Sanyo Xacti FH1 & .MP4 1080p woes

[lucky644]

I've just purchased this nice little camcorder, and I started recording in the highest quality I could (1080p 60fps) and it looks beautiful.

But, as I've discovered, editing these movie files is almost impossible. I can't find a single program that can handle them smoothly for some odd reason (premiere and pinnacle do not play smooth at all) yet my computer can play them just fine. (quicktime and WMP, oddly enough Windows Media Player uses the least cpu....)

So...bitching aside....what I'm recording are mostly action scenes so I wanted 60fps to keep things smooth, and for slow motion purposes. If I cannot do this at 1080p due to the video editing software with mp4 files, can I convert to another format without much loss? Which format is best? Should I give up and do 720p at only 30fps? Even then, will I still have to convert from mp4?

Is my computer the problem, or the software, or the recorded format?

I'm starting to think I just need to give up and do 720p....as most of my videos will be on youtube anyhow, I just wanted the highest quality possible

System:
Windows 7
Intel C2D E8400
4gb DDR2
Lots o' hdd space on sata (7200.11 seagate)
GeForce GTX 280

[poisondeathray]

It's not the .mp4 container, it's editing of native HD h.264 that is sluggish.

NLE's add extra overhead , and use different decoders compared to media players. The fact that it plays smoothly in a media player means nothing.

Even an OCed i7 is a bit sluggish with 1080p60 material. As soon as you begin adding other streams, layers, effects etc... it is painfully slow.
You can do rough edits but usually have to render out preview sections. Most people use a proxy workflow to edit , or a digital intermediate like cineform.

Premiere CS5 will add GPU acceleration and is reported to handle multiple h.264 streams easily

[lucky644]

Premiere CS5 will add GPU acceleration and is reported to handle multiple h.264 streams easily

That's something to look forward to, but until then I guess I'll do 720p/30.

Is there a 'best' program for re-encoding what I have into 720p? I'd rather not delete what I already have

I tried MPEG Streamclip but the output ended up being white for me, I haven't figured out why yet.

[poisondeathray]

Re-encode to what format?

If you use a lossy format it will take some time, and you have varying degress of quality loss. Most lossless formats have huge disc space requirements, and still do no edit very smoothly. For a lossy format you might encode to a high bitrate MPEG2 format, which should be easy to edit. You could use Adobe Media Encoder for this, for example.

If you want "best practices" or "best quality" , I would consider a proxy workflow. It is more tedious and there are a few extra steps, but quality is better than even using cineform/dnxhd etc...It basically involves making smaller resolution clips which are easier to edit and swapping out to the original clips when doing final render for best quality.

There are lots of intricacies, but you can find similar basic guides here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-hd/144428-premiere-pro-cs4-solution.html
In the comments section:
http://www.vimeo.com/2641870

[lucky644]

Re-encode to what format?

I suppose I'm not actually sure what I need. For the purpose of what I have now, it'll be HD YouTube fodder. I understand YouTube does avi and mp4 just fine. I just need to drop my quality from 1080p to 720p.

[poisondeathray]

Can't help you if you don't know what you need...

If you just want a low quality format suitable for editing and youtube, just re-encode/resize with AME to MPEG2 for editing, then h.264/aac once you're done your edits for export to youtube

[lucky644]

Can't help you if you don't know what you need...

If you just want a low quality format suitable for editing and youtube, just re-encode/resize with AME to MPEG2 for editing, than h.264/aac for export to youtube

I don't necessarily want low quality, Just the best quality I can put on YouTube. I will try the Adobe Media Encoder, and your other suggestions.

Thanks for the help.

[poisondeathray]

The "best" quality would be using the native footage, or a lossless intermediate. Tough to edit on most PC's without a proxy workflow. If you resize, re-encode, then re-encode again, you have an extra stage of quality loss.

It might not be worth the effort, since youtube turns everything to crap anyway, you can decide for yourself...but you have several options listed here

Good luck

[aedipuss]

for youtube i'd do as little editing as possible in the videos native format and then export as 1280x720 30p in an mp4 container using avchd/h264 with aac audio. bitrate is up to you but depending on the amount of movement in the vid i use between 5 and 10 mbps for the video bitrate. total size can be up to 1GB and as long as it's under 10 minutes you're good.

[raverscout]

I use a Sanyo Xacti HD2000 (virtualy identical engine to yours) at 60fps 1080i and edit make videos for Youtube HD in one go, I use Cyberlink Power Director 7 (with update patch) version 8 is out I think, its well worth it, Rendering can go to high end HD MPEG2 25fps PAL, or 30fps NTSC. OR Streamed Media and I use "Windows 9 HD Highest Quality" setting and it does an amazing job for so much compression! giving you a much faster UPLOAD SPEED to Youtube! from a 1.2GB MPEG2 file down to 364MB! .WMV 25fps file E.G. some renders to MPEG2 can be well over 1GB exceeding Youtubes limit! and they are only 10minutes long or less so learn from my mistakes! and save alot of time and hassle Render NOT to a file but to a Streamed Media FIle or in my case a .wmv preset render as I mentioned above especialy if you want to try 60fps, you can choose Real Media Streaming if you like also, it also works great porting the same finished renders/videos to my Nokia Phone and Cowon D2+ Media Player, To be honest your better off trying to record your clips 30fps 1920 x 1080i but your Computer specs are excellent so theres nothing wrong there, Sometimes your 60fps footage "if you decide to try it" may seem jerky in the Preview Monitor in CyberlinkPowerDirector7 but the renders are always smooth, you have to goto to your project properties 1st! and select 16:9 aspect ratio and PAL 25fps, then Import Media Files, your Sanyo Video clips, Still Images, Mp3s for backing tracks or .Wav's for music files, its easy and fast to learn , there is even a wizard if you want that to guide you through. I'm learning more tricks all the time with Cyberlink and the Camera, for action stuff try the Sport setting, Im also getting into Manual Focus and Focus Lock activated by the Shortcuts! in the Sanyo Xacti, sometimes zooming into stuff goes out of focus so ive been told to try Manual focus which isnt as fast as I want it to be and or Focus Lock so when the Dual Cam focuses you just Focus Lock it and zooming should remain in focused. ATM I like plane spotting and clouds, birds of prey, foxes, landscapes, sun sets, these are very difficult to focus on as clouds are soft and fuzzy so the focus works then it drifts out then back in and so on, hence focus lock! anyway hope this helps solve all the hassles about "what do i do!?" See some of my HD uploads,
http://www.youtube.com/brightonchemtrails Last 3 Videos I've uploaded I made useing the above mentioned renders and settings, these short vidoes where made without the new Camera focusing techniques ive learnt from these here forums, in the mean time ive been practicing with my short cuts to improve on speed of focusing. I must remember to look at the deeper instructions on the supplied CD in PDF format and print it.

[lucky644]

Shouldn't I use Progressive? Or does Interlaced help a lot with editing? You kept saying 1080i in your post, so I wasn't sure.

[aedipuss]

it needs to be kept progressive the whole time. going p->i->p doesn't make any sense at all. shooting 720p might help the editor.

[abhaslaj]

Hi, I have just found this year old thread - but it is so close the problem I have that I am hoping to resurrect the conversation.

I also have a Sanyo Xacti FH1 and have also found it very hard to edit the clips while retaining the resolution.

I'm not trying to post to Youtube or anything like that, I simply want to edit together several video clips into a single file, editing out unwanted bits, adding transitions, and then save to my hard disk a single file in the same 1080p quality.

As this thread says, editing is very resource hungry - I have lowered my sights slightly and am now recording at 'only' 30fps having given up with 60fps.

I did buy a full copy of Nero 9 which claimed to allow the editing of AVCHD - but having installed it, I discovered it will not output at 1080p (the best is 1080i). I contacted Ahead and they confirmed that was the case.

So I am now very wary of buying anything else without confidence it will work.

Can anyone recommend any products? My editing needs are very simple, just cropping and transitions, it is just the resolution I wish to preserve. I'm not too bothered what the final output format is. I am even hoping that they could be some freeware out there that would cope with my simple requirement.

These are family videos and hence, to me, 'priceless', so I am happy to keep them (backed up, of course) on the HDD until a suitable means of burning them off at the full resolution is available to me.

Thank you

[raizo312]

I purchased VPC-FH1a in ebay and I've recently come to know that the latest version of it's firmware 1.2 exists. I hope I can update my FH1a. But all the links to the latest firmware(s317n077.zip) don't work because MegaUpload was closed. Couldn't anyone post the firmware again?

[smrpix]

No harm in going the legitimate route. Try this:

http://us.sanyo.com/Customer-Support-Extended

[raizo312]

I sent an e-mail to the Support and asked to let me know the way to get the latest firmware. I've received an e-mail from them telling that I have to make a phone call to their call center. But it's very difficult for us Japanese to make an overseas phone call to U.S. and negotiate with English-speaking guys.