720p camera Panasonic TZ10 editng suggestions

[andyking]

I have used WMM (dont laugh) with success in the past, but have upgraded to a 720p camera Panasonic TZ10. So need some simple software that does what WMM does plus HD edit and output MPEG2 or Bluray. Plus stabilize and custom zoom & pan. It does not have to be too technical or complicated. I have tried Adobe PR9, Cyberlink and Videopad but all have some features but not all those I need.
My main interest is to make videos of our travel stills and movies, joined together. Nothing too dramatic.
Thanks.

[Moontrash]

Multiavchd for the output to Blu Ray and MPEG2

TMPGEnc Authoring Works does the whole shebang

[redwudz]

andyking, in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,
Moderator redwudz

[johnharlin]

You might take a look at AVS video editor and AVS converter. I have heard some good things about this suite of programs for video editing.

[budwzr]

Try Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

[Big Brian]

Slightly off-topic I'm afraid;
I'm looking to buy a TZ10 but can't find a report on how well it handles taking Videos in low light situations (like in a bar of an evening). On my last (sadly deceased) camera, they came out very red.

Thanks for any user report you can give on this - I like the rest of the spec, but this particularly matters to me, so I don't want to buy without knowing that it's acceptable.

[andyking]

Indoor low light movies on the TZ10 are not great but average I would say, although I do not do a lot of that sort of shooting. I used the camera intensely over a 3 month period while walking and the only poor shots were indoor flash stills, where the camera failed to focus or blurred. However that may have been my fault. I have yet to test and discover what went wrong. Outdoor movies were good especially close- up, distance tends to lose definition, but so do most digital movie cameras I'v noticed.

[budwzr]

Apparently the TZ10 is the ZS7 in the US market. I give that camera my best rating in the point-and-shoot digicam genre. It's a fabulous camera. Check Steve's digicam's for a full review.

Note that NO consumer camera performs video well in low light because, quite frankly, there's not enough light. Still photography is different because you can adjust exposure time.

The secret to night video is to correct it in post. In post, you can adjust gamma, HSL, brightness, contrast, etc. and get rid of the grain too.

Here's a short clip from a FlipUltraHD 720p30 in low light that I cleaned up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcRILTsNOBs

It was very grainy(noisy) prior.

BTW: The FZ35 shoots 720p60, and having 60 fps will help a lot. That video above was only 30 fps. So you might want to check out the FZ35 too.

[edDV]

The Panasonic TZ10 encodes to the "AVCHD Lite" format that is not yet well supported by editors. It is 1280x720/30p fps with a frame repeat flag to make 1280x720/60p. This is not part of the normal AVCHD format and few editors support it directly.

I created a custom 1280x720/30p fps project template in Vegas that seems to work for an "AVCHD Lite" sample I downloaded. Vegas ignors the repeat frame flag. The timeline is 30p.

[budwzr]

If you set the Vegas timeline to 60p, you will get access to all the frames.

If you final render to 30p, your edits will have been applied at 60p, effectively having twice the bandwidth, and will blend or interpolate to 30p more smoothly.

AFAIK most of the consumer cams are exclusively 1080i, no 720p option, that sux compared to AVCHD Lite IMHO. 720p is much easier to work with, and there's not much visual difference, at least not on my 52" Sharp flat panel.

[edDV]

If you set the Vegas timeline to 60p, you will get access to all the frames.

If you final render to 30p, your edits will have been applied at 60p, effectively having twice the bandwidth, and will blend or interpolate to 30p very smoothly.

AVCHD Lite is native 30p (25p PAL).

[budwzr]

I can't find much info about it, but it seems you're right, but if there's no difference I wonder why they have a separate setting in the camera for 60p vs. 30p.

That sounds like false advertising, kind of risky in a world of lawsuits.

[edDV]

AVCHD Lite frame repeats 30p to 60p.

[budwzr]

What's the purpose of that?

Update: Hmmm...it seems ALL three AVCHD Lite "Quality Settings" are "60p", the difference is the bitrates. That's something I was unaware of.

Sony Vegas shows the source .mts as 60p, and if the timeline is set to 60p there are indeed 60 frames per second. However, as I step through the single frames, every other one is a duplicate. There's no motion at all.

I'm not sure why a reputable company has to resort to this kind of trickery. Reminds me of Sony's 120X "Digital" zoom and "Night Vision" that was worthless.

I only paid $300 OTD for my FZ-35, so I guess I got flim-flammed. Won't happen again.

[edDV]

What's the purpose of that?

Update: Hmmm...it seems ALL three AVCHD Lite "Quality Settings" are "60p", the difference is the bitrates. That's something I was unaware of.

Sony Vegas shows the source .mts as 60p, and if the timeline is set to 60p there are indeed 60 frames per second. However, as I step through the single frames, every other one is a duplicate. There's no motion at all.

I'm not sure why a reputable company has to resort to this kind of trickery. Reminds me of Sony's 120X "Digital" zoom and "Night Vision" that was worthless.

I only paid $300 OTD for my FZ-35, so I guess I got flim-flammed. Won't happen again.

I think what I did with the sample was define a 1280x720p/29.97 project, import AVCHD Lite to the timeline, right click properties on the clip and make sure it shows 29.97p. Then you can step through one progressive frame at a time.

[budwzr]

Right, if the timeline is set to 30p it skips over the dupes. The tick marks (frame markers) are still there, but you can't land on the dupe. I'm using Pro9e.

Well, the good news is I can justify a better camera sooner, hehehe

==========================
Seeya, Nancy! Don't let the door.....

[poisondeathray]

You still have to "disable resample" for each clip in vegas or you will get ghosting

[budwzr]

You still have to "disable resample" for each clip in vegas or you will get ghosting

OK, I'll check that out.

The Sony "magic" timeline is a great achievement AFA being able to toss whatever on it, but the downside is it's not always clear "how" it conforms the media. And combine that with sketchy specs on the source like what we have here, and it's not easy to keep quality control on your project.

I DID notice the video from the TZ-35 "chugged" or juddered, but I thought it was just too much motion while taking the video.

This train video has that "judder": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k0uKpm59EM can you see it?

[poisondeathray]

I think the "judder" is from flash player or your system playback through flash

If you download the file an play through a regular media player, it looks smoother

There is some ghosting in that video as well

[budwzr]

I think the "judder" is from flash player or your system playback through flash

If you download the file an play through a regular media player, it looks smoother

There is some ghosting in that video as well

I'm definitely going to check that "resample=No" option. Thanks.

[Big Brian]

Thanks folks. Good enough, I'm buying one.