Panasonic DMC-ZS3 & AVCHD editor

[gnshd]

I am owning a Sony miniDV and editing with Adobe Premiere 7. I am planning to buy a compact camera Panasonic DMC-ZS3 with AVCHD lite 720p HD. The reasons that i am not getting a full HD camcorder because i am not extremely picky about video quality (but prefer better quality than miniDV quality) and convenience. My videos are just my kids' videos. Currently, I store my kid video files (divx & divx h.264) on my laptop & play them to 37" LCD TV via VGA.


My questions are:

1. What is good file extension (in term of video quality & file size) should i use for final edited video?
2. What is a good AVCHD editor that easily export to file extension above from timeline? it does not need to have a lot of feature. I only cut movie into frames and re-arrange them and rarely use filters or transitions. I prefer editor that does not need too much CPU power. My current laptop probably can't handle AVCHD editor, but will consider to get better laptop with HDMI.


My Computer:
AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-78, 1900 Mhz 2 Core
1 GB RAM
160 GB Hard Drive
Windows Vista

Thank You

[Baldrick]

1. H264.
2. I would use Vegas Movie Studio Platinum edition, http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope

[MJ Peg]

VideoPad works well, especially as it is free.

You may need Prism (also free) to convert first though.

See https://forum.videohelp.com/topic372774.html

[tovli]

... planning to buy a compact camera Panasonic DMC-ZS3 with AVCHD lite 720p HD. ...

My questions are:

1. What is good file extension (in term of video quality & file size) should i use for final edited video?
2. What is a good AVCHD editor that easily export to file extension above from timeline?

I have the ZS3 and have been exploring editors. I am completely pleased with CyberLink PowerDirector 8 (trial version at this point). I have a "weak" computer - P4 2.4GHz with 2GB Memory running WinXP SP3. PowerDirector8 reads my ZS3 files directly, has automatic proxy generation, high quality preview (that can move by single frames), and can output AVCHD (H.264) .m2ts 1280x720p, 29.97fps, 17Mbps, AAC (Dolby Digital), 192Kbps using a customized AVC/H.264 template so the final movie is nearly the same format as the input segments, (ZS3 is frame doubled, but otherwise exactly the same).

Vimeo will accept this format.

If you are a pyTivo user (to view your movies and footage on your HDTV via wireless link to TivoHD), the format is transcoded to MPEG2 and the video is simply stunning.

Since the source footage is AVCHD, archiving the final movie in the same AVCHD format is probably the most appropriate format.

Simplifies everything.

Note - I also tried
Pinnacle Studio 14 - too slow and was confused by the ZS3 AVCHD frame doubled format.
Magix Movie Edit Pro 15 - cannot play back smooth at any preview setting. User Interface not intuitive to me. Output files are jerky like the preview.
Corel Video Studio Pro X2 (v12) - weird backward skipping problem, cannot minimize app during render.
Vegas Movie Studio 9.0b Platinum is solid, preview skips three frames, no automatic proxy feature.
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 - immense download, very slow startup on my tired computer, lacks 720p H.264 mode, crashed at 7% "conforming" my AVCHD lite source to 720p HDV.

[mickwong]

I am using Powerdirector 8 and hope you guys may be able to help me.

I tried to edit and produce AVCHD Lite video recorded by DMC-ZS3. Although I can successfully produce a final video, the result is not what I think the best. The video looks interlaced but mediainfo tells me that it is progressive. What goes wrong?

I would also like to preserve the original format, codec and quality as much as possible without re-encoding/rendering, which can also reduce the output time. Can this be done with this video format by PD8? What should be the custom profile for output? Can anyone give me details please? Can I use SVRT at all since the input/output format can never be matched (because I can't select the custom profile in "View->SVRT Information")?

Thanks a lot for giving me any insight.

[tovli]

I do not think PD8 can be made to output the "frame doubled" AVCHD lite format, and it cannot do SVRT with this source format. Decoding the ZS3 source and recoding into some output format is a given with any editor. (There are no consumer editors which natively edit the ZS3 source footage, and frame doubled "AVCHD lite" is not usually a desired output format.)

Check out the PD8 forum for info about the interlaced video problem - I seem to remember it had something to do with using the video card to encode in 1080p, but your source footage is 720p so I suggest you stick with 1280x720p output formats. You probably will not be able to use the CUDA enhanced encoding, but you will get the least processed output possible.

Since AVCHD is quite good as a compressed format and is accepted by Vimeo, I created a custom PD8 template.

Here are the params I used for my 720p AVCHD custom template:

Profile Name: AVCHD 1280x720p Custom
Description: AVCHD H.264 1280x720p Custom Template 5 Mbps average
VideoTab: Resolution: 1280x720 (720p)
Rate (Defaults): Length 15, B-Frames 2
Entropy (Default): CABAC
Rate Control: CVBR
Average: 5000
Maximum: 17000
Speed/Quality: 6
Use Deblocking: checked
Audio: Comp: Dolby Digital
Channel: Stereo
Rate: 192Kbps

(I chose 5000 from a Vimeo rate suggestion, since that was my intended hosting site, and 17000 because the ZS3 camera puts out 17Mbps max source footage.)

Hope that helps a little.

tovli.

[mickwong]

Here are the params I used for my 720p AVCHD custom template:

Profile Name: AVCHD 1280x720p Custom
Description: AVCHD H.264 1280x720p Custom Template 5 Mbps average
VideoTab: Resolution: 1280x720 (720p)
Rate (Defaults): Length 15, B-Frames 2
Entropy (Default): CABAC
Rate Control: CVBR
Average: 5000
Maximum: 17000
Speed/Quality: 6
Use Deblocking: checked
Audio: Comp: Dolby Digital
Channel: Stereo
Rate: 192Kbps

Thanks Tovli. But can you explain a bit about the "Rate control"? You selected 15 for length because yours is 30fps? Since mine is 50/25p, should I change that to 25? Mediainfo said the source video has no CABAC, should we use CALVC instead? How are they going to impact the rendering process?

Please forgive me as I am quite a newbie to these codecs.

[tovli]

I also am walking in this fog of parameters.

I chose CABAC for two reasons - first it was the PD8 chosen default, and second because of this quote: "Context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) is a lossless, complex encoding method. It is more complex than context-adaptive variable-length encoding (CAVLC), but it may take longer to encode than CAVLC. Although CAVLC is less complex than CABAC, it is still a high-quality alternative."

Also for rate control length and B-frames, I kept the default. I don't know how to select these values and I have not been able to find adequate explanations yet.

[Blu-haze]

I do not think PD8 can be made to output the "frame doubled" AVCHD lite format, and it cannot do SVRT with this source format. Decoding the ZS3 source and recoding into some output format is a given with any editor. (There are no consumer editors which natively edit the ZS3 source footage, and frame doubled "AVCHD lite" is not usually a desired output format.)

Just a heads up, after reading this thread, as I thought you guys might be interested... the Tech guys over at the VideoReDo-Forums are currently working on getting their video editor: VideoReDo TVSuiteV4 w/H.264 (which is currently in pre-release beta development) to be able to handle just these very files. Here's one of the threads that I was participating in to help the guys with their development.

The Editor does NOT yet handle these native frame-doubled MTS files correctly, and it's still a work in progress, but they are getting very close to getting it working correctly. Hopefully very soon.

[Blu-haze]

Yay! Now fixed in v596 of VideoReDo TVSuiteV4 w/H.264

Can finally do simple editing/joining of these AVCHD lite camera MTS files.

If you do encounter any issues, let the guys over at the VideoReDo forums know. I'm really impressed. Their level of support is excellent. I constantly use this program to both chop out the commercials from my HD PVR files, and also to do simple editing of my DMC-ZS3 camera files.

[tovli]

Update for me - I defected to a Core i5 27" iMac. While I miss Cyberlink PowerDirector8 Ultra, (imports nearly any format, auto proxy editing of AVCHD lite, mpeg2 export available, and SmartSound), I have finished my investigation of iMovie '09 and found iMovie acceptable for the price (came with Mac OS X 10.6), especially by comparison to the only other serious option, Final Cut Studio Express at $199.

iMovie imports the AVCHD lite to Apple Intermediate Codec, which is supposedly a lossless codec, resulting in 3 to 1 increased file size imported footage (18GB/Hr).

I'm exporting H.264 in a .MOV container, auto key frames, 29.97 fps, multi-pass encoded, 17 Mbps restricted, "download optimization", AAC 48k 192Kbps average audio which results in a file which is the same size and bitrate as the original footage. I cannot tell a difference in quality between source and exported files on my 34" HDTV.

(I also cannot see any video quality degradation with an "Export Movie HD" which results in H.264 in a .MOV container of 10Mbps, but perhaps my test clip does not contain enough motion to expose the 40% lower bit rate. )

I miss PD8, for sure, but not enough to buy Win7 at $180 and dual boot my iMac.