Jumped into AVCHD without knowing what's needed to edit it!

[Try4ce]

I work at a small college TV station, and we just got our first HD camera. It's the Panasonic AG-HMC150P AVCCAM. I really like the camera itself, especially the fact that it's tapeless and has two XLRs and lots of HD formats (all seems like nice features for the price).

Unfortunately, I guess we didn't consider that editing the footage might require something we don't have. I edit in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, and apparently it doesn't support these .mts files that the Panasonic camera is creating on the SDHC card.

I then read that CS4 supports these files natively. I'm pretty attached to CS3, so I wanted to try the CS4 trial before I jumped on board. I've only just barely opened the program, but it looks enough like CS3 to make me happy. All the same, it's not importing the .mts files.

Then I read that the trial version won't import AVCHD formats (please correct me if .mts is not AVCHD, I'm just running on information that I've only known for a few hours here, I could be spewing lies and have no idea what I'm talking about). Is this true? If Premiere Pro CS4 will edit .mts with no fuss, then I'd be all for the upgrade.

Now, before I was reading into CS4, I was reading about... um I think it was called "intermediary" conversion. I think this will work with CS3? I know nothing about this process, and if the CS4 upgrade is just $300, I think I would rather no deal with this, if CS4 is the way to go for editing the files our new camera is creating.

Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated... I want to get to using our new toy as soon as possible!

[edDV]

Save your CS4 upgrade money, AVCHD will still be a pig to edit. Use Cineform neoscene as a digital intermediate instead. It is compatible with CS3.
http://www.cineform.com/neoscene/features.php

[Try4ce]

I did see Neo Scene in some of my research and I downloaded the demo. Problem is, I don't have a clue how it's supposed to work with CS3. I'm under the impression that it's supposed to make a file that's easy on the computer for editing, but it uses the original high quality files to make the final render? Or am I totally wrong on that?

All it seemed to do in the brief test I did with it was convert a clip to an AVI of some kind (not to mention I couldn't figure out why its speed was out of sync in Premiere, even when I tried to reinterpret the footage... 720/30p footage... the audio sounded normal at first, but the video was sped up... and when I reinterpreted it for 30fps, the audio was sped up). Even if I took the audio and video separately, nothing seems convenient about that. I'm sure the software is meant to be used another way.

Is there any well-written material on how to use Neo Scene with CS3 and AVCHD?

... or any other general advice about how I should approach compatibility with this issue?

[turk690]

It can't get simpler with Neo Scene: open it, click the convert tab, then point to the folder containing your *.mts or *.mt2s AVCHD files. Configure Neo Scene by choosing quality level and destination folder, among others. Then hit start. Your AVCHD files will be converted to bonafide *.avi, using Cineform's very efficient codec. The resulting files adhere to all of VfW august specifications, making them a no-brainer with almost any standard NLE out there, including but not limited to Premiere CS3. For a start, don't do anything fancy: create the *.avi files with framerates matching your original AVCHD files. An important thing to look out for: filesize. At medium quality, the resulting *.avi will be 5 to 10 times as big as the original highly-compressed *.mt2s.

[edDV]

First are you really on a P4? If so your only hope is HDV format.

Neoscene is a digital intermediate, not a proxy format. You encode from Neoscene.

As for Neoscene process, I can give you the quick overview. I haven't done this in CS3.

1. Transfer AVCHD file to disk. Keep original as backup.
2. Convert AVCHD-> Cineform
3. Set uncompressed project in Premiere matching the source resolution. The Cineform codec should be installed before you import.
4. Import Cineform file conversion. Test timeline preview to see if codec is being accessed.
5. Edit and preview normally
6. When complete first save export to Cineform if you intend to re-edit.
7. Encode to your output format of choice.

This gets you a 1080i edit master. If you need to deinterlace and/or resize, the process is different.

[Soopafresh]

Try the 7 day eval of Neoscene. If it works for you, the cheapest place to buy it is

http://www.videoguys.com/Item/CineForm+NeoScene+for+PC+and+Mac/54E4543435F454E4.aspx

[Bjs]

Just incase anyone comes looking they could try

Free HD Converter

Tested using MTS recorded by ZS3

[Try4ce]

It's looking like what we're going to get is from Main Concept: http://www.mainconcept.com/site/prosumer-products-4/mpeg-pro-hd-7850/information-7862.html?L=8

The demo lets us import into Premiere CS3 with no trouble, and my computer seems to keep up with the HD files just fine while editing.

[JimmyS]

Anyone who is looking for a low cost solution to AVCHD editing should give Corel VideoStudio 12 Pro X3 a try. It will automatically convert an AVCHD file to a digital intermediary when the file is opened. From what I could tell, it uses a version of the CineForm codec for this, as a CineForm HD VFW Codec item shows up in Add or Remove Programs when the program is installed. It performed very well on several test files that I ran through it. The X3 version also has CPU and GPU acceleration. I had tried the earlier X2 version which didn't include this, so I can't comment on it. As editors in this class go, I think I would prefer Movie Studio or Elements to VideoStudio, but neither offers this as a standard feature, and it made AVCHD editing quite painless.

[edDV]

Anyone who is looking for a low cost solution to AVCHD editing should give Corel VideoStudio 12 Pro X3 a try. It will automatically convert an AVCHD file to a digital internediary when the file is opened. From what I could tell, it uses a version of the CineForm codec for this, as a CineForm HD VFW Codec item shows up in Add or Remove Programs when the program is installed. It performed very well on several test files that I ran through it. The X3 version also has CPU and GPU acceleration. I had tried the earlier X2 version which didn't include this, so I can't comment on it. As editors in this class go, I think I would prefer Movie Studio or Elements to VideoStudio, but neither offers this as a standard feature, and it made AVCHD editing quite painless.

Both Sony Vegas Movie Studio and Premiere Elements are supported by Cineform Neoscene but if Corel has included a Cineform variant in Video Studio, that offers cost advantage. My bet is the others start licensing Cineform (or similar) intermediates.

[Ron B]

As another newcomer to the H.264 experience; I can understand the hoop jumpage needed to work with it.
First; I would say without a beefy computer you'll have issues. I just built the QuadCore system I have now knowing I would need lots of power to work with HD video and I'm glad I did. When I use Vegas 9 to render the 1080p footage to AVI to edit it in Premiere CS4; there is some blinking and flashing going on that doesn't usually happen; so you know the system is working hard.
I can import my H.264 .MP4 footage and render with Vegas 9 but Premiere CS4 does not recognize the files. I'll have to check out Neoscene as well as the Main Concepts plugin. Main Concepts stuff is good; but pretty expensive. If the Corel program can convert files; that might be a better way to go.

[greymalkin]

as the owner of an avchd camcorder this corel studio interests me..just a quick few questions:

1) Can i have 2 different video streams and swap back and forth easily (in Premiere I use opacity keyframes, not sure how it's done in Corel).

2) When I re-encode, does it do a "smart" re-encode where it does a stream copy except for the transitions (fading from one video track to the other)?

I'll be shooting some outside video soon and my hope is that I need to only fade back/forth between the 2 video feeds without doing any color adjustments.

oh and 3) How well does the HD to SD conversion work? I'm sure I'll need to make SD dvd's out of it.

[edDV]

The tradeoffs these digital intermediates require is a 5-10x increase in file size as the AVCHD or HDV video is imported. That means 60+ GB per hour. That may put many general consumers off but it provides accurate and efficient editing.

Most of the low end edit programs are "solving" the AVCHD import problem by converting h.264 to MPeg2 to keep import file sizes down. This path is more lossy especially when downconverting to DVD.

Apple iMovie goes futher by downsizing AVCHD to 960x540 29.97p (intraframe compression only) for the default intermediate. It offers 1920x1080i Apple Intermediate Codec (~60GB/hr) as an option for faster computers with 7200 RPM drives.

[JimmyS]

as the owner of an avchd camcorder this corel studio interests me..just a quick few questions:

1) Can i have 2 different video streams and swap back and forth easily (in Premiere I use opacity keyframes, not sure how it's done in Corel).

2) When I re-encode, does it do a "smart" re-encode where it does a stream copy except for the transitions (fading from one video track to the other)?

I'll be shooting some outside video soon and my hope is that I need to only fade back/forth between the 2 video feeds without doing any color adjustments.

oh and 3) How well does the HD to SD conversion work? I'm sure I'll need to make SD dvd's out of it.

It was a while ago that I first loooked at VideoStudio 12 X2, so I just tried out the X3 vesion to refresh my memory. The editor is pretty rudimentary compared to Elements and Movie Studio. There are multiple tracks but there doesn't appear to be any keyframing available. It does do smart re-encoding though. The conversion to MPEG2 for DVD looked pretty good, and the encoder was configurable. My personal opinion is it's OK for basic editing, but lacks many of the features of its competitors. The proxy feature does work well though. Which leads me to a correction regarding my previous reply. I was mistaken about the program using a version of the Cineform encoder. What I had in my Add/Rem programs was a remnant from the Neoscene trial that didn't go away when it was un-installed. Sorry for the confusion. Upon recovering from my crainial-anal inversion I looked at the configuration for VideoStudios proxy creation. By default it is creating a Radius Cinepak file and is configurable to most other installed codecs.

[pippas]

Here in the UK the AG HMC151 camera is currently shipping with Edius Neo2 - at least until the end of March that is.

Is that not true for the US model, the AGHMC150 as well?

If not, then it still might be worth looking at Edius Neo anyway. Converts AVCHD to Canopus HQ -same sort of quality as Neoscene, and with similar file sizes as well!
Easier to edit on fairly modest machines, and with a pretty comprehensive set of features.

If you've already got a modern NLE, then Neoscene is probably cheaper, but if you're thinking of buying an NLE package as well as Neoscene for conversion, then Edius Neo looks like good value.

You can trial it for free anyway -so maybe worth a look?