Creating a DVD that displays in Hi Def on a Blu-Ray player [Archive]

Larry Horwitz

August 30th, 2008, 07:24 AM

Steve Mullen

August 30th, 2008, 06:46 PM

I own and use Vegas 8 Pro Suite but have not recommended it for AVCHD for a number of reasons:

1. It can't author menued AVCHD disks.

2. Its output is always re-rendered, with a considerable waiting time and lessened image quality, since my Canon HF100 content at the highest quality 17 MBit/sec rate is transcoded to a lower rate by Vegas. For Sony AVCHD camcorder owners this may not be an issue, since they encode AVCHD at a lower 16 Mbit/sec rate and different AVCHD profile which Vegas 8 does handle, perhaps without transcoding.

3. Previews of many effects require a rendering preview step and associated waiting time, since it does not consistently create and preview smaller proxy files.

4. Vegas 8 Pro, for reasons I and others have yet to resolve, often will not display the video track of the AVCHD content whatsoever when using Canon camcorders. Another new thread on this specific topic on this forum is soliciting help on this issue, and people on the Vegas forum have also dealt with it, mostly suggesting that the AVCHD content should be first transcoded into HDV (using Vaast Upshift or Voltaic) to avoid the Vegas problem, a very very bad solution in my opinion. Sony has not be particularly aggresive in solving this problem since it has been posted months ago by Canon owners like me and others, but their support for non Sony camcorder owners has been, to put it politely, spotty.

I understand that the list of low cost NLEs I I previously provided offers comparatively simple and less professional choices / features than Vegas 8, and indeed I have used Vegas myself for several years to do most of my HDV editing with my FX-1 and several other HDV camcorders. Vegas just does not handle AVCHD as well, especially for my Canon and some other camcorders.

While you can add menus using another authoring program like Movie Factory 6, you still incur the two penalties of reduced image quality and long rendering time , so I have stopped using or recommending Vegas for these reasons.

Larry

1) Sony has it's own DVD authoring program, DVD ARCH V5, so they are not keen to put that function inside the NLE. They expect you to buy the Suite -- which is reasonable given Vegas 8 is aimed at the "pro." Anyone with a real business can pay for the suite in one job.

2) Vegas Movie Studio 9 does support ALL camcorders. So, it's only a matter of time until we see Vegas 9 Pro. And, at only $85, you can easily afford to add DVD ARCH V5.

3) I've been using MF6+ for a year making HD DVDs. As long as you feed it ready-to-burn video it does NOT recompress it. It only renders your menus. You simply need to uncheck the RECOMPRESS box.

4) None of the cheap NLEs, other than iMovie 08, do real-time FX without rendering. That's why I like iMovie 08.

5) I've burned an AVCHD disk with Studio 11 -- the quality was so bad I would never use it. They seem to have a very bad software encoder. (And, CyberLink doesn't handle 5.1.) I would expect Sony to offer the best quality encoder. And, Vegas BD disks do look great.

Kaushik Parmar

August 30th, 2008, 07:36 PM

(And, CyberLink doesn't handle 5.1.)

CyberLink's new PowerDirector 7 has 5.1 features!

Steve Mullen

August 31st, 2008, 05:39 AM

CyberLink's new PowerDirector 7 has 5.1 features!

I have it and it has no panner to move audio around so I don't see it offers anything other than putting stereo in a 5.1 mode. It may support the Sony 5.1 from the SR12, but the docs don't say it does.

Bruce Foreman

August 31st, 2008, 01:20 PM

Steve,

You may not have the latest "build". Click on the "director's chair" icon, click on "help", then the "about" file. If the version/build # isn't 7.00.1915 you have an older one. The download section on cyberlink.com has an update patch that brings up either the download version or retail version to "build 1915" which has the latest features and "fixes".

Larry Horwitz

September 1st, 2008, 06:50 AM

1) Sony has it's own DVD authoring program, DVD ARCH V5, so they are not keen to put that function inside the NLE. They expect you to buy the Suite -- which is reasonable given Vegas 8 is aimed at the "pro." Anyone with a real business can pay for the suite in one job.

2) Vegas Movie Studio 9 does support ALL camcorders. So, it's only a matter of time until we see Vegas 9 Pro. And, at only $85, you can easily afford to add DVD ARCH V5.

3) I've been using MF6+ for a year making HD DVDs. As long as you feed it ready-to-burn video it does NOT recompress it. It only renders your menus. You simply need to uncheck the RECOMPRESS box.

4) None of the cheap NLEs, other than iMovie 08, do real-time FX without rendering. That's why I like iMovie 08.

5) I've burned an AVCHD disk with Studio 11 -- the quality was so bad I would never use it. They seem to have a very bad software encoder. (And, CyberLink doesn't handle 5.1.) I would expect Sony to offer the best quality encoder. And, Vegas BD disks do look great.

Steve,

1. I own the Vegas suite including the latest version 5 DVD Architect and it CANNOT AUTHOR red laser menued AVCHD disks. The ONLY way to make red laser AVCHD disks with the suite is directly out of Vegas Pro 8.0b.

2. Vegas 9 may indeed be better, but it is futureware. I am not even aware that the new Movie Studio 9 allows menued red AVCHD disks. To my knowledge, it can't do them either.

3. I know that Ulead MF6 does not recompresss and that is why I like it and recommend it. Unfortunatgely, the Vegas + MF6 approach / method you describe demands recompression in Vegas prior to using MF6, so the damage and delay is already done before getting into MF6. Hence, my objection.

4. Well, Ulead Video Studio 11.5, Pinnacle, Cyberlink and Nero Vision do real time effects on my quadcore with no need to render them out for preview. Your claim / comment / experience differs entirely with mine.

5. I agree with you about Pinnacle image quality, but Cyberlink does handle 5.1 and Sony's encoder is NOT the best looking for the cropped still frame comparisons I have made and examined exhaustively. Since Vegas ALWAYS rerenders Canon 17 and 24 Mbit/sec footage, its image quality is very noticeably inferior to the untouched, non-re-rendered footage I produce with several of the cheap NLEs. Perhaps for Sony camcorders the situation is different. My Vegas (unmenued) red laser AVCHDs look soft, and the color is slighly washed out compared to the results I get with Nero Vision, for example.

Larry

Larry Horwitz

September 1st, 2008, 07:02 AM

I failed to mention that I am a huge fan of Vegas and DVD Architect generally, and have done several years of really superb HDV work with it. I also have done several hundred different HD DVDs and settled on using DVD Studio Pro (on the Mac), and Ulead on the PC with stunning results. (Vegas suite can't make HD DVDs either.......)

AVCHD is a whole different game however, and, in my own experience, the Vegas suite just does not measure up with the other competitors when it comes to making what the original poster is looking for, a way to make DVDs for BluRay playback using AVCHD content.

Larry

Steve Mullen

September 1st, 2008, 08:28 PM

Steve,

1. I own the Vegas suite including the latest version 5 DVD Architect and it CANNOT AUTHOR red laser menued AVCHD disks. The ONLY way to make red laser AVCHD disks with the suite is directly out of Vegas Pro 8.0b.

2. Vegas 9 may indeed be better, but it is futureware. I am not even aware that the new Movie Studio 9 allows menued red AVCHD disks. To my knowledge, it can't do them either.

3. I know that Ulead MF6 does not recompresss and that is why I like it and recommend it. Unfortunatgely, the Vegas + MF6 approach / method you describe demands recompression in Vegas prior to using MF6, so the damage and delay is already done before getting into MF6. Hence, my objection.

4. Well, Ulead Video Studio 11.5, Pinnacle, Cyberlink and Nero Vision do real time effects on my quadcore with no need to render them out for preview. Your claim / comment / experience differs entirely with mine.

5. I agree with you about Pinnacle image quality, but Cyberlink does handle 5.1 and Sony's encoder is NOT the best looking for the cropped still frame comparisons I have made and examined exhaustively. Since Vegas ALWAYS rerenders Canon 17 and 24 Mbit/sec footage, its image quality is very noticeably inferior to the untouched, non-re-rendered footage I produce with several of the cheap NLEs. Perhaps for Sony camcorders the situation is different. My Vegas (unmenued) red laser AVCHDs look soft, and the color is slighly washed out compared to the results I get with Nero Vision, for example.

Larry

I think there are four issues:

1) NeroVision isn't really an NLE, It is a "splicing" program. CyberLink and Ulead IMHO are consumer quality NLEs compared to Vegas which IMHO is way below FCP or Avid Media Composer. Pinnacle is ALMOST an NLE, but we both agree the output quality is bad.

2) You are using a Quad core while I suspect most all laptop and most box PC users have only a Dual core. So you clearly have an huge advantage when it comes to RT.

3) The maximum AVCHD bit-rate is 18Mbps so 24Mbps AVCHD is always going to be recompressed. Likewise, the maximum red-laser BD is 18Mbps. So, unless one buys a BD burner, the limit is 18Mbps. (Possibly 20Mbps, but that's pushing it.)

4) I don't share your concern about recompression. EVERY SD and HD format other than AVCHD has ALWAYS been recompressed going to an optical disc. That means every dicc you buy has been through recompression -- yet we accept the quality. Now that can lead to two conclusions:

A) AVCHD is not exactly high-quality to start with -- with present camcorders almost equal to HDV. Given it's low quality, why sweat a bit of loss from recompression. I'd rather use a "good" NLE.

B) AVCHD is not exactly high-quality to start with -- with present camcorders almost equal to HDV. Given it's low quality, it's vital to prevent any more loss of quality. So you might be willing to give-up Vegas for CyberLink, for example.

I think what all this means is that one's answer to the posted question depends on one's hardware and goals.

I'm going to buy Vegas Movie Studio 9 because it INCLUDES AC3 encoding. Then I'll try RENDER AS to make a file for MF6 IF I need menus.

Larry Horwitz

September 1st, 2008, 11:41 PM

I think there are four issues:

1) NeroVision isn't really an NLE, It is a "splicing" program. CyberLink and Ulead IMHO are consumer quality NLEs compared to Vegas which IMHO is way below FCP or Avid Media Composer. Pinnacle is ALMOST an NLE, but we both agree the output quality is bad.

2) You are using a Quad core while I suspect most all laptop and most box PC users have only a Dual core. So you clearly have an huge advantage when it comes to RT.

3) The maximum AVCHD bit-rate is 18Mbps so 24Mbps AVCHD is always going to be recompressed. Likewise, the maximum red-laser BD is 18Mbps. So, unless one buys a BD burner, the limit is 18Mbps. (Possibly 20Mbps, but that's pushing it.)

4) I don't share your concern about recompression. EVERY SD and HD format other than AVCHD has ALWAYS been recompressed going to an optical disc. That means every dicc you buy has been through recompression -- yet we accept the quality. Now that can lead to two conclusions:

A) AVCHD is not exactly high-quality to start with -- with present camcorders almost equal to HDV. Given it's low quality, why sweat a bit of loss from recompression. I'd rather use a "good" NLE.

B) AVCHD is not exactly high-quality to start with -- with present camcorders almost equal to HDV. Given it's low quality, it's vital to prevent any more loss of quality. So you might be willing to give-up Vegas for CyberLink, for example.

I think what all this means is that one's answer to the posted question depends on one's hardware and goals.

I'm going to buy Vegas Movie Studio 9 because it INCLUDES AC3 encoding. Then I'll try RENDER AS to make a file for MF6 IF I need menus.

Steve,

1. Nero Vision does the complete ingest, editing, transitions, titling, and effects as any other NLE, admitedly fewer effects and transitions, but I would say it is truly an NLE. It certainly is not among the most powerful NLEs out there, and it is pointless to debate semantics, but I use it as a start to finish program which authors burned AVCHD disks from ingested AVCHD camcorder input, so I can't think of another term to describe it, and most certainly do NOT call it a "splicing program" as you do.

2. I definitely consider my quadcore an essential AVCHD tool, but I argue and recognize that it allows real time preview from all of the "cheap" programs I stated, unlike Vegas, which won't do real time anything depsite having the fastest quadcore Intel makes. My criticism of Vegas stands..... since most other vendors properly exploit the quadcore and yet Vegas does not yet do so.

3. I don't know where you get your numbers from, but I have burned AVCHD disks up to 24 Mbits/sec on red laser disks and played them at that same speed. Why do you say there is an 18 Mbit/sec limit??????? When I use programs which I describe as those which do not re-compress, I am observing that these programs take ingested .mts timeline files and create the output .mts disk image files in the very same amount of time it takes to make a direct file copy of the same sized input .mts file. Those programs which require re-compression typically take 2 to 5 times longer to create the output file. I disagree entirely with your statement that "AVCHD is always going to be re-compressed". As a matter of fact, a quick look at the $169 AVCHD burner accessory for the Canon cameras, the DW-100 disk burner has no authoring or editing other than deleting clips, and uses the camcorder's BDMV folder directly to burn the disk without recompression whatsoever as well.

4. I disagree with your premise that "every HD format going to HD has always been recompressed going to an optical disk". My HDV HD DVD disks contained .m2t timeline files whose output .evo files were created by some (cheap) authoring software with absolutely no recompression whatsoever, and were written to my hard disk in the very same amount of time it took to directly copy them as .m2t files. The .evo files were the same size, played at exactly the same rate (25 Mbit/sec), made it extremely explict that they were NOT being re-rendered with such messages as "100% Smart Rendered" as the HD DVDs were being created, and played in a visually identical way to the original HDV camcorder output and .m2t file playback. Cropped still frame clips appear identical from input to output whereas the re-rendered versions were always slower and degraded. What is your interpretation of "smart rendering" and how can you claim that all content is re-compressed. Yes, I recognize that some disks require re-muxing of video and audio streams, but this is NOT re-compression.

Finally, and MOST significantly, I want to tell you that AVCHD looks equal to and in some cases superior to HDV, at least for the 4 HDV / AVCHD camcorders I have owned, and any argument which begins with the assertion of your "A" or "B" above that "AVCHD is not exactly high quality" demonstrates a basic ignorance of what AVCHD really looks like.

I readily will admit that a Sony PMW-EX3 XDCAM EX HD Camcorder selling for 8 grand is going to make vastly better looking HDV videos compared to today's top of the line 2 grand AVCHD camcorder, but I argue that the quality of AVCHD is presently capped by camera makers rather than the AVCHD format. An EX3 with an AVCHD encoder would likely convince you of that should such a camera currently exist.

More to the point, consumer camcorders in the price range below $1000 are nearly equal in either format, with those of us who own and use both formats seeing mostly subtle differences. Re-rendering is by far the most damaging insult to the content, and I, for one, strongly prefer and recommend software which eliminates this compromise.

Vegas 8 and Vegas Movie Studio 9, and their "RENDER AS" merely recompress the timeline, do not author menued disks, and add degredation, long delays, and the need for yet another program like Ulead MF6 to make a recompressed disk. I see absolutely no advantage is this workflow.

Could you please tell me specifically:

-where does your 18 Mbit/sec AVCHD limit come from?

-why my huge advantage in real time with a quadcore in any way legitimizes Vegas / Movie Studio, both of which totally lack real time on my machine, but somehow diminish my recommended cheaper NLE programs which you incorrect identify as lacking real time, even though they somehow figured out how to do real time previews even though Sony has not???

-what is the basis for your belief that every HD format other than AVCHD requires recompression to optical disk??

Thanks in advance for your reply,

Larry

Kaushik Parmar

September 2nd, 2008, 12:11 AM

Steve,

1. Nero Vision does the complete ingest, editing, transitions, titling, and effects as any other NLE, admitedly fewer effects and transitions, but I would say it is truly an NLE. It certainly is not among the most powerful NLEs out there, and it is pointless to debate semantics, but I use it as a start to finish program which authors burned AVCHD disks from ingested AVCHD camcorder input, so I can't think of another term to describe it, and most certainly do NOT call it a "splicing program" as you do.

2. I definitely consider my quadcore an essential AVCHD tool, but I argue and recognize that it allows real time preview from all of the "cheap" programs I stated, unlike Vegas, which won't do real time anything depsite having the fastest quadcore Intel makes. My criticism of Vegas stands..... since most other vendors properly exploit the quadcore and yet Vegas does not yet do so.

3. I don't know where you get your numbers from, but I have burned AVCHD disks up to 24 Mbits/sec on red laser disks and played them at that same speed. Why do you say there is an 18 Mbit/sec limit??????? When I use programs which I describe as those which do not re-compress, I am observing that these programs take ingested .mts timeline files and create the output .mts disk image files in the very same amount of time it takes to make a direct file copy of the same sized input .mts file. Those programs which require re-compression typically take 2 to 5 times longer to create the output file. I disagree entirely with your statement that "AVCHD is always going to be re-compressed". As a matter of fact, a quick look at the $169 AVCHD burner accessory for the Canon cameras, the DW-100 disk burner has no authoring or editing other than deleting clips, and uses the camcorder's BDMV folder directly to burn the disk without recompression whatsoever as well.

4. I disagree with your premise that "every HD format going to HD has always been recompressed going to an optical disk". My HDV HD DVD disks contained .m2t timeline files whose output .evo files were created by some (cheap) authoring software with absolutely no recompression whatsoever, and were written to my hard disk in the very same amount of time it took to directly copy them as .m2t files. The .evo files were the same size, played at exactly the same rate (25 Mbit/sec), made it extremely explict that they were NOT being re-rendered with such messages as "100% Smart Rendered" as the HD DVDs were being created, and played in a visually identical way to the original HDV camcorder output and .m2t file playback. Cropped still frame clips appear identical from input to output whereas the re-rendered versions were always slower and degraded. What is your interpretation of "smart rendering" and how can you claim that all content is re-compressed. Yes, I recognize that some disks require re-muxing of video and audio streams, but this is NOT re-compression.

Finally, and MOST significantly, I want to tell you that AVCHD looks equal to and in some cases superior to HDV, at least for the 4 HDV / AVCHD camcorders I have owned, and any argument which begins with the assertion of your "A" or "B" above that "AVCHD is not exactly high quality" demonstrates a basic ignorance of what AVCHD really looks like.

I readily will admit that a Sony PMW-EX3 XDCAM EX HD Camcorder selling for 8 grand is going to make vastly better looking HDV videos compared to today's top of the line 2 grand AVCHD camcorder, but I argue that the quality of AVCHD is presently capped by camera makers rather than the AVCHD format. An EX3 with an AVCHD encoder would likely convince you of that should such a camera currently exist.

More to the point, consumer camcorders in the price range below $1000 are nearly equal in either format, with those of us who own and use both formats seeing mostly subtle differences. Re-rendering is by far the most damaging insult to the content, and I, for one, strongly prefer and recommend software which eliminates this compromise.

Vegas 8 and Vegas Movie Studio 9, and their "RENDER AS" merely recompress the timeline, do not author menued disks, and add degredation, long delays, and the need for yet another program like Ulead MF6 to make a recompressed disk. I see absolutely no advantage is this workflow.

Could you please tell me specifically:

-where does your 18 Mbit/sec AVCHD limit come from?

-why my huge advantage in real time with a quadcore in any way legitimizes Vegas / Movie Studio, both of which totally lack real time on my machine, but somehow diminish my recommended cheaper NLE programs which you incorrect identify as lacking real time, even though they somehow figured out how to do real time previews even though Sony has not???

-what is the basis for your belief that every HD format other than AVCHD requires recompression to optical disk??

Thanks in advance for your reply,

Larry

Huh! Waiting reply of Steve! Larry why you are so blunt? I am afraid!

Kaushik

Steve Mullen

September 2nd, 2008, 03:10 AM

Steve,

1. Nero Vision does the complete ingest, editing, transitions, titling, and effects as any other NLE, admitedly fewer effects and transitions, but I would say it is truly an NLE.

2. ... unlike Vegas, which won't do real time anything depsite having the fastest quadcore Intel makes.

3. As a matter of fact, a quick look at the $169 AVCHD burner accessory for the Canon cameras, the DW-100 disk burner has no authoring or editing other than deleting clips, and uses the camcorder's BDMV folder directly to burn the disk without recompression whatsoever as well.

4. I disagree with your premise that "every HD format going to HD has always been recompressed going to an optical disk". My HDV HD DVD disks contained .m2t timeline files whose output .evo files were created by some (cheap) authoring software with absolutely no recompression whatsoever, and were written to my hard disk in the very same amount of time it took to directly copy them as .m2t files.

1) Honestly, I have never heard of Nero being anything other than a collection of CD/DVD burning tools. Roxio claims "Enjoy your favorite TV shows without interruption simply by editing out the commercial breaks" which is why I called it a splicer. Going to their site it looks like they now support AVCHD in some kind of storyboard with transitions between shots. VideoMaker describes as EXACTLY as I would, "Nero is one of the most popular disc-burning suites for Windows, and certainly one of the most comprehensive disc-burning suites for any platform. You can also design covers, manage photos, convert and edit video, convert music and edit WAV files."

2) You are correct, Vegas isn't RT which is why I ONLY recommend EDIUS, FCP, or iMovie 08 for video editing. I don't use Vegas for video editing. I use Vegas ONLY to add and mix 5.1 audio to something I edited with EDIUS, FCP, MC, or iMovie 08. It's only a 5.1 audio tool for me. If I want menus, I also use MF6 and burn from it. (The ONLY reason to use Vegas and MF6 is because Apple doesn't support BD -- and may not.) Otherwise, I stick with OS X based products -- other than EDIUS 4.6. (Frankly, I don't see why anyone using Windows would consider anything but EDIUS for video editing. If NBC can buy hundreds of copies, I figure that is more than good enough for me.)

This PROCESS is no different than using an Apple (or Adobe) Editing Suite. Import AVCHD or HDV or XDCAM or DVCPRO HD or P2 into FCP. Edit in RT, pass to Soundtrack for 5.1 mixing, pass to DVDStudioPro, and burn. (For compositing, video is moved in and out of AE/Flame.) This process is used for every HD production you see on TV -- although a Media Composer may be used in place of FCP. You really can't claim COPYING .m2t files to a disc is is an example of video HD PRODUCTION.

3) Bottom line, I don't assume AVCHD as my source format or AVCHD as my BD format. In fact, even when I shoot AVCHD, it is immediately converted to ProRes 422 or AIC. I have no interest in burning an AVCHD disk. If I burn a BD disc, I use MPEG-2 because it is many times faster to encode. If I burn a red-laser disc -- I use MPEG-2 at 18Mbps which is the same as broadcast HDTV.

4) If you read the description of Canon's DVD burner -- it specifically notes that 24Mbps AVCHD can NOT be played back on BD players -- ONLY on Canon's DVD BURNER. This makes sense to me because here is a typical comment on burning AVCHD. "There are several options that you can set for encoding, and you can encode either MPEG2 or H264 (H264 is much more efficient). One note of caution. If you are using AVCHD to burn to a standard DVD, do not set the data rate higher than 1500kbps. While you can encode to a Blu-Ray disc at up to 4000kbps, you will get skipping if you go much over 1500 on a red laser DVD."

Here's another comment, "The video data rate will determine the players that your "Blueray DVD" can play on and will also affect the length of the video you can get on a DVD. At the moment I have settled on about 15Mbps, CBR with linear audio. With Dolby audio, I am sure that it will work fine.
I have consistant good results using 15Mbps (upper field first) for the video files and PCM for the audio. If you encode the audio in Dolby the video files could probably be 16Mbps or even a little higher. You will get about 30 - 35 minutes on a single layer 4.7GB DVD. I had limited success with a variey of disks, but 100% success with Sony DVD-R and Verbatim DVD-R disks. Don't even try DVD+R disks as the players I have tried will not recognise them."

Mike Burgess

September 2nd, 2008, 04:46 AM

....3) Bottom line, I don't assume AVCHD as my source format or AVCHD as my BD format. In fact, even when I shoot AVCHD, it is immediately converted to ProRes 422 or AIC. I have no interest in burning an AVCHD disk. If I burn a BD disc, I use MPEG-2 because it is many times faster to encode. If I burn a red-laser disc -- I use MPEG-2 at 18Mbps which is the same as broadcast HDTV.

...."I had limited success with a variey of disks, but 100% success with Sony DVD-R and Verbatim DVD-R disks. Don't even try DVD+R disks as the players I have tried will not recognise them."

I know that I have eliminated much of your quote, but it is these two items I have a question about.
1. As to the "don't even try DVD+R disks" part of your quote, I have burned AVCHD footage onto a Verbatim DVD+R and played it on a Pany BD30 player (it worked just fine). So the author never tried the Pany BD30. But apparently, I should burn only using Verbatim DVD-R from now on, right?
2. Do you recomment changing my archived AVCHD footage to Mpeg2 when I want to use Pinnacle 12? Will I lose any quality in my results?

Thanks.
Mike

Larry Horwitz

September 2nd, 2008, 09:32 AM

1) Honestly, I have never heard of Nero being anything other than a collection of CD/DVD burning tools. Roxio claims "Enjoy your favorite TV shows without interruption simply by editing out the commercial breaks" which is why I called it a splicer. Going to their site it looks like they now support AVCHD in some kind of storyboard with transitions between shots. VideoMaker describes as EXACTLY as I would, "Nero is one of the most popular disc-burning suites for Windows, and certainly one of the most comprehensive disc-burning suites for any platform. You can also design covers, manage photos, convert and edit video, convert music and edit WAV files."

2) You are correct, Vegas isn't RT which is why I ONLY recommend EDIUS, FCP, or iMovie 08 for video editing. I don't use Vegas for video editing. I use Vegas ONLY to add and mix 5.1 audio to something I edited with EDIUS, FCP, MC, or iMovie 08. It's only a 5.1 audio tool for me. If I want menus, I also use MF6 and burn from it. (The ONLY reason to use Vegas and MF6 is because Apple doesn't support BD -- and may not.) Otherwise, I stick with OS X based products -- other than EDIUS 4.6. (Frankly, I don't see why anyone using Windows would consider anything but EDIUS for video editing. If NBC can buy hundreds of copies, I figure that is more than good enough for me.)

This PROCESS is no different than using an Apple (or Adobe) Editing Suite. Import AVCHD or HDV or XDCAM or DVCPRO HD or P2 into FCP. Edit in RT, pass to Soundtrack for 5.1 mixing, pass to DVDStudioPro, and burn. (For compositing, video is moved in and out of AE/Flame.) This process is used for every HD production you see on TV -- although a Media Composer may be used in place of FCP. You really can't claim COPYING .m2t files to a disc is is an example of video HD PRODUCTION.

3) Bottom line, I don't assume AVCHD as my source format or AVCHD as my BD format. In fact, even when I shoot AVCHD, it is immediately converted to ProRes 422 or AIC. I have no interest in burning an AVCHD disk. If I burn a BD disc, I use MPEG-2 because it is many times faster to encode. If I burn a red-laser disc -- I use MPEG-2 at 18Mbps which is the same as broadcast HDTV.

4) If you read the description of Canon's DVD burner -- it specifically notes that 24Mbps AVCHD can NOT be played back on BD players -- ONLY on Canon's DVD BURNER. This makes sense to me because here is a typical comment on burning AVCHD. "There are several options that you can set for encoding, and you can encode either MPEG2 or H264 (H264 is much more efficient). One note of caution. If you are using AVCHD to burn to a standard DVD, do not set the data rate higher than 1500kbps. While you can encode to a Blu-Ray disc at up to 4000kbps, you will get skipping if you go much over 1500 on a red laser DVD."

Here's another comment, "The video data rate will determine the players that your "Blueray DVD" can play on and will also affect the length of the video you can get on a DVD. At the moment I have settled on about 15Mbps, CBR with linear audio. With Dolby audio, I am sure that it will work fine.
I have consistant good results using 15Mbps (upper field first) for the video files and PCM for the audio. If you encode the audio in Dolby the video files could probably be 16Mbps or even a little higher. You will get about 30 - 35 minutes on a single layer 4.7GB DVD. I had limited success with a variey of disks, but 100% success with Sony DVD-R and Verbatim DVD-R disks. Don't even try DVD+R disks as the players I have tried will not recognise them."

1. Nero Vision is not even made by Roxio Steve. You are referring to another program which competes with Nero. Nero is made by Ahead Software. I can only imagine that you have not used Nero Vision. Your 'splicing' reference is wrong, and your quote is wrong as well.

2. I guess you are now agreeing to my original position, namely, that Vegas 8 Pro lacks several key justifications to make it the "right" AVCHD editing and authoring tool, since it lacks real time preview, can't do BD disk menues, and forces re-rendering........3 deal breakers IMHO. It certainly would not be at or near the top of my list. Those I did recomend highly are not in the same league of sophistication as Edius, but then again, they provide complete end-to-end ingest to menued AVCHD disks for $60 bucks or so, and thus are affordable by those who may not neccesarily want to spend the premium for Edius but still want great looking menued disks with the preservation of all of the original AVCHD detail without any re-rendering delay.

3. This forum specifically is for AVCHD users, and thus I entirely and absolutely disagree with the notion that transcoding to mpeg2 and making some form of mpeg2 disk makes any sense whatsoever, since AVCHD is very deliberately designed to capture and deliver to the end user an h.264 format which BluRay supports explictly.

How do you, in fact, after transcoding to your (supposedly maximum permitted) 18 Mbit/sec mpeg2 file even make a red laser BD DVD?????????????

If you have found a way to do so I would LOVE to know how, since I would be delighted to make NON-TRANSCODED HDV mpeg2 disks onto red laser and play them in my BluRay players. I have NOT found a way to do so, nor has anyone else to my knowledge.........The only method I have ever discovered to making red laser mpeg2 disks which play in BD players is to hand edit the BDMV files.

4. Your quote and comments are entirely and absolutely wrong in general, and only reflect a limitation of the $169 Canon AVCHD burner. I make and then play AVCHD disks with 21 Mbit/sec AVCHD both on my software PC players as well as my hardware BluRay players, and they explictly allow the bitrates to be displayed in real time as 21 Mbits/sec. In fact, red laser disks play 25 Mbit/sec HDV video as well, and this has been clearly demonstrated and used now for years to make HD DVD disks on red laser burners which neither skip nor have any playback problems whatseoever in either set-top or PC players.

With all due respect Steve, I must state that your familiarity and practical knowledge of AVCHD and the associated issues seems very "HDV based" and doesn't begin to exploit or properly employ the numerous tools and methods which allow the AVCHD content to be used intact. I find the recommendations you make and the approach(s) you provide to mostly add workflow delays, degrade the output, and create ficticious 18 Mbit/sec red laser BD disks.

Most of all I want to underscore that AVCHD was introduced as a low cost consumer format, and, if used properly is amazingly low cost, high quality, and fast to use, if the proper tools are employed. In my workflow, I can take an SD card from the AVCHD camcorder, trim and rearrange clips, and put out a BluRay-compatible AVCHD disk in a very short time, often no more than 10 minutes from start to finished burned disk, and the content looks identical to the original .mts footage. Many if not most consumers are NOT looking for the NBC studio solution you advocate, and AVCHD is not the format NBC or others would use. Your HDV-based thinking and tools are just absolutely wrong, in my opinion,for the reasons stated in my several replies to you.

Larry

Mark Bausch

September 2nd, 2008, 01:23 PM

In my workflow, I can take an SD card from the AVCHD camcorder, trim and rearrange clips, and put out a BluRay-compatible AVCHD disk in a very short time, often no more than 10 minutes from start to finished burned disk, and the content looks identical to the original .mts footage.
Larry

Larry, I would very much appreciate it if you would describe, in as much detail as you can...your workflow.

You have put into words exactly what I want to do with my yet-to-be-purchased AVCHD device (probably the Canon 100)...and my yet-to-be-purchased 'XPS 420/Intel 9450/Radeon HD3870/4 GB RAM Vista 32 bit system.

I desire to trim and rearrange clips...and put a few transitions and titles in as well...but do not have the BluRay burner (yet) so the double layer DVDs will be my media, I guess...(or simply a [backed-up] hard disk attached to our Sony PS3). Your description of how users can use AVCHD describes exactly what I want to do...and makes me think that waiting awhile for AVCHD to settle out...was a good decision.

But now I'm ready to buy.

Thanks.

Larry Horwitz

September 2nd, 2008, 02:37 PM

Glad to help Mike!

The Nero workflow is as follows:

1. Take the SD card from the HF100 and place it in a card reader.

2. Open the BDMV folder and you will see the STREAM folder. Transfer the STREAM folder contents intact to your hard disk. This contains a single .mts file for each clip you recorded.

3. Open Nero Vision, Choose Make DVD-->AVCHD.

4. Choose "Add Video Files", navigate to your disk-based STREAM folder, and then open / select all of the clip / .mts files at once. The clips will now appear in a list with each showing a small icon of its actual video content as a thumbnail.

5. Use Nero to re-arrange, delete, trim, and otherwise organize your clips in the normal editing process. Choose transitions, add titles, optionally apply filters for color changes, sharpening, etc. to any or all clips. Optionally import still photographs if you wish to also include a high def slideshow.

6. Go to the next step where you will select and then optionally modify animated menus. Make your choice and then make whatever changes in the menus you prefer for fonts, buttons, layouts, colors, etc.

7. Optionally preview the authored disk as if it were being played back in your AVCHD / BluRay player using the built in player.

8. Burn the AVCHD disk on a red laser disk.

The finished disk can be done for all steps 1-8 in about 7-8 minutes on my system using the fastest method (described below) but normally takes about 10-12 minutes start to finish.

The fastest method, which I do not encourage, is to skip step 2 entirely, and use Nero Vision to open and read the clips directly from the SD card reader, rather than transferring the clips to an intermediary hard disk folder. This saves the time to copy all the clips, but leaves you no backup if for some reason the card or clips get corrupted.

A direct comparison of the .mts files coming out of the burn process to those going in from the SD card will reveal, even if you heavily enlarge and crop the fine detail to examine it, that the burned image .mts files are identical in appearance to the original clips. This is also very obvious when you play them as normal HD video. Each AVCHD clip is unaltered except for your cuts / trimming, and only the re-rendered clips which had some optional filtering or superimposed titles look slightly softer.

Step 8, the burning step, will show you a message for each clip which will say "Smart Rendering - 100%" as it processes, unless you decide to change colors, sharpen, or add other modifying elements like titles on top of video. Even then, only the small area of modification will be re-rendered.

Typically step 8 on my machine takes the normal burning time for a 16X DVD-R of a little over 5 minutes. If you chose the most elaborate animated menus, they will need to be rendered and this will add a few minutes time. Only the menus and NOT your clips will be rendered in this slow manner.

The resulting disk can be played in a set-top player or viewed using Nero's other great program, Nero Show Time, which plays AVCHD, BluRay (HD DVD, standard DVD) and a lot of other formats beautifully. If you want to be very cautious with dual layer disks which now cost about a buck apiece, you can also only burn the final BDMV folder to your hard disk rather than burn it to the DL disk. You can then view it with Show Time including all the menus, and then, if you like it, burn it to the DL disk with Nero Burning ROM, another program in the same $60 suite, in about 5 minutes time.

I am pretty sure that the Nero suite is a totally free trial so you can go through the entire process start to finish without buying the software, using .mts clips you can download from the Internet. This will allow you to experience the entire process and watch the finished AVCHD disk at no risk, if you want to try it out. Be sure to enlarge the Nero workspace to full screen so that all of the controls, previews, buttons, etc.are easily seen. For some reason, they initially use small windows for their program interface which need to be be maximized to best see and use them.

Hope this helps,

Larry

BTW, you will absolutely love the XPS420 for AVCHD. It is really superb.....Don't skimp on ram or CPU. Their BluRay burner is also quite good and not too expensive, and makes true BluRay blue laser disks using Nero if you would require 1 hour or longer playing times. At 11 bucks per blank I am not yet interested...

Mircea Voinea

September 2nd, 2008, 03:20 PM

Great post Larry, it's usefull not only to HF100, but for other camcorders as well: it's very easy to understand for everybody...
BTW, one little limitation of Nero Vision I think it's the limit to 1 video, 1 audio track, and you can't extract audio track from video and replace it (from what I try). But even Vegas 9 has it only in Platinum or Pro versions...

About BR disk, i'm curious if it's better for a long time archival than DVD. I read different/contradictory opinions about this. Of course it's expensive, but is it reliable in time?

Vince Koo

September 2nd, 2008, 04:52 PM

4) I don't share your concern about recompression. EVERY SD and HD format other than AVCHD has ALWAYS been recompressed going to an optical disc. That means every dicc you buy has been through recompression -- yet we accept the quality.

Recompression is a huge deal for me. No matter how you look at it, more re-encoding means loss of quality; and since moving away from analog tapes, nothing less than original quality would make me happy (except inevitable re-rendering for transitions, titles, effects, overlays etc). Maintaining original quality is one of the main attraction of digital work flow for me. And with AVCHD, we can now maintain this quality all the way to the distribution media.

And even if you have the top of the line quad core computer, Smart rendering would still take substantially less time than re-encoding the whole thing. And I would much prefer having the edited video ready for viewing to waiting around for the rendering to finish.

Larry Horwitz

September 2nd, 2008, 06:20 PM

Thank you Mircea for your kind comments. I have far too little experience with the longevity of BD disks to form any type of meaningful opinion. I have been disappointed often with the standard def red laser disks I authored only a few years ago which now have lost their signal to noise ratio / contrast, presumably since the dye has changed with age.

For my money, tape is the best backup with a hard disk being a decent second choice, for content which is truly important and needs to be archived.

I certainly welcome the opinions of others with more experience in this area than I have.

Larry

Steve Mullen

September 2nd, 2008, 07:51 PM

1. Nero Vision is not even made by Roxio Steve. You are referring to another program which competes with Nero.

3. This forum specifically is for AVCHD users, and thus I entirely and absolutely disagree with the notion that transcoding to mpeg2 and making some form of mpeg2 disk makes any sense whatsoever, since AVCHD is very deliberately designed to capture and deliver to the end user an h.264 format which BluRay supports explictly.

Most of all I want to underscore that AVCHD was introduced as a low cost consumer format, and, if used properly is amazingly low cost, high quality, and fast to use, if the proper tools are employed.

1) I Googled for the company you said makes this program. I found a Wikki says, "Nero AG is a German software company based in Karlsbad, Germany. The company is best known for its CD and DVD-authoring software package, Nero Burning ROM. The company was founded in 1995 by Richard Lesser and was originally known as Ahead Software AG until January 2005, when it adopted its present name due to the vast popularity of Nero Burning ROM." So my ONLY error was assuming it was made by Roxio. Otherwise, everything I said about Nero was correct. It's a DVD burning program.

2) AVCHD, at 24Mbps, as used by Panasonic's new $4,000 camcorder clearly moves the format out of the consumer range. Moreover, AVCHD is used by those who edit with FCP and FCE. It is not confined to Windows users.

3) I reject your AVCHD is for those that spend $1000 on a camcorder and $60 for an editor attitude. Your solution may be perfect for these folks. Sorry, but that's not my focus. There is a huge installed base of folks who buy camcorders in the $2500 to $3500 price range and EXPECT to pay $500 to $1,000 for an NLE. Bluntly put, these folks are not going to use a $60 editor. There are too many missing features -- and I don't mean FX -- and frankly the reliability of these products is not high.

This "prosumer" market is exactly where Panasonic is aiming their new AVCHD camcorder. (I'll bet we see something from Canon, JVC, and perhaps even Sony in this price range by NAB. And, I'll bet they use H.264/AVC.) This is not an "AVCHD" market! Users may -- as I do -- use several camcorder formats. We CAN'T choose an NLE because it supports ONE format. The NLE must work for anything we may use -- and have used. And, it must run on a wide range of computers -- especially laptops, and in particular MacBook Pros and VAIOs. Which is why native AVCHD is not supported by ANY of these NLEs.

4) Recompression on the path to a BD disk is the NORMAL way of working. And, with 24Mbps AVCHD offering near XDCAM EX quality, there's no reason to fear recompression. (Once again, my goal is NOT an AVCHD disc. It is an HD disc that plays in a wide range of BD players. Or, a 720p HD upload in H.264.

PS: "Step 8, the burning step, will show you a message for each clip which will say "Smart Rendering - 100%" as it processes, unless you decide to change colors, ... ." Since I color correct every clip -- Smart Rendering does nothing for me.

Larry Horwitz

September 3rd, 2008, 12:46 AM

1) I Googled for the company you said makes this program. I found a Wikki says, "Nero AG is a German software company based in Karlsbad, Germany. The company is best known for its CD and DVD-authoring software package, Nero Burning ROM. The company was founded in 1995 by Richard Lesser and was originally known as Ahead Software AG until January 2005, when it adopted its present name due to the vast popularity of Nero Burning ROM." So my ONLY error was assuming it was made by Roxio. Otherwise, everything I said about Nero was correct. It's a DVD burning program.

2) AVCHD, at 24Mbps, as used by Panasonic's new $4,000 camcorder clearly moves the format out of the consumer range. Moreover, AVCHD is used by those who edit with FCP and FCE. It is not confined to Windows users.

3) I reject your AVCHD is for those that spend $1000 on a camcorder and $60 for an editor attitude. Your solution may be perfect for these folks. Sorry, but that's not my focus. There is a huge installed base of folks who buy camcorders in the $2500 to $3500 price range and EXPECT to pay $500 to $1,000 for an NLE. Bluntly put, these folks are not going to use a $60 editor. There are too many missing features -- and I don't mean FX -- and frankly the reliability of these products is not high.

This "prosumer" market is exactly where Panasonic is aiming their new AVCHD camcorder. (I'll bet we see something from Canon, JVC, and perhaps even Sony in this price range by NAB. And, I'll bet they use H.264/AVC.) This is not an "AVCHD" market! Users may -- as I do -- use several camcorder formats. We CAN'T choose an NLE because it supports ONE format. The NLE must work for anything we may use -- and have used. And, it must run on a wide range of computers -- especially laptops, and in particular MacBook Pros and VAIOs. Which is why native AVCHD is not supported by ANY of these NLEs.

4) Recompression on the path to a BD disk is the NORMAL way of working. And, with 24Mbps AVCHD offering near XDCAM EX quality, there's no reason to fear recompression. (Once again, my goal is NOT an AVCHD disc. It is an HD disc that plays in a wide range of BD players. Or, a 720p HD upload in H.264.

PS: "Step 8, the burning step, will show you a message for each clip which will say "Smart Rendering - 100%" as it processes, unless you decide to change colors, ... ." Since I color correct every clip -- Smart Rendering does nothing for me.

Steve,

1. Whether you want to now call it a "DVD burning program" or continue calling it a "splicing program" as you did previously, you are entirely, altogether, and completely wrong in not recognizing that Nero Vision, which ingests, edits, filters, and authors DVDs, BluRay disks, etc. is an NLE. It truly is an NLE whether you dismiss it erroneously or not.

As the 8 Nero Vision NLE steps I posted indicate, this program has entirely the same flow as any of the other NLE programs, many of which I own and use as well. And your characterization of the program as not being an NLE, combined with describing it from a different vendor, shows your ignorance of the product in particular.

Rather than Google a description of it, why not download and use the damn program so you can talk intelligently about it???

2. Who ever said AVCHD was not used by Mac users, and what in the world does this have to do with either my replies or the original post, which does not ask at all about the Mac. I own and use Final Cut Pro HD, iMovie, as well as an earlier version of Premiere for the Mac, but we are now off on a topic which is yet another red herring, totally divorced from the specific issue in question.

3. You refer to a huge base of people who buy camcorders in the $2500 to $3500 price range who "expect to pay $500 to $1000 for an NLE" and dismissively reject my recommendations for several low cost alternative NLEs. I am here to tell you that Don's original post requested help on a PC for a low cost AVCHD camcorder, and the fact that somebody offers a $4000 AVCHD camcorder doesn't change that reality.

The true reality is that the Panasonic $4000 camcorder is an extremely small percentage of the AVCHD market, and I would guess that less than 1%of the total sales to date of AVCHD can be ascribed to this $4000 model. Most likely more like .01% of sales if I had to take a guess. All the rest of the AVCHD camcorders sold are consumers like Don who are NOT trying to spend $500 to $1000 on an NLE.

Since we are getting blunt and frank, let me get blunt and frank:

Your focus, as you readily admit, is NOT an AVCHD disk. Clearly you choose to use the BluRay solution with your rationale for recompression of AVCHD into another format. Your focus is also most obviously on a high end approach which is very costly, comparatively speaking. And your focus is on the Macintosh, since your early, incorrect reply to another thread made it painfully obvious to me and others that you thought there was only 1 AVCHD player for the PC when in fact there are over a dozen total ways to play AVCHD on the PC. My plain, blunt, and frank comment is that YOUR FOCUS is NOT what the original poster was asking for. Don very clearly states in his original post that he is using a PC, has an inexpensive AVCHD camcorder, wants to avoid the cost of an expensive BluRay burner if he can, and is looking for help.

By dismissing the obvious low cost, AVCHD PC solutions I propose, and putting forth your absolutely inappropriate agenda of expensive software, BluRay burner, recompression, and then justifying your choice on the basis of what YOUR FOCUS is, totally missses Don's request and very unfairly attacks my alternative approach. Don does NOT have a $4000 Panasonic, does NOT want to make BluRay disks, and most certainly would prefer NOT spending nearly as much or more for his NLE software as he did for his camcorder. And who says Don, unlike you, will apply color adjustments and filters to every clip as you say you will, thus always needing recompression? Why do you insist on responding to the question posed by saying how *****YOU***** want to make BluRay disks on a Mac while Don asks how he can make lower cost disks on his PC? And then dismiss those who reply to Don's original post because they fail to entertain what Steve Mullen wants to do on his Mac with his $4000 Panasonic camcorder.

And finally, since we are getting blunt and frank, I notice, once again, that you have not provided any evidence whatsoever of how you make your (ficticious) 18Mbit/sec mpeg2 red laser disks which play on a BluRay player, nor do I see any substantiation for your earlier (entirely incorrect) claim that:

"The maximum AVCHD bit-rate is 18Mbps so 24Mbps AVCHD is always going to be recompressed. Likewise, the maximum red-laser BD is 18Mbps. So, unless one buys a BD burner, the limit is 18Mbps. (Possibly 20Mbps, but that's pushing it.)"

Where in the world do you get this grossly incorrect information from?????

Larry

Steve Mullen

September 3rd, 2008, 05:40 AM

Steve Mullen

September 3rd, 2008, 05:54 AM

I know that I have eliminated much of your quote, but it is these two items I have a question about.
1. As to the "don't even try DVD+R disks" part of your quote, I have burned AVCHD footage onto a Verbatim DVD+R and played it on a Pany BD30 player (it worked just fine). So the author never tried the Pany BD30. But apparently, I should burn only using Verbatim DVD-R from now on, right?
2. Do you recomment changing my archived AVCHD footage to Mpeg2 when I want to use Pinnacle 12? Will I lose any quality in my results?

Thanks.
Mike

Of all the first generation of BD players, the Pana was the only one that played almost everything. It was THE choice for those burning BD.

I find DVD-R EZ to find, but think DL is typically DVD+R.

I do read that Verbatim keeps being recommended. I never worried about brand until I bought a Fuji BD-RE that died after two burnings. So I bought Sony and they are working fine. So maybe brand does make a difference.

I'm not sure I understand your question about AVCHD, MPEG-2, and Studio 12.

Mike Burgess

September 3rd, 2008, 07:27 AM

Larry Horwitz

September 3rd, 2008, 07:30 AM

You should go back and read Don's post. He does not own some cheap AVCHD camcorder. He owns one of the most expensive -- the SR11. He also owns Vegas 9 which although cheap, has most of the features of Vegas 8 Pro. He only wanted to know if he could burn HD without a BD burner. I supported his continued use of Vegas.

You then pointed-out that Vegas -- which he likes and already has -- doesn't add the menus YOU want. He never said he wanted menus!

I recommend he could use MF6 IF HE NEEDED MENUS. Then you went off on a rant of the evils of recompression. And, based upon this, you recommend he switch to a $60 DVD burner program that would be nothing like Vegas he already uses.

And, yes -- I went off on my own rant. His question went unanswered.

I just finished burning AVCHD on red-laser DVD-R so I can tell Don YES he can burn HD on red-laser. But, he will be limited to 18Mbps because that is the SAFE maximum supported by AVCHD. (Actually, the AVCHD Template was 16Mbps, but I increased it to the MAXIMUM allowed.)

So Don can choose to dump Vegas 9 and use Nero and burn !!Mbps red-laser discs.

Or, he can stay with Vegas 9 and burn 18Mbps AVCHD discs that have 5.1 audio and, if he wants, menus.

Steve,

The SR11 which Don owns shows up in Google from 49 dealers ranging in price from $569 to a little over a thousand dollars, with Amazon selling it for $817. How in hell you can somehow equate this to your $4000 Panasonic customer defies belief. You can buy 4, possibly 5 of Don's camera for the cost of your Panasonic.

You are, ironically, correct in calling the SR11 "one of the most expensive" since many including my Canon are now $625.

This reinforces my original opinion, that a $500 to $1000 piece of software is NOT what Don would buy, and as you correctly point out, Don bought the consumer version of Vegas 9, clearly NOT a $500 to $1000 type of NLE.

My point, as always,is that the AVCHD customer, for the most part, is looking for cheaper and simpler, rather than costly and complex.

The fact that Sony's template for AVCHD apparently is set at a 16Mbit/sec rate may force you to conclude and then report that there is some safe limit at 16 or 18 Mbits/sec which must be observed, but this is not at all true. Ironically, Sony's very own Playstation 3 and other Sony brand players handle 21 Mbit/sec rates perfectly, as do any other players I have tried.

My suggestion to Don was to consider 5 alternative programs, ranked in my order of preference, and Nero was neither my singular suggestion nor was it my first, preferred suggestion in that list. (It actually was in the middle of my list).

My exact words were that I:

"specifically suggest you consider you take a look at the trial versions of Ulead Movie Factory 6 Plus, Ulead Video Studio 11.5, Ahead Nero Vision (latest version), Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11, Cyberlink Power Director 7 Ultra (i have stated them in the order of my own preference, but all work)."

Your reply to my suggestions was to state:

"All of these can be used, but they are at the bottom of my list of editors. "

I find your dismissive reply and your subsequent personal focus on vastly inappropriate alternatives for Don to make little or no sense. How can your Macintosh software product choices or a $4000 camcorder analogy remotely improve upon your dismissive reply to my suggestions to Don???

Since we are clearly not going to agree on any of this, I will leave you return to your recompression to make your "safe" 18 Mbit/sec mpeg2 red laser disks. No doubt this recompression will take many hours to accomplish, and there may be a player in this or some other universe which is capable of playing them, but I'm sure we will eventually find out from you what player that is. I can assure you that no BD player presently has this capability.

Larry

Mark Bausch

September 3rd, 2008, 11:50 AM

Larry Horwitz

September 3rd, 2008, 12:10 PM

Mark,

I thank you sincerely for your very kind words. As a retired electrical engineer with a lot of time on my hands, and a tendency to be very much into the most minute technical details for most things electronic, I really enjoy helping others and also devouring the latest and greatest technology. AVCHD recently, and HDV previously, have been a great source of interest for me, and I am really delighted to be able to help someone out. I've done volunteering for "Meals on Wheels" and other things but this type of stuff is way more intellectually engaging.

I hope you ultimately enjoy your gear as much as I do mine Mark, and invite you to contact me if I can help you in the future.

Larry

Mike Gunter

September 3rd, 2008, 01:41 PM

Thanks Steve.

My last question was in reference to a statement that I saw in one of your posts, about changing your footage from AVCHD to MPEG 2 before editing. Was wondering what the advantage is.

Thanks again.
Mike

Hi,

One advantage is that many of the non linear editors (NLEs) don't easily handle AVCHD as yet. Converting to MPEG2 TS (transport stream) HDV which has quickly become a HD format that is common helps that a lot.

While Vegas Pro 8 handles AVCHD well, Vegas 7 doesn't. But Vegas 7 on a older machine handles MPEG2 pretty well. Right now, Premiere CS3 doesn't do AVCHD.

TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 ( TMPGEnc - Products: TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress Product Information (http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html) ) in its latest version will batch process from AVCHD to MPEG2 very well and with excellent quality. I highly recommend it. It also will do any number of other conversions, too. It's a nice piece of software and worth the price.

Larry Horwitz

September 3rd, 2008, 01:42 PM

For the record:

I want to report my personal experience with Canopus Edius Neo, latest version, which I installed earlier today. The installation was prompted by an earlier recommendation on this thread combined with my desire to see what an expensive product such as Canopus Edius was like when handling AVCHD.

My observations are as follows:

Edius cannot directly import AVCHD files, period.....

It converts them using a separate outboard converter which is provided called AVCHD2HQ.

Each file conversion is incredible!!! The conversion file is in AVI format and is 7.5 times larger than the original AVCHD file. A simple example is that a very short clip of 142 seconds which only consumed 283 megabytes in AVCHD format resulted in an AVI file of 2.1 Gbytes in size. Thus an hour of camera clips will occupy well over 50 Gbytes on the disk.

The conversion time for this single clip was several minutes long on my ultra fast QX9650 3.0GHz quadcore. Merely converting an hour of AVCHD camera content before any editing could begin would require several hours of conversion time on my machine, even with my fast RAPTOR disks and the fastest Intel processor being made today. A laptop would be an overnight job for sure........

The timeline scrubbing and output rendering as an AVI file went very smoothly when using this transcoded AVI file. When I attempted to chose another format for output however, so as to get a useful compressed format to author an HD disk, the program crashed. I repeated this 3 times and it consistently crashed / failed in the same manner.

To my way of thinking, a program for several hundred dollars should not behave this way. The AVCHD performance and lack of support is almost comical.

Note that there is no disk authoring function included whatsoever......merely a video editing program.

My bottom line conclusion:

Is there any reason whatsoever to buy Edius, given its high cost, lack of ability to handle AVCHD without file conversions, incredibly slow conversion with huge resulting files, unstable performance (specifically an inability to change "Settings" to another render format), and absolutely no ability to author disks of any kind??

I would have to say "Absolutely NOT!"

Larry

(Maybe Dan should consider some other option........)

Ron Evans

September 3rd, 2008, 07:39 PM

Steve Mullen

September 3rd, 2008, 08:07 PM

"My observations are as follows:

Edius cannot directly import AVCHD files, period....."

Of course not. None of the "pro" NLEs will natively edit AVCHD for the very simple reason that AVCHD can NOT be edited natively with a full set of real-time FX and with playback at 30fps -- on the vast majority of installed computers, in particular, laptops.

Or, put another way, these NLE companies will support native AVCHD editing ONLY when the FULL workflow currently used for other HD formats can be used on the systems these editors currently use. Many Avid and FCP editors still use G5s and they are NOT going to upgrade just because someone brings them a bit of AVCHD.

The current flock of CONSUMER camcorders is only stage 1 of AVCHD. Yes -- today it is ONLY for a consumers because none of the 24Mbps camcorders have shipped. This AVCHD thread is one of the few here that currently is oriented toward consumers. And, you are correct that many of these folks are interested in really cheap products.

Even though you didn't answer Dan's question -- could he burn HD on ordinary DVDs using Vegas 9 -- I've got no problem with your list of cheap editors. Other than the fact that you didn't point out to folks -- that at this price level -- they will NOT have the features that are in more expensive NLEs. And, I said, correctly, that the folks who are used to editing with NLEs will not likely find the experience of using these editors acceptable. This applied to Dan who already uses Vegas -- which IMHO is already a huge step below FCP or EDIUS.

But, the next stage is AVCHD PROSUMER camcorders -- with the Pana being the first. They will offer near XDCAM EX quality. This stage is where 24Mbps AVCHD moves into wedding and event videography. In other words, it becomes a format that people can use for making money. It will become the next DV/DVCAM, PRODVD, and HDV. This NEW set of AVCHD users, I believe, will be looking at ways to add 24Mbp AVCHD into their current workflow. This means they will not replace their current NLEs with a $60 editor. They will not be willing to replace their MacBook Pro or VAIO.

These folks expect that files will grow many times larger because this group already uses Uncompressed, ProRes 422, DNxHD, Canopus HQ, and CineForm CF. They understand WHY these codecs are used. They understand that storage is cheap. They are used to the long conversion times even though they don't like it. (Even though they don't NEED to convert HDV, many of them do.) They do not fear re-compression.

Their questions are not about making AVCHD discs. They want to know HOW they can burn HD media to BD and DVDs. They are asking what Don asked. How do they keep their current workflow AND how can they distribute HD media on discs and on-line.

You didn't answer his question. You gave him alternative workflows to the one he had. I answered his question. End of story.

David Parks

September 3rd, 2008, 09:47 PM

If I can just add to what Steve said above:

1. Don't be surprise if AVCHD quickly makes it to the professional world within the next year. I remember how surprised I was when NBA TV started shooting with the DVX 100. They were cheap and put out a reliable and clean 24pa image. You can talk specs all day, but if a production company can produce better images at a lower cost, then specs fall by the wayside. It is just a reality folks. I've edited test clips from Barry Green of the Pana HMC 150 against JVC 720p and Canon XHA1 images and they looked quite good if not cleaner than 720p andf 1080i HDV. There was no apparent mosquito noise in the AVCHD 24mbps like HDV. I plan on making the move as a replacement for my HD 100.

2. I have Canopus Edius 4.51 running on a brand new Gateway AMD Quad Core. The Barry Green clips pulled right into the clip bin and the convert to Canopus HQ was about 25%faster than realtime. In the end it was still faster than digitizing and I didn't have to baby sit the conversion. The process worked fine. And this isn;t even the latest version. And also, Larry it was all done via download and there was no outboard converter box used.

3. My main editor is Avid Media Composer and using the AVCHD to DVCProHD converter in the same Quad Core was realtime. In fact, it was weird watching the preview monitor on the software utility play back in full motion during the conversion. Then the clips imported instantaneously into Avid. Still faster than digitizing by a smidge.

All in all everyone has to go with what works best, but I poopooed AVCHD until I saw the clips from Barry. I have faced the fact that tape is going away and for old dogs like me I've seen a lot of change in 23 years.

PS. Steve, thanks for staying ahead of the game on all of the newest codecs and workflows. Has your article on AVCHD gone to print yet??

Steve Mullen

September 3rd, 2008, 10:29 PM

CyberLink's new PowerDirector 7 has 5.1 features!

Kaushik, my version has the option for 5.1 EXPORT.

But, I can't find anything on:

1) Importing AC3 5.1 from the Sony SR12.

2) Surround-sound panners to move either a mono or stereo around in 2D space.

3) Creating an LFE channel.

Unless, these functions are present -- outputting 5.1 only outputs stereo in 5.1.

Steve Mullen

September 3rd, 2008, 10:39 PM

PS. Steve, thanks for staying ahead of the game on all of the newest codecs and workflows. Has your article on AVCHD gone to print yet??

It's in last month's Broadcast Engineering. This week I'm finishing one on CCD & CMOS for BE. Next, one on Smart GOP Splicing.

The Pana HDC150 looks to be a great camcorder -- if the street price is low enough. I can imagine a JVC "version" that uses three 1280x720 CMOS chips, perhaps from Sony. And, a V1 replacment from Sony. And, Canon could join the ranks. The thing to remember is AVCHD, like HDV, is a brand name. These camcorders may not all be branded "AVCHD."

Larry Horwitz

September 3rd, 2008, 10:47 PM

Steve,

I don't even slightly buy into your opinion that AVCHD will become the wedding and event photographer "prosumer" format you claim.

It is my belief that the emerging 24 Mbit/sec AVCHD camcorders will merely serve to update the presently released consumer 17-21 Mbit/sec models, which are clearly aimed at consumers, sell for about $1000 or less, and, with the sole exception of one single $4000 Panasonic model, have virtually no features which professionals demand on their camcorders for event use.

Even if such a second stage of AVCHD camcorders should ultimately arrive which are marketed and adopted for prosumer use, it is entirely obvious that the rapid improvement in computer and graphics accelerator speeds will most likely also render your "professional NLE" argument moot, since the transcoding method used by Edius and others to make huge AVI files, at slow speeds, out of AVCHD, merely reflects, as you correctly state, today's inadequate processor capacity. With the way things are obviously heading, many cores and video card assisted rendering will totally handle AVCHD without even the slightest thought of going into a transcoded intermediate format at all.

Thus it is entirely possible that should AVCHD become the event and prosumer choice in some future timeframe, that professional NLEs will no longer need to either transcode to AVI or create small proxy files in order to be useable.

No doubt there will continue to be a need for general purpose, multi-format NLEs, in which video from many different sources can be mixed and matched, allowing camera crews and other multi-sourced content to be edited and assembled into unified programs.

It should be clear to you that the reason your Edius choice for AVCHD is, as you say, so popular at NBC or other TV networks is NOT that it handles AVCHD well or efficiently. It is entirely about the versatility of being able to use a wide variety of formats, a situation which broadcasters and news gatherers face all the time.

You are conflating and confusing these professional needs which very legitimately justify products such as Edius and Final Cut Pro with the needs of today's AVCHD user. This is what my counter-argument and response in this thread is all about.

Since my 5 recommendations are at "the bottom of your list", I certainly would like to know which NLEs are at "the top of your list" for AVCHD use.

Speaking for myself, I would gladly exchange the wider range of effects, transitions, titles, and other glitz which the more elaborate and expensive NLEs provide for the speed, ease of use, and, (most of all) the clarity and detail which 'Smart Rendering' provides. The fact that the NLE costs 60 bucks versus 1300 matters not at all to me, since I personally decided to buy over a dozen NLEs including some very expensive ones like Final Cut Pro HD, and my personal AVCHD choice and recommendations are entirely driven by what I find myself using based on ultimate image quality and ease of use / speed, not cost. Most consumers, however, do not buy a dozen or more NLE programs, but instead rely on reviews and the opinions of others to help make an informed choice. And most of the time they prefer less expensive if possible.......

You and I differ profoundly on our perceptions of AVCHD demographics, market directions, editing philosophy, and which NLEs make sense today for AVCHD.

You clearly are comfortable with longer waits, greater expense, and recompression, and I am not. My goal is not to change your mind, or convince you of the error of your ways, since there is clearly room for a wide variety of approaches available for Don and others to chose from. Only time will tell whether your prediction of AVCHD as the format of choice for prosumer use will emerge, and any claims you or I want to make in forecasting future outcomes are, at best, highly speculative. For the time being, however, I would not consider Edius, Final Cut, or any other general purpose NLE to be either the 'only' solution or the "best" solution for Don or most other AVCHD users, with the possible exception of those who must mix HD content from a variety of sources.

Larry

Larry Horwitz

September 3rd, 2008, 11:12 PM

There are two ways to convert the AVCHD file using the AVC2HQ converter for use in Edius ( any of the versions )or any other NLE really. If one right clicks on the file and chooses "convert to-" then the converter only uses one core and can be 2.5 to 4 times realtime. Dragging the file over the ICON on the desktop uses all cores available and will convert in much less than realtime. The read me file with the converter is quite clear on these differences. On my Q9450 I can upload an hour of AVCHD from my SR11( using Sony Motion Browser to stitch all the files together properly as my projects are almost all over 1 hour and 15 mins continuous ) and convert to HQ in just over realtime( I recently copied to PC and converted a 1 hour 8 min video in 1 hour and 17 mins). Yes the files are much larger, which is true for any conversion to HQ even from HDV and of the same order as using Cineform intermediate. The converted file is an intra frame file so does not have the problems of the inter frame files of the original GOP file to deal with for any effects etc and is much easier on CPU for editing software that can use the file( Vegas will happily use a Canopus HQ file). I backup the AVCHD file and just use the HQ file for editing then delete.
I use Edius Pro 4.6 which is very different to Neo and does include a simple DVD authoring application and in my mind the very best multicam editing application.
For my family videos using AVCHD I actually use the Sony Motion Browser software that came with the SR11. More than adequate for simple AVCHD video recorded on standard 4.7G discs with simple but adequate menus and a choice of smooth playback through each of the clips or for a faster assembly, accept the minor stop at the end of each clip ( sequential play rather than smooth play I call it!!!) In my experience Nero has this same issue. Specifying smooth playback through the clips seems to initiate a render that takes time.

Ron Evans

Thanks Ron for your feedback. Believe it or not, I actually did read the "How to Use the AVC2HQ Converter" pdf file before trying to do the conversions and found that only one of the 2 described methods works on my machine, the right click. The drop and drag method which apparently works much faster on some machines but not mine could be a much better solution.

Perhaps this function may be unavailable because I am using Vista? I make this comment because all of the other Edius versions are not supported under Vista, only the Neo version I installed, and perhaps this Neo version of Edius still has some unsupported features.

Frankly, even with your faster conversion times of a little over real-time, I would not have the slightest desire to wait an hour or more to convert my AVCHD to some other format even if this faster method worked on my Vista machine,and I clearly have no interest in waiting nearly 5 hours using the current verion of Edius as it now runs on my machine.

Larry

Mircea Voinea

September 4th, 2008, 01:33 AM

Well, from pure IT standing point, it's clear that it's better that the workflow should be in original format, and it's better to smartrender.
This discusion reminds me the moment when Ulead had the first NLE with smartrendering. Many Premiere users considered that it's a useless gimmick, and even Adobe doesn't bother to implement. And it also reminds me the price difference and easy of use between Premiere and Ulead...

Of course Nero has limitations (well, one funny is that it's player Showtime can't play AVCHD DVD created with Vision, but PowerDVD can), but for me to make an AVCHD DVD is the easiest way (other than copy original files to DVD). The Picture Motion Browser that came with my camera is the biggest POS (it doesn't work at all, and at FAQ it stated that if you have any other codec installed it will not work).

Steve Mullen

September 4th, 2008, 05:29 AM

Ron Evans

September 4th, 2008, 07:20 AM

Perhaps this function may be unavailable because I am using Vista? I make this comment because all of the other Edius versions are not supported under Vista, only the Neo version I installed, and perhaps this Neo version of Edius still has some unsupported features.

Frankly, even with your faster conversion times of a little over real-time, I would not have the slightest desire to wait an hour or more to convert my AVCHD to some other format even if this faster method worked on my Vista machine,and I clearly have no interest in waiting nearly 5 hours using the current verion of Edius as it now runs on my machine.

Larry
I run Edius on Vista 64. It's only Canopus hardware that isn't supported. The software products work just fine. It is necessary to set up the converter first before use so that the conversion parameters are set and the directory used also set.

There is a big difference in needs for a home video needing no changes other than maybe a title at the front etc and the needs of a professional/prosumer or hobby like mine that need to edit a 4 camera shoot of a event of over 2 hours in high definition shot on different cameras. I always have to colour balance some of the cameras. For the tape based HDV the capture is realtime, for the AVCHD its about the same ( advantage is I don't have the problem of tape changing and it mixes well with the FX1's used).

As I have said, anyone buying a Sony AVCHD doesn't really need to buy anything else to produce SD DVD's or AVCHD DVD's as the Sony Browser software is adequate for a beginners needs. As to the large file sizes anyone used to editing HDV with Cineform or Canopus HQ is well aware of the advantages in using an intermediate file format rather than the long GOP whether that is MPEG2 or H262 based.

I do also believe that when the new range of cameras come out AVCHD will displace some of the HDV. For weddings and events not having to change tapes over a long period of time, being able to instantly review clips, have easy clip management on transfer to PC etc etc will be a big advantage. I can see that Sony will need to bring out a competitive product to the new

Panasonic, maybe a fixed lens version of the Z7 or similar and I for one will likely buy one. Bluray or hard drive backup is just fine. Cost of Bluray is really no more than long standard size DV/HDV tapes( in fact a little cheaper at the moment). I just backed up 5 hours of AVCHD on a 50G Bluray for $37. Tape equivalent( large standard tape) could not hold as long a time and is $45.

Ron Evans

Larry Horwitz

September 4th, 2008, 08:08 AM

Larry Horwitz

September 4th, 2008, 08:20 AM

I found the same problem -- also under Vista. AVCHD really needs to be part of EDIUS, not a utility.

I think we have arrived at that "we agree to disagree" point. And you might be surprised that I run into the same debate when I tell FCP users about iMovie 08. They simply refuse to believe it can do so much so FAST. And, for only $85.

There's nothing new about all this. When FCP shipped the "famous" Avid editors claimed nothing could be done with it. Now most of them use FCP.

So, I'll try Nero -- at least for home movies.

PS: We both agreed Pinnacle made "poor quality" AVCHD discs. I found the same with CyberLink. Have you found this?

Steve,

Nero is worth playing with, and demonstrates the claims of speed and quality I have been ranting about. No doubt you will (as I did) find it almost comically spartan in terms of its features, and yet I find myself using it often just to quickly get the job done.

Bad analogy, but it's like the large drill press I have in my shop here. It's a wonderful, beautifully made, very competent drill, but yet I always seem to grab and use my little hand-held battery-operated drill whenever I have a hole to drill....

My Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 experiences are mixed regarding quality. In the original and first updated releases, there was no smart rendering of AVCHD, and the finished disks really looked poor. Then in the latest Build 1915 AVCHD smart rendering was implemented, worked correctly, and made a very visible improvement in their resulting disks. Only problem is that the Build 1915, at least on my machine, has a lot of bugs, including bugs in burning disks which did not exist in prior builds. I thus have to use a different program to burn the AVCHD image since PowerDirector 7 crashes during burning.

When (and if) they figure out how to get PD7 to run properly, it will be a very nice program for the money. I dinged it heavily on the magazine website where Jan Ozer rated it as the best of the current low cost editing suites, particularly since his review was of the original release, a bug-ridden POS in my opinion.

Larry