Comments on: Why I’m Avoiding AVCHD

By: Never Go Out with New Gear « Rollanb was here

Never Go Out with New Gear « Rollanb was here — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:47:20 +0000

[...] Why I’m Avoiding AVCHD: http://paulstamatiou.com/why-im-avoiding-avchd [...]

By: Ed Abels

Ed Abels — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:43:51 +0000

I recently bought a panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCHD camcorder. Yes I was a bit leary adopting a new format but I’m completely 100% satisfied with this wonderful format. The quality is outstanding and recording onto a SD card is great. Depending on the resolution you choose you get a lot of record time. I use mainly 16Gb cards at 720P res, I typically get 1.5 hours of recording to a card. Editing systems are all coming along to work with AVCHD. Final Cut Pro, Premier both work well, I’m using Pinnacle Ultimate Studio 12 and it’s terrific! I would 100% endorse using this format

By: Johnny B Good

Johnny B Good — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:17:50 +0000

Why are you using a laptop to do video exporting/rendering? Quad core been out for many years now & it is very good at video rendering. Additionally a quad core AMD or Intel desktop isn’t that expensive. But a MacBook is designed for surfing the net & simple tasks do you also take Toyota Prius to the race track?

You aren’t knocking the AVCHD format not on its quality; but because of how fast it takes to export. I assume you know very little about tech & your jerry rig set up (photo) provides us with your tech “knowledge.”

AVCHD is the best HD Cam format out there. Next tike don’t write a review on your ignorance.

By: Canon FS21

Canon FS21 — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:03:08 +0000

You should search for tutorials about exporting HD footage, because the quality I’ve got with basics settings and vegas blow away any DVD standard definition.

By: Ulrich

Ulrich — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:58:17 +0000

I have a sony HDR70(i think that type i can’t never remember) and i use Sony Vegas to work on the file directly, and ouput them to .mov uncompress, then i can do what ever i want with them witf AE and premiere. I don’t broadcast stuff, more web stream but i can get a really good quality.

By: Gakio

Gakio — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 05:09:46 +0000

I went with AVCHD because I needed 1080p resolution, not 1080i. A tape is indeed easier to edit because it is 1:1 import. As for exporting, that really shouldn’t matter because when you imported the AVCHD, it should have gone into a format such as Apple pro res or something like that. I too use a MacBook Pro, and it does take a while to import, but once it is imported, it is a different file format for editing, so exporting is just like DV or HDV. While my computer does get hot (100 degrees C), the MBP will not allow it to over heat to its max processor temp (110 degrees C). The fan is a good idea, though, as it keeps your fans from needing to be maxed at 6000 RPM, and killing them later.

By: Jon Derek

Jon Derek — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:09:19 +0000

What is obvious here is AVCHD is in the market way before it should be. You get a lot of misinformation on websites and you get a lot of people who simply want to have the next, trend thing.
There is way, way to much conversion involved to get an acceptable end result, this is supposed to be a hobby not a full time job. Right now, buy a mini dv, record in standard wide screen and play your movie on an up-converting dvd player. There is not enough accountability on the part of manufacturers to put out products that are full functioning because there are those who will buy them regardless of their flaws.

By: Jon Allen

Jon Allen — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:01:29 +0000

Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) will support using the GPU for doing some work of encoding/decoding. I use a Canon XHA1 and plan to upgrade to tapeless because I shoot 5 days a week and the tapes are piling up all over the place! I just am not happy with my tapeless options quite yet. I am not quite happy with HDV and think that AVCHD will answer these limitations.

I am also not happy with the lifespan of new hard-drives when they are beat up doing video. I lost some drives in under a week! I have been testing class 4 and class 6 SDHC cards and I am impressed so far. May add SATA SSD to my drive bays someday.

1) Get an 8 core Mac Pro desktop… It is designed to handle the power you need and handle the heat it will make. (No one thinks heat is an important consideration when buying a computer… So they buy a cheap computer and burn it up.)

2) As a video engineer I know that in only a few months, new products will be out to help deal with Mpeg-4 computing requirements. Use the latest hardware and software technology…

Don’t rule out AVCHD yet! Its just getting started!

By: video junkie

video junkie — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:09:06 +0000

try cyberlink power director it edits in the avchd and I can download from the camera, edit and burn to disc in under an hour on my laptop

By: Vic

Vic — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:18:35 +0000

Why not just get a JVC GZ-HD6 or something similar? It records in mpeg2 and quicktime converts it easily to whatever Final Cut needs–and I’ve done this on my Macbook and my PowerMac (dual 2.5).

By: HF-100 owner

HF-100 owner — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:42:58 +0000

The problem is with your NLE not the format. This is from Wikipedia “Apple’s Final Cut Express 4, Final Cut 6.0.1, and iMovie ‘08 allow you to convert AVCHD to the Apple Intermediate Codec format, but do not support AVCHD directly.”

I’m using Vegas which handles the AVCHD natively and my processing times for full HD on a modest laptop are nowhere near as long as you describe.

Your mac is burning up doing all the conversions…

By: Jim Vance

Jim Vance — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:59:39 +0000

Although I’m reading negative comments on using AVCHD with an editor above, my experience has ended up being much more pleasant. I am now using a CANON HG10 and I have just downloaded 2 1/2 Hours of recorded HD 1920×1080 video to my computer in less than 25 minutes I initially used the Corel/Ulead software and it was OK but not much of an editor. I found out that by, instead, using Sony Vegas 8 Professional, I can edit the same as if they were BD or AVI files and it turned out a beautiful video on an HD DVD that plays back through my Sony Blu-Ray player (you read it right – Blu-Ray) and it makes an absolutely awesome image on my 57″ Mitsubishi DLP. I can’t find a justification , now, for buying a $9000 or $4000 HD camera. My $899 HG-10 does everything I need and I love AVCHD. The only disadvantage with this HG-10 is that it is so light, it hard to use it smoothly as I am accostumed to a heavier XL-2 and the like. Also, another minus is the Standard DVD hold only about 45 minutes of AVCHD although you can get about 1 1/2 Hours on a double layer disc. I hope this dispels some myths probably from using the earliest version of hardware and software.

Thank you,

Jim Vance, PE
The Musicians Agency
Photo and Video Division
Houston

By: Novice-HD Camcorder

Novice-HD Camcorder — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:57:22 +0000

Guys,
A simple question from a novice HD camcorder user. I have a Sony HD video camcorder. It does record in AVCHD. I am considering get a MacPro with iMovie. My question is this: Can I import the video from this sony into my MacPro and view and edit them on the computer? I am not necessarily interested in posting them or distributing them..this is more of a home video server for the family.

thanks..

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Baked potato prozac. — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:24:54 +0000

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By: beboxman

beboxman — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:31:54 +0000

@Koolade

first, copying files from the card should not be slower than real time. If it where the case, you couldn't write to the card in the fisrt place without losing frames. Consult this site about the correct reader you should buy : http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed
You may need a fast card too. Class 6 are the fastest actually. Not all readers are equal concerning speed, trust me.

second, consider keeping the HF100. Why ? both cams will give you HD content, about the same file size in the end. But, with the HV30 you will have to capture the video from the tape, slow and inefficient. You could not transfert to file faster than realtime. With a card you can.

Finally, I don't have imovie coz i'm on pc. But, the low quality you've experienced have nothing to do with the camcorder itself. You should search for tutorials about exporting HD footage, because the quality I've got with basics settings and vegas blow away any DVD standard definition…

By: Koolade

Koolade — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:46:30 +0000

I’m so happy to have found this information. I recently researched what the best camcorder would be as my very old Sony broke years ago and I’ve been using a Nikon SLR for only still images. I have a new iMAC 2.4Ghz with 4GB memory and 320GB hard drive and I figured this would be enough to start my video downloading and editing projects. I was recommended the Panasonic SD5, then found that the SD9 was the newest model….bought it and found it to be completely incompatible with the MAC, my fault for not checking that out but I figured the SD5 was..??? Anyway, I returned that and after much research again, purchased the newest HF100 and bought a couple of 16GB cards.

The card only gave me about 1:45 min of full HD video, which I thought I would get a full 2 hours +, but that’s ok. I was mortified with the download times as it really is over twice the recording time AND I was also blown away by the space it took, when if you figure the easy math, it’s 1GB/min of HD video…wow!

So now I’m at a loss and am a bit new to all of this editing in HD from AVCHD as I’ve done it with the STD DV tape media on a PC and never really had a problem. I’m considering either selling this HF100 and buying the HV30 OR just keeping it until technology has caught up with more user friends tools, but I have some questions I’m hoping someone can help with:

So once I download the AVCHD information into iMovie, how do I compress it as this first post mentioned above without losing the HD quality? Just for a test, I exported the video which only gave me a highest quality of 940x…., then dropped it into iDVD and burned it…..it seriously came out looking terrible! I played it on a LCD HDTV with both a regular DVD player and a progressive scan and in either case, the quality is substandard and I’m questioning my 1k decision for this HD camcorder.

Coincidently, I was at a friends who had a DVD of a home move created in Pinnacle from just a regular Std Def video camera and it was played on a 52″ LCD HD TV…..the quality was amazingly clear!

I’m sorry to be really detailed in this, but I’m very much self taught and am fairly frustrated with what I’m doing wrong. Can someone give me a path of what I need to do with the AVCHD media to get it to an acceptable quality DVD and possibly compress it so that the Terabyte I just bought isn’t full in a few weeks!

By: beboxman

beboxman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:07:32 +0000

I don’t fully agree with you concerning AVCHD.

Plain H264 are nearly unworkable with vegas 8 (pro b)
I’ve tested files from a samsung hmx10c (which does not produce avchd files) and ones from a canon HF100 and sony SR11.

Theses types are nearly identicals BUT if you want to edit them with a NLE like vegas, you will be very disappointed to see how slowww you can manipulate them. In contrast, AVCHD files are very useable (on the same config, even with bigger resolution like full hd instead of 1280×720)
Scrubbing is way too slow. Although, I think it’s a problem with the NLE itself.

By: beboxman

beboxman — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:35:56 +0000

I use vegas 8 and AVCHD files from others camcorders are faster than mp4 files from the hmx10c, both at render and scrubbing. How is this possible ?

By: Damien Dempsey

Damien Dempsey — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:01:20 +0000

Great discussion guys. I’m looking at specs for various cameras including this one and the canon HF10. A question (for you Frank ‘viperteq’ Young) – in all the specs I can find neither of these cameras mention an sd (MPEG2) option.

It would be great to have this feature as we could mess around in SD and move up to HD in a couple of years when the software is finally properly sorted and my PC has the specs to cope!

Thoughts?

By: Lusting Sony’s HDR-TG1 // Loathing AVCHD at theory.isthereason

Lusting Sony’s HDR-TG1 // Loathing AVCHD at theory.isthereason — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:37:12 +0000

[...] high-definition recording format fairly popular in today’s high-definition video devices. As Paul Stamatiou explained, it’s not a format that’s easy to work with on a Mac. In fact, while the latest Apple [...]

By: Ezra Hilyer

Ezra Hilyer — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:06:32 +0000

Interested in how it worked out with recording to SD cards… How long a recording did you get on one 16gb card? Doesn’t seem like it would be more than 2 hours or so..
Am I close?

By: Andrew Swihart

Andrew Swihart — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:29:45 +0000

Or if you’re set on recording to flash media, look at the Canon HF10, which just got a

By: hydo

hydo — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:47:38 +0000

Paul, FYI, the new ads on your main page right above the most recent post really kills your design flow.

By: Andrew Swihart

Andrew Swihart — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:50:21 +0000

Paul, try that NeoHDV codec I linked to, you may be happier just to keep your SD-5 and use that to help the performance / editing difficulties AVCHD gives you.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:26:38 +0000

@Robert – you never really know what something is like until you try it out for yourself. I think that pretty much sums this up. I had heard about AVCHD in the marketing terms used for the camera and didn’t think much of it.