View Full Version : How painful is the conversion


Bruce Phung
December 30th, 2009, 08:39 PM
I just wonder how painful to convert AVCHD to CF AVI file. Can any one of you give me example. Let say 1 hrs of AVCHD footage, how long will it take to convert to CF AVI file?
Desktop Core i7 920 2.67GHz 8gigs DDR3 Windows 7 64 bit.

David Newman
December 30th, 2009, 09:37 PM
My home PC is that setup (with 6GB not 8GB -- note: 3 banks of 2GB is faster that 2 banks for 4GB.) AVCHD transcodes over 100fps here. So 1 hour of AVCHD footage with transcode in 15-20 minutes.

Bruce Phung
December 30th, 2009, 09:53 PM
Thanks Dave for your reply. Wow, transcoding with CF is not painful at all. I will definately get it later on. Regarding 8gig. I got 4 stick, 2 gig each stick in each slot. They are 6 slots in the motherboard.

David Newman
December 30th, 2009, 10:04 PM
I would pull one 2GB stick, until you get another 4GB. The tripple channel memory is a big gain on i7s, yet with 4 sticks it runs in dual channel mode -- 33% slower.

Bruce Phung
December 30th, 2009, 10:15 PM
33% slower? 2gig will definately coming out tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.

David Newman
December 30th, 2009, 10:25 PM
The peak memory throughput is 33% less in dual channel, which will impact some tools, and it does impact CineForm speed between 15-25% so it worth going tripple channel (you my need to set you BIOS.) My 920 is so fast, so much is that fast memory system.

Eugenia Loli-Queru
December 31st, 2009, 03:19 AM
You are not mentioning your video editor. You have a very fast PC, so if you're using Vegas for example, you don't need to use Cineform at all. AVCHD on such a machine flies on either Vegas or Premiere.

Brant Gajda
December 31st, 2009, 06:41 AM
Agree with David. Pull the chips out. I'm running 12gb. 6 slots of 2GB each. Makes a world of difference. Or, you might want to consider topping off your MB with memory instead.

Simon Zimmer
December 31st, 2009, 07:16 AM
I have the HMC-150 and I am using Prospect HD with the video files.

It is VERY easy to convert. Fast and simple!

I am never going back to tapes!

NEVER!

Happy New Year all!

Simon

Bruce Phung
December 31st, 2009, 12:10 PM
You are not mentioning your video editor. You have a very fast PC, so if you're using Vegas for example, you don't need to use Cineform at all. AVCHD on such a machine flies on either Vegas or Premiere.


I am using Vegas Pro 9. My Core i7 edit avchd no problem and playback very smooth. I look into Cineform. Here is my intention,

1) Convert my avchd to CF AVI file
2) Open Vegas import CF AVI file to edit my project
3) Render and output to CF AVI master file
4) burn the file to DVD, BD AVC etc.

Later I can open Vegas and import CF AVI master file to re-edit without much loss in quality. This is make any sense?

Eugenia Loli-Queru
December 31st, 2009, 05:33 PM
It does, but not completely. I mean, you can just edit in AVCHD, and then export in CF AVI at the end. You don't have to edit in CF AVI in order to export in CF AVI. CF AVI is 10bit of course, but as it was discussed in this forum last year, Vegas doesn't use that ability fully. Personally, I would just edit in AVCHD, and then export the in CF AVI for archiving. I would only convert to CF AVI for editing if my PC was not as fast as yours is.

Bruce Gruber
January 1st, 2010, 05:57 AM
Hi Bruce,

Yes at least that is my work flow. From everyting David has said and other people create the CF Master and then output from that..

one of the major rules of compression is compress from the higest quality file not only in file out put but lighting also playes a major part..

Someone correct me please if I am wrong

Bruce

David Dwyer
January 1st, 2010, 05:09 PM
My home PC is that setup (with 6GB not 8GB -- note: 3 banks of 2GB is faster that 2 banks for 4GB.) AVCHD transcodes over 100fps here. So 1 hour of AVCHD footage with transcode in 15-20 minutes.

Will this be the same for all PCs? I'm running a AMD Quad core with 8GB; should I remove a stick as well?

David Newman
January 1st, 2010, 05:16 PM
No just Intel i7s support tripple channel memory

David Dwyer
January 1st, 2010, 05:17 PM
Ah thanks - Next PC upgrade will be around the CS5 release

/end hijack

Rich Perry
January 2nd, 2010, 04:34 AM
Another Hijack... sorry, While on the subject of performance, I just ordered a i7, 950 with 6 x 2gb ddr3 sticks and an X25-M solid state hard drive. Any word of cs3/4 or cineform application performance responce with a SS Drive? - Should i set up with pagefile on the SSD also or a seperate drive - it's seems the logical approach? Anyone else using SSD's yet? Raid 0 SSD's?

Also I have not moved to CS4 yet due to realtime engine, any big loss there or should I stick with CS3 for now?

Thanks much!

Bruce Phung
January 3rd, 2010, 02:16 PM
Can someone please give me an example of 1hrs of avchd/HDV convert to CF AVI equivalent to how many gigs file size?

David Newman
January 3rd, 2010, 02:29 PM
CineForm data-rate predictor for 1920x1080 4:2:2 in MB/s

Medium quality = 0.4 * framerate.
High quality = 0.5 * framerate
Film Scan 1 = 0.6 * framerate
Film Scan 2 = 0.8 * framerate

So High quality 1080p24 is 12MB/s generally no matter the source (if the source is more compressed is might decrease a little.)

For calculate data rate for all resolution and formats
CineForm data-rate predictor in MB/s = quality_Scale (0.4 to 0.8) * ((pixelcount/2073600) ^ 0.7) * frame_rate * 2 (for 444 or 1 for RAW / 422).

David Dwyer
January 6th, 2010, 03:29 PM
David,

Which of the following specs would you think would perform the best using NeoHD/PHD and Pr 4.2?

I can either gets my hands on

2x Intel® Xeon® Processor X5460 3.16 GHz 12 MB
4GB (upgrading to 8GB later) of DDR2 ECC

or buy

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM (Possible overclocking this chip)
6GB DDR3 memory (12GB later date)

Pete Bauer
January 6th, 2010, 03:36 PM
Here are a couple of threads with a lot of reading on "which computer" and "how to configure:"

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attend-world-premiere/467756-help-needed-improving-my-pp4-benchmark-results.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-linear-editing-pc/469412-dual-xeon-5520-vs-i7-920-a.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attend-world-premiere/469617-cs5-x64-mercury-playback-engine.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-linear-editing-pc/468513-intel-hex-core-i9-processor.html

David Dwyer
January 6th, 2010, 03:49 PM
Here are a couple of threads with a lot of reading on "which computer" and "how to configure:"

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attend-world-premiere/467756-help-needed-improving-my-pp4-benchmark-results.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-linear-editing-pc/469412-dual-xeon-5520-vs-i7-920-a.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attend-world-premiere/469617-cs5-x64-mercury-playback-engine.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-linear-editing-pc/468513-intel-hex-core-i9-processor.html

Thanks Pete,

Wow the Xeons really dont perform that well compared to the i7 CPUs.

I know about the i9 but its going to be too expensive for me to purchase so I'm thinking the i7 920 and overclock it would be a better option.