AVCHD workflow

[Alec Kuentos]

I have the Canon HF s100 and will editing video on Premiere Pro using a 2.80 Core Duo computer and most of my video will be 2-3 minute stories for web viewing.
My questions is on workflow.
1) Should I drag the .mts files over to an external hard drive and work off the external?
1) On my timeline should I edit AVCHD files that have been converted to .avi or .mov?
2) If I convert to .mov files should I also convert the the files to Apple ProRes files?

Thanks Alec

[Michael Harvey]

Alec,

I am relatively new to this game also. Recently purchased a Canon HFS 100 and am editing with CS4 Premire Pro. I ordered NeoScene and use it to convert mts. to avi. and upload video files directly from my card (in a card reader) to an auxilary hard drive. Works fine - smooth as can be - when using neoscence files in editing.

Best,

Mike

[Alec Kuentos]

Michael thanks for replying to my questions. I have found video converters for half the price of Neoscence. I'm not knocking them, but I am wondering what I get for 129.00. Is it much faster conversion process or is it something else that I'm missing. Voltaic HD will convert .mts files to .mov files and it only cost 39.99. I'm told I can edit .mov in Premiere Pro, which I ask is there a reason for editing and working with .mts files converted to .avi files over .mov files.

Thanks again from a novice.
Alec

[Graham Hickling]

Neoscene is faster - as far as other features not sure, but the higher Cineform products do a lot (resizing, pulldown, framerate changes etc).

There is a full-featured 7-day free trial for Neoscene.

[Robert Young]

Not all .avi are the same.
The Cineform Codec is very high quality, near lossless, 10 bit, 4:2:2 avi.
After editing & tweaking the CF avi, you can export to any delivery format you need with the expectation that the final product imagery will be the best that it can be.
CF product's target is professional/ commercial grade video production.
Neoscene is the "lite" introductory version.

[Alec Kuentos]

Thanks everybody for all your input and suggestions. It seems that I will now look into trying and then purchasing Neoscene to convert my .mts files into .avi files for editing in Premiere Pro. My output will probably be .flv files for the web.

If have any other suggestions, tips or been there done that warnings, please offer up.

Alec

[Battle Vaughan]

Am I missing something? In CS4 you can open the mts files directly, set your project up as the appropriate flavor of avchd, and the files open directly with no need to render or convert to edit. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, you can import prores but you can't export it or convert to it... / Battle Vaughan

[Robert Young]

I think the best workflow depends on what you need to do.
If you are doing heavy editing with filters, effects, color correction, etc., and outputting to HD- like Blu Ray, a lightly compressed DI like Cineform, or ProResHD will maintain image quality much better.
If you are doing simple editing with down-scaled delivery for web, you can probably get by with editing the original mts.
It's always a legitimate question- How good is "good enough"?- then do what you need to do to get what you need.

[Adam Romanowicz]

Along the lines of workflow and converting or not converting... I've found that opening my .mts files in Premiere Pro CS4 (with latest patches) is unworkable. There play very jittery and slow. Opening the same files in Vegas seems to work great. I have a Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz w/ 4GB RAM (running 64-bit Win7), should be enough to play these files. Is there a setting in Premiere that would work better than the defaults?

[Robert Young]

I can't say for sure what's causing your problem, but CS4 is definitely RAM hungery.
It might solve a lot of problems to increase your RAM to 12-16 GB. This is what Adobe recommends for best performance with CS4.
Something to consider anyway.