AVCHD Converter

[Ron Evans]

I don't know for sure if frame rate is really a problem. You could send a mail to Blackmagic and find out.
Ron Evans

HQ is the Canopus HQ intermediate codec sorry for the abbreviation. In your case you could use the Intensity card, its about $250 and will let you capture uncompressed to the PC if you have a PC that is up to that or to MJPG codec that comes with it or if you have Cinefrom NEO capture realtime to Cineform intermediate that can be used with any NLE that is VFW compatible( it works really well with Premiere PRO).

Ron Evans

Thanks Ron,
It seems that the video signal from the nikon d300 is 15 fps only. Will that give complications?
Rob

Dear moderator,
This thread was longer. What happened?
Rob

[Ron Evans]

HQ is the Canopus HQ intermediate codec sorry for the abbreviation. In your case you could use the Intensity card, its about $250 and will let you capture uncompressed to the PC if you have a PC that is up to that or to MJPG codec that comes with it or if you have Cinefrom NEO capture realtime to Cineform intermediate that can be used with any NLE that is VFW compatible( it works really well with Premiere PRO).

Ron Evans

Thanks guys!

Ron, I am not very into this technical stuff. What stands HQ for?

I would like to explain what I actually want to be able to do: I have a NIKON D300 on top of a microscope. I want to capture (and edit) the hdmi (Live View) output from this SLR. What would you suggest is the best (and cheapest) solution. Would there be others then the converter or the BMI card?

[GrassValley_KH]

This advc-hd50 converter, would that convert a hdmi signal into a HD signal that can be recorded with a HD camcorder?

ADVC-HD50 converts HDMI to HDV instantly. So HDV camcorders should be able to record the FireWire input signal, using this converter.

[Ron Evans]

The BlackMagic Intensity card comes with a number of codecs that it will use to convert the HDMI signal realtime for capture to the PC. Also Cineform support the Intensity card for again realtime capture to the Cineform intermediate codec for use in any NLE. I believe the ADVC-HD50 will convert to HDV that could be recorded to a HDV camera or deck? As I said before I think the ADVC-HD50 is very expensive for what it does. A lower cost Pegasus would be more useful with just one HDMI connector and one feature, convert HDMI to HQ. ie NO analogue input, a competitor for the Intensity card and Cineform all in hardware. Alternatively Edius could just support the BlackMagic Intensity and convert on the fly to HQ just like Cineform !!!!!

Ron Evans

This advc-hd50 converter, would that convert a hdmi signal into a HD signal that can be recorded with a HD camcorder?

Also, how can this converter be compared to the Black Magic Intensity card? I thought the last one is only to capture hdmi signal, not to convert it. So, how can you edit within a reasonable home pc? How to convert?

[Ron Evans]

Thanks Alan. Will look forward to getting my new computer with Q9450, parts projected next week now!!! The times would correspond to the Q9650 being about 4 times faster than my AMD X2 4200 I had estimated 10 times realtime on my system so thought 20 hours converting and filling all my hard drives for 5 mins in the final didn't make any sense!!! . I had to use sharpening of 20 on the HDV conversion that I had done with Elecard. Was a theatre full stage with little colour or movement so that is probably why it was the best compromise for me. I had thought of using the Intensity card with realtime conversion to Cineform intermediate but my computer is just not fast enough to manage conversion from AVCHD with any input !!!!!! In a few weeks I hope this will change.

Ron

[AJL14]

AVCHD 2.10 update........

Hi Ron and Mike,

Promised to give you an update as soon as I completed my comparison studies. All results were projected split/screen onto my theater screen which is 14 1/2 ft. diagonal, using a 2500-line resolution-capable projector (3-CRT's) at 1080p.

Material: Shot on the new Sony HDR-SR12 120GB High Definition Handycam® Camcorder. Shot at 1920x1080, stored on the HDD, downloaded using the SONY USB transfer program to EDIUS editor 1TB RAID storage.

I compared four different files of identical material. Program source was an extremely colorful and detailed Parade for the Indianapolis 500 mile race.

1. Original ACVHD file rendered in EDIUS. File size: approx. 250MB
2. An "uncompressed AVI" file generated by the Elecard conversion program. File size: approx 16GB (yes - that's gigabytes!)
3. An MPEG-2 file generated by the Elecard conversion program.
4. AN EDIUS HQ file generated by the updated EDIUS AVCHD2HQ program. Conversion set to the highest possible very fine settings. File size: approx. 2.75 GB (gigbytes).

Findings:

1. NO DISCERNABLE DIFFERENCE whatsoever between the orig. AVCHD file and the "uncompressed file". Colors, edging, resolution. Perfect conversion which ran on EDIUS - with a HUGE load on the buffer section of a Q9650 quad system - but once the buffer ws prefilled, it was RT WITHOUT effects. Did not try effects, primarily due to the fact the file size was nearly prohibitive. 3 1/2 hours of material would fill my 1TB RAID.

2. The MPEG-2 file was a mess. The resolution wouldn't have been too terrible, except that the color bleeding and compression shimmering and the edging got in the way of a good picture. Color "shift" also occurred outside of the boundries in which it was supposed to have originated. Very poor.

3. At one-fifth the file size of the "uncompressed" as as result, the EDIUS AVCHD2HQ did a terrific job. On the big screen there was only the SLIGHTEST image degradation as far as resolution was concerned, and even then, the adding of a Sharpness filter with a settingof 8 or 12 to the clips resulted in an image only the most trained could differentiate from the original or uncompressed clip. There was no color shift of shimmer whatsoever. The ONLY drawback for the AVCHD2HQ program is that it does take 2 1/2 times the clip length to convert, but you can load as many clips into the program at the same time, and walk way, go see a movie, take a LONG shower, or whatever. And for that kind of quality - even at the final file size approximately 11 times that of the original AVCHD file, I'll take it, use it, and be really VERY happy. Runs RT on EDIUS with multiple effects - really nice. Every once in a while I had to prefill the buffer when I was close to a few effects. Ran 3 layers just fine.

On a 70-inch 1080p set, it was impossible to see any difference viewing from 9 feet. (Except for the MPEG-2 file).

So there you have it! I'm quite pleased, and I hope this sheds a small amount of light upon the subject.

Have a great Sunday, all.
Cheers,
Alan







Elecard

[Ron Evans]

The only problem Mike is the ADVC-HD50 costs as much as the AVCHD camera or almost as much as a PC and Blackmagic Intensity card combined. A Blackmagic Card and Cineform software is lower cost and more flexible. Editing in Vegas or Premiere Pro CS3 has this as a very useful option for editing AVCHD with an intermediate codec. It is something I have considered but like the multicam in Edius. I don't see how the ADVC-HD50 has a market at its price point.

Ron Evans

[GrassValley_MD]

Actually, one of the post was talking about going to HDV. The converter Chris was talking about would work great for that individual.


Mike

[Ron Evans]

Hi Alan, my conversions were to HDV with the standard settings. I hadn't used Edius HQ because of the speed of my PC leads to very long conversion times( even for HDV) that are unacceptable to me even as a hobby. So my situation was governed by my present equipment and desires effectively excluding all the intermediated codec solutions because of my present equipment. I had a long program on a SR7 ( 1440x1080) and needed to mix with HDV from two FX1's. The SR7 was a fixed camera. Conversion image was not as good as original I agree( was a little softer) but as good as any of the other conversions I had tried and with a little sharpening was acceptable for the use I had for it. Conversion to DV seemed OK though again on the standard setting. I am waiting for the updated codec versions to see how they perform. My assessment was based on quality and speed converting to HDV and the Elecard was fastest and just as good as the other NLE's in this conversion. Elecard was twice as fast as Vegas converting to HDV and just as good quality though when I have edited home video mix AVCHD with HDV from FX1 I have used native files in Vegas rather than Edius. On my AMD x2 4200 PC converting AVCHD to HQ takes more than 10 times realtime so for a 2 hour program is not viable for me even for a retirement hobby especially as the actual clips used would end up being very few( transition shots between the two FX1's or the odd activity missed by both FX1's, total used was about 5 mins in two hours)!!!! Have a new computer on its way ( when Q9450 processors turn up) and will assess all options again then. For this particular project where I used Elecard to convert to HDV. When finished I inserted a track in Edius and placed the native AVCHD file above the HDV file and substituted the clips and let Edius render to see the difference between the sharpened HDV and the AVCHD converted by Edius..there was no real difference when encoded by DVD creator which is the real test for me. Elecard is not perfect just the fastest acceptable in my mind at the moment. I outputted a HDV files of both too and also see little difference between the HDV sharpened and the Edius conversion from native AVCHD clips. Program was a theatre event so there may be more quality issues with different subject. I would certainly like to see native editing with smart rendering so that only effects or filters need to be rendered as the least done to these original files the better. Maybe later in the year we will see better handling of AVCHD for all the NLE's. HDV was a problem at first too.

Ron Evans

[AJL14]

Ron Evans & Elecard AVCHD Converter..

Hi Ron,

Recently you suggested the Elecard AVCHD converter. I now have it, and have tried a number of settings from ACVHD 1920 to files that EDIUS will accept for editing. Am having some quality problems - which can be easily seen between the original file and the conversions. What is your experience in the settings that give you the best results. AVI or MPEG-2, frame or field, bit rate settings, etc. Please share them if you can, and we'd all be most grateful. Especially me!

Many thanks, and
Cheers,
Alan

[vienna1944er]

Dear Chris Piscitelli .........please, excuse my miserable english

HDMI to HDV is for yesterday cams........
Ron and my cams are up to date .......... Sonys AVCHD with 1920x1080 ......
If anyone have sourcematerial with 1920, he need not to compress in the "poor" 1440 resplution and in the "poor" long gop HDV-Code

We known \ appreciates \ love....... the good Canopus HQ - INTRA-codec (maybe, only 8bit at this time)
We wish with only one converting step to come from HDMI >>> HQ on hard disk ...... with external case ... "Pegasus in the Box"

that is the format from yesterday's Cams........present-day AVCHD Cams formats is 1920x1080 ....(like my sr11)

so it needs the "full-HD ADVC-HD5xxx"
and a lot of "martyred AVCHD-Cam user" ,on both sides from the big ocean , would kiss the feet from the GV-product development manager .....

friendly greetings from europe\austria\vienna old (but not dead) Hans ;-)