XA10 Testing Movie #3

[Luis A. Diaz]

Another movie on the XA10 depicting new user effects and manual settings
Enjoy
Comments welcomed YouTube - XA10 Movie #3

Thanks,
Luis

[Spiros Zaharakis]

That looks realy good. Even the 22db shots are acceptable (at least not as bad as i was expexting them to be).

Thanks for sharing.

[D.J. Ammons]

I agree the pic really looks good. Have you tested how it handles motion like you would have on a steadicam or crane? I wonder how bad the CMOS jello effect is with this cam?

[Paul Elertson]

Luis,

What file format are the files that come off the SD card? Also, what Editing software do you use?

Thanks,

-Paul

[Luis A. Diaz]

Hi, Paul

The files are MTS, better known as MPEG Transport Stream, which is part of the AVCHD standard, when I edit on the Mac using iMovie 11, they are converted to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) for easy editing on the Mac OS, as the Mac does not edit using the raw MTS files.

Thanks for watching
Luis

[Paul Elertson]

Thanks for the reply. What program do you use to convert them to AIC files?

[Luis A. Diaz]

On the Mac OS, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, Clipart and others will do it to ingest the files to an editable form may there are others that I don't know about.
All I know is that AIC is the core conversion for Mac OS to successful editing.

Luis

[Paul Elertson]

I assume you use the camcorder then so programs recognize the files? What would you do it you had the RAW .MTS files and the camcorder was not available?

Sorry for steering away from the subject a bit, but i'm considering this camcorder and wanted to get some information from some first hand people.

I'm also shying away because a friend of mine sent me some MTS files (not from a XA10) and I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to edit them. After I converted them with handbreak to m4v's, I can import them to Imovie but not FCE. I hate editing in Imovie.

Anyways, I don't want to run into similar problems with the XA10. Which I could see happening if you ran out of space on an SD card and just wanted to copy the files to a hard drive so you could continue filming with the same card.

[Luis A. Diaz]

Hi Paul;

Well you have several options:
1. Get more than one SD card as a matter of fact have several around
2. If you are on the Mac and have Toast 10 or higher you can the so called AVCHD archive to a DVD or double layer DVD
3. You can copy or transfer the SD card contents to an ext or Int HD (You can get 2 TB for pennies now a days
4. You can use the Western Digital Hub to view and store ( 1TB) your raw files, at the same time choose only the ones you want to keep.
5. I am not familiar with handbrake but If I am editing I would not waste my time converting the files to anything else than AIC, ….to accomplish what????? More compression, loss in Quality???
If you are going to do HD Video You better get used to the idea that you are going to use and need lots and lots of HD space if you want to keep quality good.
I never use the camcorder to download the file to the computer, I use a USB thumb drive that has a slot for the SD card and acts as a card reader. The Mac would recognize it as any other storage device to download your files to the different editing programs.

Clipart is very good and fast if you want to convert the files prior to editing.

A very fast computer, a very good video card and plenty of HD space 2TB and more are always a must for HD video
Hope this helps
Luis