AVCHD with V4.6 - any luck?

[THoff]

I've played with a couple of files from a Panasonic SD9 AVCHD consumer camera the last two days, and I'm not having much luck using the files in Edius Broadcast V4.6.

Unless I convert the MTS files to Canopus HQ format using the AVCHD converter before bringing them into the project, Edius will either hang with 100% CPU utilization on one processor for as long as I've been willing to wait, or crash completely. Using "Convert" in the bin always results in a crash after a few seconds. It also gobbles up a boatload of memory that is in no proportion to the size of the file I'm working with.

These are files shot at 1920x1080 @ 24P. I don't own this camera, but if I did, I'd be really bummed right now.

[sarahstaar]

yes i asked Grass valley about AVCHD in edius and they said that it had to be transcoded before it could be edited in Edius.

I like the look of the new Panasonic AG-HMC150 which Shoots on SDHC.
There is no point in going tapless if you need to transcode all the footage first!!!

[Ron Evans]

Yes its transcode or use Vegas 8. On my AMD 4200 X2 its takes 2.5 times realtime to transcode to HQ. But I can mix and play HDV and AVCHD files on the Vegas 8 timeline OK. Not as nice for multicam but for my family stuff thats shot on HDV and AVCHD Vegas 8 is better at the moment. Maybe when I upgrade to a quad core it will be faster!!!

Ron Evans

[sarahstaar]

Intel's 6core CPU, should power realy be a problem

So if Vegas 8 can do it Edius should be there in v5 maybe. With processor power increasing every month this should be no problem. With Intel's new 6 core CPU coming this year should power really be a problem ????

[GrassValley_KH]

I would not have thought AVCHD would be quite catastrophic as to cause system hangs/crashes.

Got a sample file I can run?

[THoff]

Here are a couple:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/td38eu/ (1920x1080 60i)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/3fo72w/ (1920x1080 24p)

Edit: http://rapidshare.com/files/95206097/00001.MTS.html (1920x1080 24p)

Also, when I run the first file through the AVCHD converter to generate a Canopus HQ file, there is a single-frame glitch at 05.13 with green pixelation. I have no idea if that's present in the original file since Edius hangs when opening the file, but I suspect that it is not since I haven't seen anyone else commenting on problems with the file.

[GrassValley_KH]

Ok, the 00002 59.94 clip presented no problems for me at all. Previewed fine in AVCHDPRV, played ok natively on the EDIUS timeline, converted correctly both with the external AVCHD2HQ app and inside EDIUS.

The 00001 clip (dog) was somewhat fine. Loads into EDIUS and plays back natively. Converts within EDIUS ok too (but one time, I did manage to get one frame of green happen at 5:17 - a rerender removed it).

What was strange was that if I converted with the external app, the duration was wrong - indeed the clip was sped up a little (duration of 6:09 instead of 7:22). This makes me think that AVCHD2HQ has some issue with the 23.98 fps frame rate and pulldown handling. Worth reporting.

The third clip (cat) was simply diabolical. On both my systems, any attempt to play the clip or convert it within EDIUS would cause EDIUS to crash to the desktop.

Outside, I could preview it fine with the preview app, but if I converted it with AVCHD2HQ - it would hang at 86% consistently.


Interestingly, all three clips report an unknown bitrate to EDIUS.

I'm going to pass on the two problematic clips - we're supposed to have fixed Panasonic AVCHD file processing, but it looks like we're not quite done with 24p yet.

[THoff]

Thanks for following up on that. I'm surprised the 00002 clip isn't giving you problems. Ironically the clip with the cat gave me no problems once converted to Canopus HQ, I just couldn't open it in Edius itself.

I thought about uninstalling and reinstalling from scratch using the V4.6 ISO, but the reports about expired licenses worry me, and since I don't use AVCHD for my own work, I'll probably just wait for the next update.

[Chuk_I_Gek]

Yes its transcode or use Vegas 8. On my AMD 4200 X2 its takes 2.5 times realtime to transcode to HQ. But I can mix and play HDV and AVCHD files on the Vegas 8 timeline OK. Not as nice for multicam but for my family stuff thats shot on HDV and AVCHD Vegas 8 is better at the moment. Maybe when I upgrade to a quad core it will be faster!!!

Ron Evans

I have upgraded to Intel QX9650 in order to have improved video editing capabilities. So it pleases me a lot - QuickTime movie HD 1280x720 encoding works at 0,8x speed. Since its always appeared to be slowest encoder in the world, other codecs works much much faster. Speed HDV encoder runs as supersonic!

Few days ago I upgraded to Sony SR12, and stuck trying edit AVCHD footage in Edius 4,6. I can play native MTS files from camera in any player installed as well as AVCHDPRV (even if it shows slider position incorrectly). However Edius 4.6 shows them with huge frame drops as well as noticeably slower then it should be while playing during editing.

Converting to Canopus HQ is extremely, no, EXTREMELY slow. Converting through AVCHD2HQ is faster since it runs 4 processes simultaneously when run in batch mode, but I noticed some major problems with colors in that case.
I have noticed that in any case CPU load does not go higher then 34% when working with AVCHD in Edius. So it seems to be problem of AVCHD codec, utilised by Canopus, as it does not use multicore CPU possibilities. Also as was said in other post here, Edius shows all AVCHD footage on timeline as required for rendering.
Would be really grateful if you correct me as well as advise how to proceed further.

[Ron Evans]

As i mentioned in my original post I find Vegas 8 much better for AVCHD at the moment. I actually just did a multicam edit in 4.6 with two HDV streams( from FX1's ) and one AVCHD stream from my new SR11......very slow. I had my SR11 and my HC96 together on the shoot so used the DV from the HC96 to do the editing ( was full stage cams so wasn't used a lot) then overlayed the SR11 track afterwards and subsituted the SR11 for the HC96 so that I could get a HD and SD output. Edius timeline was Ok with these two HDV streams and one DV stream but would not run with the AVCHD files as well as the two HDV. I had used the 1920x1080 setting on the SR11 and I think this was a mistake considering that I was going to edit with the HDV streams. I think I am going to use the SR11 as the family cam it was intended for until NLE's have better response and I have upgraded my PC!!!! As a single stream editing is fine in Vegas so I am happy with that for the family stuff. Can't really give you any advice for AVCHD in Edius as I think I have come to the conclusion I will not likely use Edius for AVCHD until I have upgraded my PC and maybe there are some more improvements.

Ron Evans

[Chuk_I_Gek]

Thanks Ron, Unfortunately as I mentioned above PC upgrade would not help you in that case. It seems to be complete problem of AVCHD codec used by Edius..

[Chuk_I_Gek]

So I tried to experiment with 1440x1080 file made by SR12. Edius still plays this file on timeline with frame drops, but a bit faster then 1920x1080. CPU load 15%.
Still requires rendering. When press Render button creates file with codec selected when created preset and put this file in rendered folder. With 1440x1080 its possible to set HDV MPEG codec. With 1920x1080 the only reasonable choice is CanopusHQ.

So that proves Edius 4.6 still has no proper AVCHD support and ultimately requires conversion to other codec for editing. However it gives flexibility to either convert it from the bin or put clips you need on the timeline and convert straight from there through rendering. If you need simple footage as just placing clips one by one adjusting their length, I was able to do it without rendering, using native MTS files only. Any more serious editing will require definite transcoding.

By the way, if Canopus uses the same H264 codec in Edius as in Procoder that provbably explains the problem - Procoder codec encode 1440x1080 movie at 0,24 speed while even QuickTime movie H264 codec does it in real time and some times even a bit faster

Lets just hope Canopus would improve their H264 codec in the future releases..

[GrassValley_BH]

I really dislike when people use the word "proper" to describe things. What is "proper" to one person can be completely opposite of what it "proper" to someone else. It's a meaningless term.

I don't understand why a PC upgrade would not help Ron. The H.264 decoding is done by software. Software will run faster with a faster PC.

As for ProCoder, there are different H.264 exporters. If you restrict the scope to just MPEG-4, then ProCoder uses QuickTime for the H.264 (.mp4) exports too. It's a different mechanism from the Movie File H.264, but it's still QuickTime.

[Ron Evans]

Have to agree Brandon. Since video is a retirement hobby for me I have to decide what to spend money on at any point in time for the best return for what I want to do. Most of my projects done with other people are still DV so there is no problem editing with my present machine. For family videos I use my FX1 in HDV or my new SR11 in AVCHD as the memories are important for the future to be in HD. These videos are also not multicam, straight film style editing on a single track( or effective single track depending on NLE used). Rendering in any NLE is processor intensive so the fastest processor will win at this game followed by memory system and hard drives. My old AMD 4200X2 is the weak link in my system and will not capture and convert to HQ consistently so working with HQ means a post capture convert which is time consuming. At the moment Vegas is faster at dealing with this single track mixed HDV /AVCHD edit with raw files so that is what I use, no conversions at capture or post capture, simple. It used to be that neither Vegas or Edius would run with raw HDV files on the timeline but that is not true anymore. In fact Edius will happily run multicam with two tracks of raw HDV and one of DV on my lowly system!!! I will wait until the fall and the next round of processors to upgrade, a Christmas present to myself. Hard drives will also be bigger and cheaper too though I have 2TB already!!!!.

Ron Evans

[Chuk_I_Gek]

Gentlemen, lets draw away from discussion about the meaning of the word "proper", and stick to the problem. I checked Sony Vegas and indeed it allows real time AVCHD editing. However I consider Canopus products to be the best on the market and that was the reason I bought them some time ago, but not something else. So I really hope this temporary issue with time line editing of AVCHD files will be solved with future releases. Of course upgrading to lets say 8 quad CPU in a year time would probably gives me not current 15% but 5% CPU load, however, as I mentioned above, just CPU upgrade would not solve the problem.