Is there an editing program that actually processes AVCHD at the full 24Mbps rate ?
I use Vegas 9, but sadly, even the latest V10, apparently only processes at 17Mbps.

RonC.

Avid's Pinnacle Studio 15 should. My Canon HF100's highest bitrate is 17Mbps and I've had "sluggish" problems with older versions (version 11 was one of the first NLE's to actually work to some degree with AVCHD files when the others couldn't) even with a quad core processor. I had a Q6600 Intel quad core running at 2.4Ghz when Pinnacle stated it took 2.66Ghz minimum to edit 1920x1080.

I replaced the 256MB video card in that machine with an NVIDIA 8800GT and I could then edit AVCHD as long as I was patient and let each change render, and as long as I didn't use the second video track.

Cyberlink's PowerDirector 8 Ultra did a little better.

My next computer was one of Dell's first Intel Core i7 based machines, it didn't do well at all until my 15 month free McAfee subscription ran out. I uninstalled that and installed AVG free. Suddenly I could edit AVCHD, McAfee had been "hogging" resources.

To get to the point. I just purchased and installed Studio 15 on the Core i7 machine and WOW. Not only can I now easily edit 17Mbps AVCHD (as I never could before) but the Canon DSLR .MOV files now edit "native" with no transcoding or conversion. Those files are H.264 and supposedly up to 25Mbps, your AVCHD 24Mbps files are also H.264 based. This leads me to believe it will edit your 24Mbps AVCHD files "natively".

So if you have a FAST quad core (or six core) based machine, you might download the trial version from Pinnacle Systems: Video Editing Software, Hardware & the video transfer industry leader. (http://www.pinnaclesys.com) and give that a try.

Pinnacle Studio is not a "favorite" like Vegas or Premiere Pro, but for the money it packs a lot of function into a basically single program. I've been using it since something called Pinnacle Studio DV came with a firewire card, upgraded or purchased versions from 7 to 15 (skipping 14 because they "locked out" using SmartSound music from within the program). With version 15 I purchased a SmartSound "plug in" from SmartSound and it works "slick" for scoring productions.

I burn DVDs and render to HD file formats for playing on a hardware media player connected to my TV with HDMI

I use Vegas 10 and Edius 5.5 and V6 and all these will edit native 24Mbps files from the camera. In my case NX5U, CX700, XR500 and SR11. They will also edit the CX700 60P files that are 28Mbps. So do you mean export which is totally different. I don't export AVCHD as I always prepare for SD DVD or Bluray but I think that may be limited to 17Mbps. Most of my video editing is done in Edius which I then export a HQ file and encode in TMPGenc T5 for whatever output I need.

Ron Evans

I've used PowerDirector for more than 2 years and the current version (9) does quite well with full AVCHD editing including outputting to AVCHD up to 24 Mbps. Rendering is fast on a well equipped PC. The video quality is also very good. I output to either AVCHD folders to play back on media players (the best method) or direct to dual layer 8.5 Gb DVD which is near BD quality.

Thanks for your replies. The pinnacle Studio 15 looks interesting Bruce but I think it is a bit limited in the number of tracks available. As for Vegas Ron, I am led to believe that while it will accept 24MBps files and edit them, it actually only processes them at 17Mbps.

I don't know about Power Director other than from a friend who had some trouble with the preview.

I find it surprising that with all the features these companies like to "boast" about with their editors, that they don't mention the bit rates they are capable of processing. You would think that this would be an additional feature worth having.

RonC.

HI.
Try Adobe Premiere CS5. The avchd codec is native with this platform. However, to take advantage or to be able to use its proprietary Mercury Playback Engine, a powerful nvidia vidcard is needed with GPU memory of at least 1Gb.

The other platform would be Edius,

Is there an editing program that actually processes AVCHD at the full 24Mbps rate ?
I use Vegas 9, but sadly, even the latest V10, apparently only processes at 17Mbps.

RonC.

Adobe Premiere Pro (the entire Production Premium suite in fact) handles AVCHD at full bit rate, no problem. If you have enough hardware (I'm using a quad core i-720 and only 6GB of RAM) it plays in Premier Pro just fine. Clearly, more hardware is better, but you knew that already.

Easy enough to edit. So sadly, I can't blame my (many) editing woes on the hardware /software.

Thanks for your replies. The pinnacle Studio 15 looks interesting Bruce but I think it is a bit limited in the number of tracks available. As for Vegas Ron, I am led to believe that while it will accept 24MBps files and edit them, it actually only processes them at 17Mbps.

I don't know about Power Director other than from a friend who had some trouble with the preview.

I find it surprising that with all the features these companies like to "boast" about with their editors, that they don't mention the bit rates they are capable of processing. You would think that this would be an additional feature worth having.

RonC.

I think Vegas will only render to AVCHD at 17Mbps but I think all these NLE's edit in RGB or YUV space so convert the AVCHD to this format for editing then render from this to whatever output is chosen. It is this conversion that consumes the CPU power in editing AVCHD native files.

Ron Evans

edius 6.02 handles avchd very well. i can put 5 layers of video with 3dpip and it plays perfect. only running an i7 950 with an asus mobo
there is no rendering

Quote - From Ron Evans : " ..... I think all these NLE's edit in RGB or YUV space so convert the AVCHD to this format for editing then render from this to whatever output is chosen. It is this conversion that consumes the CPU power in editing AVCHD native files." - ( How do you put quotes in a box ? )

Can I convert my AVCHD files to these formats within Vegas 9 & if so, how ?

RonC.

As for Vegas Ron, I am led to believe that while it will accept 24MBps files and edit them, it actually only processes them at 17Mbps.


I don't understand what you are saying. 17 mbps is the bitrate of the distribution codec, it has nothing
to do with the editing or editing quality.

All software editors have to take the distribution codec and decode it to uncompressed HD, edit that, and
then compress the result. Unless, of course, you are rendering cuts only and then you can just
recombine the compressed bit streams without processing sometimes.

The only problem you could have with Vegas 10 is if it was unstable or crashed a lot, which may very
well be true. There is no quality problem with Vegas 10 that has anything to do with bitrates.

Vegas 9 does that automatically when you edit. All the editing is done in RGB which is why you have to render an output to your chosen format. Render time will depending on your computer and format that is chosen. Native file renders mean different things for different NLE's unfortunately. Native format normally means that the NLE will use the format directly on the timeline without conversion to another format for editing. Really means the NLE decodes the format within the NLE for editing. The other definition is that the NLE will edit in the native format and only changed the edited pieces. Some do this but if for example colour correction is done on the whole clip then of course the whole clip will have to be re-encoded. Sony cameras can edit in camera for just cuts for example as can some simple editors. With Vegas and Edius etc once its on the timeline it will be rendered for output. Then you are limited to the output choices for format and data rate. AVCHD output for Vegas at the moment its 17Mbps. If you want to render to MPEG 2 or AVC then you have more choices for data rate.

Ron Evans

Ok, I almost got it. What you are saying is that if you are doing mostly cuts only editing
and your AVCHD in and AVCHD out and you happen to stick in a transition, the part
that must be re-rendered will be at 17mbps rather than 24mbps.

Well, I don't think the bitrate difference is actually going to have a noticeable effect. For one,
the codec running on the computer running in high quality mode is probably going to be
as nice as the 24mbps codec in use in the camera. Often, the realtime codecs in
the camera can't do as well as a codec running on a cpu with no time constraints.
Second, the transition is during a transition so the picture is going to be a bit messed up
anyway. No sense in picture peeping during a clock wipe. This assertion deserves
proof but it is hard to execute such a test in general.

Not quite. For most NLE's the moment you change anything from the clips it will ALL be recoded. Some of the lower cost consumer editors will change as little as possible but the most of the pro NLE's will render everything for output. This is not an issue for most people who will want to render for BLuray or SD DVD anyway rather than go back to the camera.

Ron Evans

i second power director.

dont be fooled by this programs price tag and consumer oriented design, it is fast, powerful and easy to use. also the new version is much, much more stable than the olde ones. it is also 64-bit and uses gpu acceleration to render previews and help in final rendering.

premiere pro can read/import avchd natively but it cannot export to avchd. also it is many times more expensive than power director.

give power director a try. they have a trial version that will not allow you to export to hd, but other than that it has full functionality.

I tried the free download for Power Director 9 and was unable to import any AVCHD files, whether from my computer (PMB) or directly from my SR11. Nor could I produce any product in AVCHD. Is this because I had the free trial version?

i use avid studio seems to work fine

PowerDirector 9 works very well with AVCHD clips. That includes the trial version which is simply a time limited application, 30 days I believe. It is also fast if you have a compatible GPU card from Nvidia or ATI.

If that be the case for PD9 trial, how do you capture/download the AVCHD files? I have tried capturing files directly from my SR11 to no avail. The program recognizes the camcorder, but will not capture any files from it. Likewise, I have tried dragging AVCHD files from PMB to PD9, and again no success. The only way I could use my AVCHD files from anywhere on my computer was to change the file to Mpeg2, and then PD9 would accept it.
What am I doing wrong?

Mike

If that be the case for PD9 trial, how do you capture/download the AVCHD files? I have tried capturing files directly from my SR11 to no avail. The program recognizes the camcorder, but will not capture any files from it. Likewise, I have tried dragging AVCHD files from PMB to PD9, and again no success. The only way I could use my AVCHD files from anywhere on my computer was to change the file to Mpeg2, and then PD9 would accept it.
What am I doing wrong?

Mike

Cant you just dump the AVCHD files in to a file in your computer, then bring them in to PD9 from there?
Works for me!

No Jack, I couldn't do that. Don't know why, unless it was just because it was a trial version.

I really want to like PD9, but I have heard from others that the final video product when outputting to AVCHD on DVD, is not that good. I recently had the free trial, and I produced a regular DVD from AVCHD video files, and the results were pretty good. I never got the chance to see what it would look like producing an AVCHD DVD, and that is what I am really interested in. So far, Nero produces the best AVCHD DVD video that I have seen, but Nero is too limited for what I want to do. Pinnacle does alright, but I have used it for several years and am looking for something better (especially in the music library department), but not having to pay big bucks for.

So, how good or bad is PD9 when producing AVCHD DVDs?

For "music library" SmartSound is hard to beat, and can be used with just about any NLE you can drop a WAV file onto a music or sound effects track. I purchased a $29.95 plug in for Pinnacle Studio 15 and that allows working on the music from the NLE.

The "ScoreFitter" music that Pinnacle supplies with Studio is not really good, sounds thin and lacks richness and dimension. The plug in comes with a free download of SmartSound's Sonic Fire "Express Tracks" edition which really works well. A couple years ago I got their "Scoring Edition" free with a two album purchase and that comes in handy when I "score" something being edited in another NLE that doesn't have a provision for SmartSound. The "Scoring Edition" has a timeline for the music and a small video window you can play a smaller resolution version of the video segment being worked on.

It's pretty slick, when done, export as a WAV then bring that into your NLE and drop it on the music track.

A couple of folks have mentioned Edius. I'm slowly learning Edius Neo 3, I don't know how many tracks you can use (I've only worked with 3 video tracks so far), and while I have a bit of a "learning curve" with Edius I am very impressed with the quality of what it does. It will easily handle the OP's AVCHD as well or better than anything else.

I'm running Avid's Pinnacle Studio 15 Ultimate Collection and Edius Neo 3 on a new HP H8xt with 2nd generation Core i7 2600 processor, 8GB RAM, and Nvidia 530 2GB graphics card. Both AVCHD (17Mbps) and Canon DSLR MOV (25Mbps if I remember correct) literally fly on the timeline with both NLE's.

The computer makes a difference.

Good information. Thanks Bruce. I will take a look at SmartSound. I will also see if Neo has a trial version to try. Know very little to nothing about Neo.

Mike

Just got an e-mail announcement that Nero 11 is available. Wonder how much that has changed, if much at all.