h.264 Codec and HD Video

[Ron B]

I'm thinking of getting an HD camera that uses the h.264 codec. I am just starting to get a grip on this thing and could use some advice.
I have a P4 3.4G Windows XP computer with a pretty decent, albeit older AGP graphics card. I use Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas 7 editing software with a TMPGEnc and CinemaCraft encoders. Is this computer going to be able to handle the editing chores for this codec? How about encoding for DVD and the web?
If anyone can give me a quick rundown on this, I would really appreciate it.

[edDV]

Is the camcorder AVCHD or some other flavor of h.264?

To edit AVCHD natively you will probably need to upgrade Vegas and buy a new PureVideo HD PCIe video card for playback. It would still be sluggish.

Or, spend $129 on the Cineform Neo Scene digital intermediate codec which will recode AVCHD or HDV into a GOPless 10bit 4:2:2 intermediate that can be edited in your current hardware and software.
http://www.cineform.com/neoscene/features.php

[Ron B]

Thanks for that info. I'll check it out.
The camera is a POV cam, so there won't be a lot of complicated editing being done. At first it will be used for internet video clips. As long as I can get the video into a codec my current gear can handle, that would be great.

[edDV]

Better ask Cineform about the POV cam. They have a good support line.

It looks to me like the POV is a standard def cam. If so, your current hardware may support a full decompression without the intermediate codec. In that case you would need a 2 disk RAID zero to handle uncompressed 720x480.

[Ron B]

Here's the camera:

http://www.vholdr.com/contourhd/overview

[edDV]

Here's the camera:

http://www.vholdr.com/contourhd/overview

That camcorder can record 1280x720p @30fps or 848x480p @60fps (wide square pixel SD). 30fps will require stabilization (solid tripod or steadicam etc.). For action and hand/head mount the 848x480p @60fps looks more attractive. Pixels per second slightly favor the SD mode as well (814k vs 922k pixels per 1/30th sec) allowing less compression.

The recording codec is an unspecified h.264 (not AVCHD) at ~8Mb/s to 16Mb/s. Audio is AAC. AVS "Easy Edit" software is included.
http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-Editor.aspx?type=GoogleAdWordsSearch&gclid=COWehvG-mZ...FQwxawodIwcN8A

You will need to experiment with import or conversion to make it work with Vegas 7. Direct playback will probably be a challenge on your hardware. For this reason conversion to an intermediate may be the better solution. See if the Neo Scene demo works with this format. Experiment.

[nitro1973]

[quote="edDV"]

Here's the camera:

...
The recording codec is an unspecified h.264 (not AVCHD) at ~8Mb/s to 16Mb/s. Audio is AAC. AVS "Easy Edit" software is included.
http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-Editor.aspx?type=GoogleAdWordsSearch&gclid=COWehvG-mZ...FQwxawodIwcN8A
...

oh my god.
i dont know easy edit but i had a "pleasure" to use AVS player for avchd/h.264. their codec is a total crap.
cant find worse codec. if edit software has similar performance then it is probably useless.

i would not buy this very camcorder because of the software :/

edit: sorry, i just noticed that this is helmet camera and it is pure fun i could buy it even with crappy software (this is something you can always change)