AVCHD native workflow in Premiere CS3 and CS4

[rallymax]

Hi all,
over in the Camcorder section we were talking about AVCHD workflow.
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic369208.html

There is also another thread but that went off into a Sony Vegas tangent here in the Editing section.
Editing AVCHD (M2TS) with Adobe Premiere
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic352847-30.html

I have a need to use a plug-in that is Premiere Pro only so I can't use any other NLE solution.

I started asking questions about Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and CS4 w.r.t. AVCHD and figured that it deserved to be here in its own thread...

So in summary from the other threads...

Decoding AVCHD in a media player like Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 is very different than having it play smoothly inside Adobe. This is because there are two sorts of codecs. Microsoft Framework (MFC) ones (Windows Media Player only) and DirectX ones, which can be used by all applications.

CoreCodec's CoreAVC is probably the best AVCHD/H.264/MPEG4-part10 decoder out there. With their new release it also supports cpu offload via nVidia graphics cards that support CUDA - a technology that uses the Graphics processor (GPU) to do general purpose computing (in this case H.264 decoding). Note that you must have nVidia drivers above "ForceWare v185.x" for it to work. This is fine if you have a nVidia card in a desktop but if you have it integrated in a laptop like this Dell Precision 8400 you are at the mercy of the OEM (in this case Dell) for drivers. Dell unfortunately only has drivers up to "ForceWare v175.75". Regardless, the CoreAVC decoder running in the CPU (Core 2 Duo T7800 2.6GHz) works GREAT.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
w.r.t AVCHD playback...

I have an older desktop machine (Dell Dimension 8400 - Intel P4 3Ghz)

Windows Media Player 11:
WinXP SP3 + CoreAVC (old version with CPU only) SUCCESS
To my surprise....
Windows 7 RC v7100 out-of-the-box SUCCESS!!!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
w.r.t. AVCHD workflow in Premiere Pro CS3.

A: CoreAVC doesn't work in Premiere.
B: To add native workflow you need the MainConcept H.264 native workflow + decoder + encoder plugin

But....
WinXP SP3 + MainConcept H.264 decoder---------Not enough cpu power
Windows 7 RC v7100 out-of-the-box in HDV (ie MPEG2) workflow ---------Not enough cpu power

(I had enough CPU power on my Core 2 Duo laptop for Main Concept so it IS possible).

Adobe CS4 from what I understand has added AVCHD native workflow. There is also the option of adding nVidia CUDA acceleration by buying the Elemental Design nVidia graphics processor (~$3000 - ouch) and using their RapiHD plugin (giving you 7x speedup of encode using the GPU). ( http://www.rapihd.com )

Has anyone tried CS4? If so, what processing power did you have?
I'd try the trial but it has AVCHD disabled so there really isn't any point trialing.

Thx.

[minidv2dvd]

cs4 needs about the same computing power as cs3. dual core 2.8ghz minimum for HD video work.

i use quad core 3ghz desktop systems.

[Persistence]

You raise a good point: AVCHD playback can look inferior in WMP, even if one has loaded a "compliant" codec. However, I tried to improve it with alternative codec downloads (trying various sites), and the result was worse. I used a system restore to go back to the old one.

Since I am frugal, I've not downloaded Power DVD or Nero's latest player. VLC seems OK, but does worse with MOV h.264 HD than a player bundled with a Kodak device. A WinDVD BD player plays back my homemade discs with far better IQ than WMP.

The inconsistency of the quality leaves me a bit baffled, since one cannot assume which playback device or software a disc recipient or client will use.

What share of Adobe users, when editing AVCHD, do so in native format, versus converting it first to a less compressed format? What is the relative magnitude of IQ loss?

[rallymax]

> The inconsistency of the quality leaves me a bit baffled, since one cannot assume which playback device or software a disc recipient or client will use.

I guess we just always aim for the highest quaility locally and playability everywhere else is up to the user. standalone BluRay players meet the minimums and I don't think we should be responsible for a user's attempt at making a good player on generic PCs with too little cpu grunt.

> What share of Adobe users, when editing AVCHD, do so in native format, versus converting it first to a less compressed format? What is the relative magnitude of IQ loss?

Now that's a statistic I'd love to know. The more and more I try to get a smooth workflow with AVCHD the more and more I realize I'm not ever doing a direct copy. Almost 100% of the time I color correct so there is always going to be a re-encode. I'm thinking of simply batch transcoding to a digital intermediate like CineForm or Lossless Motion JPEG (via {free} MediaCoder etc) so that the editor doesn't need as much processing power. Harddisks are cheap so transcoding to big files is practically irrelavent these days. - Lots of Hard disk is cheaper that lots of processing power so I think I'll just keep getting more and more 1TB seagate SATA300 drives from NewEgg.com.


- Aside: I set up my media disk ( D: ) as a windows dynamic disk (control panel->admin tools->computer management->Storage->Disk Management) so that I can simply add more and more SATA drives to make it a bigger logical disk. ( look for JBOD on wikipedia to learn more about hard disk stacking vs setting up a RAID ) I prefer it because you can put any size of disks in the pile and the "D:" just keeps getting bigger. (you can't do that with RAID). For redundancy I trust continual backups vs relying on RAID (whih has failed me in the past).

[racer-x]

I don't shoot AVCHD (I shoot HDV), but I like to download sample source clips from new AVCHD cameras now and then to check on there progress, or lack there of. One thing for certain is the 1st generation quality loss from a re-encode is pretty bad, much worse than HDV.

Since you plan to color grade anyway, you'd be much better off transoding to lossless intermediate codec prior to editing. That's what I would do if I were you.

[rallymax]

some clarifications to my original post:

> This is because there are two sorts of codecs. Microsoft Framework (MFC) ones (Windows Media Player only) and DirectX ones, which can be used by all applications.

The MFC ones are better known as Video for Windows (VfW). All(?) video editing tools that don't have natively built codecs turn to the OS's VfW codecs (not DirectShow ones) to fill the gaps in their abilities. Most codecs are written for DirectShow so they don't help because they only work in players like WMP 11. That's why _playing_ is different than _editing_. - and thus why my tests above were fine for playback but not for editing.

It seems that for AVCHD decoding that the CoreAVC and the Windows 7 DirectShow codecs are well written. But, the available VfW ones (eg MainConcept) are not so good and that's why I couldn't play them in an editing tool.

I wonder how good the natively built in AVCHD is in CS4. Is it an integration of Main Concepts or did they use some other company's or open-source implementation?

The free package FFDShow is using the library (libavcodec) from the free FFmpeg player project. FFDShow presents the codecs as DirectShow AND VfW! - So you can use it for editing!!!
[s:cc14587078]I mention that because the libavcodec developers are working with the H.264 open source project's developers to get efficient decode algorithms and are also integrating GPU acceleration using nVidia CUDA the same way that CoreAVC is.[/s:cc14587078]
I had the x264 and libavcodec projects mixed up. This statement is not true.

I need to do tests but perhaps using the FFDShow's VfW AVCHD decoder is well enough written to enable AVCHD editing on a modest PC like my 2yr old P4.

'hope that makes my post clearer.

[rallymax]

I don't shoot AVCHD (I shoot HDV), but I like to download sample source clips from new AVCHD cameras now and then to check on there progress, or lack there of. One thing for certain is the 1st generation quality loss from a re-encode is pretty bad, much worse than HDV.

Since you plan to color grade anyway, you'd be much better off transoding to lossless intermediate codec prior to editing. That's what I would do if I were you.

thanks for the sanity check. Yes I'm leaning more and more towards Lossless Motion JPEG every day. Actually more towards (lossless) motion jpeg2000 since it is the digital intermediate of motion films and its artifacts don't bother me as much as JPEG ones.
(if you're intersted in JPEG vs JPEG2000 look at JPEG2000 on wikipedia, it has a great summary).

Any thoughts on the digital intermediate audio codec I should use? I'm no so sure that AC3 is a codec that I can trust to be available in 20yrs.

[racer-x]

For your audio, I'd go with PCM wav. Your camera likely records in 16-bit Stereo anyway. If your camera does record in 5.1 ac3, there are tools that can save the separate channels as wav files.

It is possible to edit AVCHD footage in virtually any NLE via frameserving, but that's another long story. It can be done even in Premiere 6.5.

Speaking of ffdshow, you can also use it to encode to a decent Mjpeg at about 150,000 mbps for 1920 x 1080. The quality is pretty good I think. A guy at HV20.com wrote some cool little Batch Converting Tools that you can use to batch convert your AVCHD clips, as well as making smaller Proxy Editing files at the same time. Here's the link:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=27561

[rallymax]

thx for the link!