OK, so the camera "impressed"... that's a good start. In all honesty, you SHOULD be impressed by a newer camera when compared tor tech that's as old as the GL's, there's been a lot of changes in that time!

What is your current audio setup? These little cameras do a fairly good job of picking up "ambient" audio, and you can mount a shotgun or interface a wireless. But you'd still probably want a couple small digitial recorders with lavs for specific audio capture, sync it in post?

I guess what you have now and your specific concerns will help us cover that aspect....

Hey Kelsey....

I'm in much the same boat as you..
Again, asking yourself "what kind of wedding" will better answer your question.

Run'n'gun is a tough gig, and without a team of DSLR shooters with $10000 in equipment, it's almost impossible to "keep up with the Jones'".

The DSLR's are great but out of budget (from what i gathered).
I personally believe the Panasonic AF100 offers the best versatility, in regards to DSLR/Video options...
An affordable Panasonic GH2 still camera is great as second camera, since they're essentially the same chip.

I didn't want to mention any camera names, since there's a plethora of styles and names. But since everybody's chiming in, perhaps I'm allowed the same freedom..
Last year's steadicam pilot purchase set me back a few bucks, but if i stay in the game any longer, than the Panasonic AF100 is my next goto camera...

Good luck..

Hi Peter

Being a solo shooter without a team at my disposal I tried DSLR's but really found then tough to use on your own !! I also use a huge amount of handheld work and a tiny DSLR was hard to use in run 'n gun.

Without a doubt, the easiest camera to use is something you can flick onto full auto and concentrate on the shoot rather than the camera and DSLR's do require a lot of attention so try to also get a camera that can look after itself!! The CX can do that too.

I also thrive on shoulder mount cameras for my extensive handheld work so I stayed with Panasonic HMC80's for 4 odd years.... I looked at the AF100 but it also looks like it needs a lot of operator attention and running two cameras I knew that wouldn't work so I opted for Sony's new EA-50 (Noa has one too)

That way you have either a handheld or shoulder mount camera and the facilities of both a video camera and a DSLR (the 50 has an APSC sensor) For me that was a really good compromise!

Chris

Hey, yeah Chris..Seems like there's plenty of us in the same boat.
This Sony looks like a gem also. I've kept out of the game for the last few months, and have had my horse blinders on for a while. Think i'll have to re-asses what's out there.

Hey Noah

Did you use 'Presto' for FCP or APPro for the suply chain awards?

I am covering a smaller but similar event and will use Panasonic ac90 and TM900 to cover it and was looking at the software plugin presto by red giant yesterday

I forgot to mention that the shallow dof shot at the evening reception where also dslr but I guess that was obvious, it's not only Sony that can deliver but also Canon and Panasonic have great little camera's that each have their own strengths and can output an image that rivals much more expensive smaller chip fixed lens camera's. They only have their limited control with missing physical buttons as main disadvantage.

Beside my cx730 I used canon 550d's which do the job but I would not recommend Kelsey to step into that arena, especially if your shooting style is documentary, in that case small chip, large dof camera's are much more forgiving.

At the event I showed I had a tascam dr40 which was connected to the audio mixer to record the voices on the stage and the interviews was done with my beachtek adapter and my audio technica (at897) microphone that was connected with a xlr cable, the cx730 was connected and mounted onto the beachtek. At weddings I have additional recorders like a zoom h1, yamaha c24, iriver and all with clip on lav mic attached to them.

2 day's ago I did a dance performances with my 2 cx730 and it turned out great, my nex ea50 went along as I needed a live feed from the audio mixer and the image from that camera was noisier at 3200 iso compared to my cx730 at 21db gain where once you donwnconvert to dvd you can't see any grain at all.

For me if I do weddings, business events and dance performances those handicams have been the best investment yet, only if I need more real time control and a better image I"ll use a bigger and/or better camera. If you have a limited budget, do documentary style video the current top end handicam line can do the job, I also would like to have two 5DIII, two c300's and a bmc camera in my backpack but as long as I can't afford that I will happily use my current camera set up and use each camera to what it was designed for.

Did you use 'Presto' for FCP or APPro for the suply chain awards?

What does this software do? I did all editing in edius 6.5 pro with no extra plugin.

Noa that piece is very well put together. Nice job.

Thx :) it was not my intention to show off but I was very satisfied with the result, and I just wanted to show that handicams can have a place in documentary style of productions. I agree that you certainly can't use them on any production, often you need control, or good audio as direct feed into the camera, or just a professional camera that outputs a better image overall.

But for weddings, certain business events and certain dance performances they can be used if you are working alone and they output an image that doesn't have to look like it was done by an amateur on holiday.

Hi Kelsey,

I have been following and participating in this thread, and maybe I missed it, but I did not see what NLE you work with. While your current Core2 Quad 9300 processor might work just fine with DV footage, I think you will be very disappointed with trying to edit AVCHD or DSLR HD clips with that 5-year-old PC technology. You'd be lucky if those formats even play smoothly in the timeline. Rendering and exporting will be excrutiatingly slow. Sorry. Also, if your NLE software is a few years old, it may not even support all of the latest video formats. A new camera purchase could be putting the cart before the horse.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

Yeah, even my Core i7 920 is starting to "feel" sluggish, and some software doesn't play 60p smoothly (but other software DOES!?! Probably CODEC issues somewhere!). I'm nearing the dreaded "refresh/reinstall" cycle, and beginning to debate whether there should be some new "iron" under the hood before I do...

It's interesting though, that a little Core 2 Duo Alienware handles 60p video playback rather nicely when the
gaming video chip is invoked. It's tricky getting the right combination of parts, and it's obvious that since video has become more pervasive, some of the components are being optimized for video so it might even be that a "plain vanilla" 2013 machine will "do" video just fine - technology marches forward...

We've all been mentioning the entire workflow shift, it's a BIG leap from SD MiniDV tape to HD 60p AVCHD - each frame will be a minimum of 4x the data points, and even more when shooting progressive at 28MBps... AVCHD takes a lot of horsepower to decompress on the fly, as it's unpacking a lot of data in the process.

I think we should also mention that that 1Tb HDD that likely was huge (if a Q9300 even had that big a storage drive?), is now going to be eaten quickly. Even with compression, you're looking at much larger files for the same length of clip if you stick to the highest settings. Storage capacity will almost certainly need to be enlarged with the "upgrade".

All of these things are good reasons to keep the camera budget as reasonable as possible, so there's money left for the other parts of the workflow... the desire to update and have a better product shouldn't break the bank!

I actually shot some footage on my own memory card to test at home and see what I need to "tweak" for a smooth work-flow. I use Premiere Pro so an upgrade to 6 was neccessary (just got the trial for this purpose). Aside from a SLIGHTLY longer rendering time I didn't encounter any glitches.

One interesting thing about this camera...you basically "star" some footage as you are shooting (bride prep, key ceremony moments, some photo shoot clips) then while you are eating your steak tartare you press a button and the camera creates a "Highlight Clip" complete with transitions and music. You press another button and the camera projects the Highlight video on the wall.

Same day edit while you are eating dessert! Clearly "in theory" it sounds interesting but could be a piece of junk to watch?? Still an amazing little feature!

Aside from a SLIGHTLY longer rendering time I didn't encounter any glitches.

The main problem is to read the avchd files as that is still mainly up to the processor to handle this, your processor is the absolute minimum to handle avchd, I used to have a q6600 processor and that was just barely able to play 1 stream of avchd video in realtime in edius 6, your set up is a bit faster so you probably are ok as long as you do one stream only.
I have a I7 950 and currently I"m editing a multicam shoot (3 camera's) of native avchd 2.0 1080p 50p footage in realtime in edius 6.5, adding a 4th stream is too much for my system but since I never use more then 3 camera's my set up can cope just fine.

I use Premiere Pro so an upgrade to 6 was neccessary (just got the trial for this purpose). Aside from a SLIGHTLY longer rendering time I didn't encounter any glitches.!

That's good news except.... CS6 introduced a new AVCHD bug which only effects SOME cameras. I know that some Canon and some Sony cameras are effected, but of course I don't know it yours is one of them.

Everything runs perfectly for shorter clips, but if you come back with a longer clip (e.g. a ceremony or speeches) then Premiere Pro basically disappears up it's own backside trying to play the file.

Adobe don't seem motivated to fix this problem. I reported it back in May 2012 and sent sample footage which they acknowledged showed the problem exactly. Since then, no updates to fix it. Lots of other people have the problem to.

So, before you get too much further down the line, see if you can get a full 30-50 minute clip and see how it plays from (say) 30 mins in until the end. If all is well then you are good to go. If not, you may have to find a workaround (which generally means either re-wrapping it or transcoding it).

I reported it back in May 2012 and sent sample footage which they acknowledged showed the problem exactly. Since then, no updates to fix it. Lots of other people have the problem to.
That I can't understand, they are probably busy making and spending too much time and money on advertisments trying to get as much new clients in as possible. For a piece of software costing that much acknowledged and repeatable bugs should be dealt with an update asap, not one year later. Probably it will be dealt with in a new paying update.

That's good news except.... CS6 introduced a new AVCHD bug which only effects SOME cameras. I know that some Canon and some Sony cameras are effected, but of course I don't know it yours is one of them.

Everything runs perfectly for shorter clips, but if you come back with a longer clip (e.g. a ceremony or speeches) then Premiere Pro basically disappears up it's own backside trying to play the file.

Adobe don't seem motivated to fix this problem. I reported it back in May 2012 and sent sample footage which they acknowledged showed the problem exactly. Since then, no updates to fix it. Lots of other people have the problem to.

So, before you get too much further down the line, see if you can get a full 30-50 minute clip and see how it plays from (say) 30 mins in until the end. If all is well then you are good to go. If not, you may have to find a workaround (which generally means either re-wrapping it or transcoding it).

CRAP! Is there a list of what cameras are effected??

CRAP! Is there a list of what cameras are effected??

Sorry, it's not in Adobe's interest to promote lists like that so we only have scattered lists from people complaining on Adobe's own forums. I am just one amongst many.

@Kelsey: The problem only exhibits itself with spanned clips. AVCHD clips are limited in size due to the cards using FAT32, so once they reach the max size they start a new file, and when that one get's too big another one and so on. The metadata the goes along with the AVCHD video files tells the NLE which clips to play as one long clip and while ones are individual. It seems that Panasonic files don't have the problem but some (possibly all) Canon files do and some (not sure if it's all) Sony files do. The only real way to find out if yours is one that's effected is to try it, or find some one else who has one who can try it.

@Noa: Adobe claim it's caused by a 3rd party supplied codec, but if it were me I'd be on the phone every single day asking where the fix was and, oh, that payment you wanted? Sorry, we're withholding payment until you fix the bug!

All the complaints on the Adobe forums died down after about 6 months, not because we got a fix, but because nothing happened and we got no updates. There's only so many times you can post a complaint over and over.

It effectively stopped me using my Canon HF G10 for long shoots if I knew I was going to edit in Premiere Pro because the footage was basically unusable.

You can't blame the camera though, every other piece of software I have, such as FCPX and Premiere Pro CS5.5 (!!!!!) plays it fine. The bug was introduced in CS6.0.

If Adobe tell us it's "fixed" in the "next version" but we have to pay for the upgrade there are going to be a LOT of unhappy people.

I had a Sony HXR-MC2000E as a B cam but it wasn't really that good so after looking around i've identified this a PJ760 (a CX
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/858085-EG/Sony_HDR_PJ760E_96_GB_HDR_PJ760E_Flash.html almost the same as a NX30 except for the audio but a lot cheaper.
It might be a good small cam for the OP to consider.
and yeah a new computer is probably required!

If the budget is really tough you can also edit AVCHD footage on a DuoCore if you are prepared to transcode it down to HDV MPEG2 ...you won't see any difference in the footage (not visually anyway). I used my DuoCore exclusively when I first went the HD route ...AVCHD files simply stalled Sony Vegas on my DuoCore so I used to transcode using Upshift and the resulting HDV files ran sweetly... admittedly your render times will still be slow (typically around 8X realtime so a 20 minute clip could take nearly 3 hours to render down to MPEG2 SD but at least it works ...weddings just took longer to edit.

Once I upgraded to an i7 machine things were a lot easier..no transcoding and clips render in about 1/3rd real time so my 20 minute ceremont that took 3 hours was done in around 6 or 7 minutes.

However it can be done on a DuoCore until you do some more weddings and make some extra cash to upgrade the computer

Chris

So, before you get too much further down the line, see if you can get a full 30-50 minute clip and see how it plays from (say) 30 mins in until the end. If all is well then you are good to go. If not, you may have to find a workaround (which generally means either re-wrapping it or transcoding it).

Dave do you know of a Windows app that will re-wrap AVCHD files without transcoding? There are a few I've found for Mac but none for Windows :/

Pete

Dave do you know of a Windows app that will re-wrap AVCHD files without transcoding? There are a few I've found for Mac but none for Windows :/

PeteI'm not Dave but I think that what you are looking for is WinRewrap FATPIGtures Software (http://www.fatpigtures.com/software/)

@Dave P -

Are you talking about a glitch at the stitch point? Typically caused by trying to drag clips into the NLE rather than importing them using the manufacturers software to import? There is also a little standalone program to perform a proper stitch that was flaoting around here on DVi.

You can't just drag clips from the camera for some reason (ran into it early on with a Sony, using their software to import solves the problem). It makes sense that you SHOULD be able to, but something about the AVCHD format keeps it from working that way - I know the Sony required the last clip to complete the earlier clips and stitch them properly, otherwise the earlier clips wouldn't play properly...

In short, I don't think its an NLE issue (Vegas wouldn't handle clips right out of the cam either), but rather an AVCHD workflow/import issue.

@Dave P -

Are you talking about a glitch at the stitch point? Typically caused by trying to drag clips into the NLE rather than importing them using the manufacturers software to import? There is also a little standalone program to perform a proper stitch that was flaoting around here on DVi.


NO. Premiere Pro has a bug there once you get in to the second clip, it keeps opening the first clip and appears to have to read through that entire clip again. Once you get to the third clip it opens both first and second clip and has to re-read those. And so on.

I've never dragged the clips in directly and always imported them the official Adobe way via the media browser.

OK, "importing" via the NLE rather than using the manufacturer software to recombine the clips into one on import might be where the problem is, yours sounds similar to the issues I had with Vegas.

Not sure what it is, but those 2G AVCHD sections of longer clips really need to be "stitched" before bringing them into the edit, all sorts of odd problems if you leave them in pieces.

I've had NO problems once I imported with Sonys software, which does the stitching so you have a single clip rather than 2G "chunks". What I was able to determine was that the "sub clips" created when AVCHD exceeds that 2G file limit have "reference" information to allow import software to correctly reconstruct the original single long clip/file (since the computer doesn't have file size limitations), but the way the subfiles are tagged makes them so they don't "read" as a proper file, so you may or may not get predictable playback of the subclips if they have not been "reconstructed".

That sounds like your software is re-wapping it then?

Even some re-wrapped clips still exhibited the problem. For instance, using ClipWrap to re-wrap the files in to a single file didn't fix it. Nor did using the re-wrapped file that FCPX created. These work flawlessly in in other apps for but some reason Premiere Pro still had problems.

My understanding was there was a Windows utility that produced re-wraped files that worked perfectly, but I can't recall it's name. ClipWrap may have been updated by now too - you'd have to check.

What I found was that "sometimes" you could ingest using Prelude and transcode to ProRes (or other chose format) and "most" of the time things went fine, but "some" of the time it would go belly up just like Premiere Pro. It became so much of a lottery that in the end I gave us using AVCHD in Premiere Pro and either transcoded it to ProRes (using FCPX), edited it in FCPX, or just didn't use that camera.on the shoot.

I've heard it called "stitching" - it's really just the importing software re-connecting the subclips into a single clip - the problem arises if you are trying to bring in the SUB clips, you'll have problems at the 2G "break" points - and/or with the clips individually.

For Sony at least, just use their (badly named, Windows only) "Play Memories Home" to import, you'll have perfectly "stitched" full length files, no matter how many 2G "subclips" you started with on the camera media.

How is 'stitching' different to re-wrapping it in to one file ?

What does this software do? I did all editing in edius 6.5 pro with no extra plugin.

Presto is a plugin for premier pro which allows you to sync multicam editing automatically

Kelsey, you mentioned that you test "the camera". Which camera did you test? I am in a similar situation as I have been shooting with Canon HF G30 camcorders and would like to upgrade.

This is a thread of more then a year old and if I"m right Kelsey's last post on this forum also dates back over a year.

Almost 2 years... it's 2015... probably a new thread would be better for getting answers?

Thanks. I will start a new thread.