Computer requirements to edit AVCHD

[Rich Nicholls]

My system:

Quad Q6600 OC'd to 3.3Ghz
4MB Ram
Nvidia 8800GTX 768mb
Sound Blaster Fatl1ty
Big HD

It won't edit AVCHD in Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11.1. If I start to add titles and transitions I just get an out of memory error and the program shuts down.

I have Studio 12 on pre-order from Amazon and will see how that handles AVCHD (1920x1080).

In the meantime I'll set the camera lower, either that or edit in Vegas first to transcode it to something that Pinnacle will allow my low spec (joke there) machine handle.

Rich

Rich

[Sinisa Jovanovic]

I have same pinnacle version and it work on c2duo vaio laptop,with 3gb of RAM on vista,but very slow.

Try PowerDirector 7 Ultra trial,I bought it today after 20 days playing with.

It is MUCH faster soft even on my laptop and with similar possibilities as pinnacle.

I tested to convert 1 hour of native HF10 AVCHD to blu-ray HD at full CBR ,it finished in 3 hours,mean on your machine it can be even in real time.

BTW pinnacle if not crash and close need about 10 hours for that on my laptop,that is reason why I bought PowerDirector 7.
Big difference is in importing AVCHD files,pinnacle need 10 times more time than PowerDirector for that too.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by David Sayed

I was wondering the same thing. If it doesn't transcode, then how can it edit to anything other than I-frames?

There's nothing hard about frame accurate editing of AVCHD as it's been done with MPEG-2 for almost five years.

Folks may not like transcoding to AIC on the Mac -- which does NOT cause any lose in quality -- but from the comments here the so-called native solutions on the PC either don't work or require CPUs not in laptops.

Mac solutions work perfectly with AVCHD by converting to AIC. EDIUS does so by converting to their own HQ codec. Vegas can use CineForm. Maybe Premiere for the PC can do so with CineForm.

I'd like to know if anyone IS EDITING NATIVE AVCHD?

By edit I don't mean simply play a clip in the timeline. Or, do cuts-only editing. I mean realtime color correction of clips. I mean realtime dissolves and wipes and titling. And, by realtime, I don't mean jerky 5fps playback. I mean smooth 30fps playback.

I don't think it can be done on any system by any NLE.

Nevertheless, I'd love to hear how close you can get to this goal.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Sinisa Jovanovic

Big difference is in importing AVCHD files,pinnacle need 10 times more time than PowerDirector for that too.

It certainly sounds like Pinnacle is converting AVCHD to something. Importing is just reading the files. Something sounds very wrong here.

Where does Pinnacle claim it uses NATIVE for editing?

[Sinisa Jovanovic]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

It certainly sounds like Pinnacle is converting AVCHD to something. Importing is just reading the files. Something sounds very wrong here.

Where does Pinnacle claim it uses NATIVE for editing?

I copied this from their site :
"Among the first to offer native HDV and AVCHD editing software, Pinnacle Systems Studio Plus..."

Obviously they understand NATIVE as some different than we think.
Maybe Pinnacle not convert AVCHD but analyzing it TOO long,maybe on faster machines it is fast,will try when buy quaD desktop,just i'm not in my country at the moment and laptop is only solution for me.

PowerDirector 7 Ultra can do cut only editing fast,without re-encoding AVCHD file,except in specific cases,which you can read on their site.

My vaio is with blu-ray burner,thats why i convert to blu-ray HD with 32MB/s CBR.

[Mario Salazar]

OK I have built my machine and have tried Pinnacle, and while I can edit and add plug-in FX it takes way too long. I am going to try Vegas and Premiere to see if they are any faster. Here is my build, let me know what you think.

Asus P5K3 Deluxe
q9300 runing at 400 fsb (3.1 ghz)
2 gigs of OCZ Gold DDR3 1333 mhz (I have 4 gigs but am wondering if I should go with a reaper or platinum version)
ATI HD3870 OC edition with 1 gig of ram
Windows XP pro

Like I said I thought this should have been a barn-burner. Now I am thinking I should have gone with a server with 2-4 processors. This is ridiculous.

Regards,
Mario

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Sinisa Jovanovic

Maybe Pinnacle not convert AVCHD but analyzing it TOO.
My vaio is with blu-ray burner,thats why i convert to blu-ray HD with 32MB/s CBR.

I think you got it! Liquid analyses MPEG-2 files and builds a file of information it later uses. Maybe for editing. Maybe for GOP Splicing during export.

Question about your BD VAIO.

I'm interested in a Sony with BD burner. Can you tell us more about your experience and HOW you burn discs?

PS: Looks like you need a newer BD player that supports PROFILE 1.3 to play BD-RE.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Mario Salazar

I am going to try Vegas and Premiere.
Mario

I think CineForm is the only way to edit AVCHD using Premiere.

Let us know your results.

PS: Sony claims to edit AVCHD just like you edit MPEG-2 takes 8X more compute power.

[Ron Evans]

I have Q9450, 8G RAM, Vista 64, 250 Boot, 250G Temp/Preview/projects and two 750G for storage. Vegas 8 will play AVCHD on the timeline much like HDV when Preview is set to auto. In this mode it will give priority to the program not the preview so occasionally it will drop a frame just like it does for anything that is on the timeline. Playing a 1440x1080i from an SR7 on the timeline shows all 4 cores at about 60% so there is some room left.

Ron Evans

[David Wayne Groves]

Just got Pinnacle 12 Ultimate upgrade, still getting on average about 9-12 FPS rendering a AVCHD project with my Q6600 Quad Vista Ultimate 64Bit setup,still its very stable and editing my AVCHD footage is still really easy, still waiting for Sony to release its updates for Vegas 8 so I can play with it some more....

[Sinisa Jovanovic]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I'm interested in a Sony with BD burner. Can you tell us more about your experience and HOW you burn discs?
PS: Looks like you need a newer BD player that supports PROFILE 1.3 to play BD-RE.

I have vaio FZ21,now old model,but BD burner is same as in FZ31.It come with burning BD software,but I bought Nero8 and use it for burning discs.

I have no problems with BD-re,maybe because I use vaio for playback too connected via hdmi to my 40" bravia.

If you plan to use Nero8 always set max speed for burning,not automatic as default,because Nero choose 1X speed instead of 2X and burning time in 1x of 25GB BD is about 3 hours.

I moved all my photo/video archives to blu-ray discs.

It burn slow,but read speed is cool.

Regards
Sinisa

[Steve Mullen]

Using QUAD core should give you performance you need for smooth playback of 1920x1080 in the Source window. It seems you guys have confirmed this.

With Vegas, Timeline performance I've found to less reliable even for FullHD MPEG-2, so I'm not surprised it works the same way for AVCHD.

What I'm interested in how 1920x1080 AVCHD in Vegas 8 works when you CC one clip. Then CC another and perform 5-second dissolve between. Now with no rendering, how do each of these situations play back? I'll bet CC drops fame-rate about in half and the dissolve drops it to 0fps.

PS1: 1920x1080 is 133% more than 1440x1080. Your 60% is going to get very very close to 100% useage -- which is why realtime FX at 30fps is very likely going to be impossible.

PS2: How does Pinnacle play back from the TIMELINE? Is it perfectly smooth?

[Kim Fong]

Using Vegas 8 Pro on my q6600, I played back my SR11 footage with 5.1 sound and it hovers around 20fps on preview auto. Adding a CC drops it to 8fps. However doing a cross dissolve between 2 clips is doesn't drop it much, maybe 1 more fps?

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Kim Fong

However doing a cross dissolve between 2 clips is doesn't drop it much, maybe 1 more fps?

Very interesting. I wonder why? Is it possible the avchd codec is written for only 2 threads (which run on only 2 cores) so that when the second stream comes along -- it gets a pair of unused cores for itself?

Can you monitor all four cores to see what's happening before and during and after the dissolve?

[Kim Fong]

Well all four cores were running at 90+% for the preview to run at 8fps with CC on both clips. During the crossover fading, it dropped to about 6pfs on average. I was only doing a 2sec crossfade between the 2 clips.

Trying something different, I placed the 2nd clip as a 50% transparent layer above the first, both with CC. This time the playback hovers around 4fps.