than a quad-core for editing, however.......

[n33712]

Okay, cheers!