Editing mixed format footage (AVI, M2T and AVCHD)

[kanonfodr]

drbill:

Based on my rather limited knowledge of the different formats, the main thing is resolution differences that will make your video look shoddy. There are converters for everything under the sun, but those typically will cause a quality loss due to resizing, compression, and encoding.

Also, unless your PC is a serious powerhouse, make the swap to Mac if you haven't already. I had to can a $3000 dollar Alienware laptop when I made the jump to HD video, but my $1700 Macbook Pro handles it rather well. Food for thought.

Peace,
Greg

 

[aquaspider]

AVCHD is an absolute pain to edit. It is great for stuffing HD footage into a relatively small medium. However, there is no advantage to working with it in native format. It can bring even the most powerful computer to its knees. Hardware decoding as done in the camera is no sweat, but software decoding and editing is another matter. I tried out numerous transcoders and only one yielded avi's that were indistinguishable from the originals. CINEFORM. You can convert numerous formats and adjust each one to be compatible with all the others. They can all share the same timeline without problems. I convert 720mov files from my wife's camera to 1080avi and drop them in the timeline with converted AVCHD (1080mts to avi) files all at the remommended compression level (slight) and they work seamlessly. A decent computer can handle the workload without crashing. I am not exactly thrilled with every function of the software but it works. You can download a trial version and see for yourself.

 

[H20doctor]

I use vegas pro on a 2 year old system with no issues doing HD.. files are MTS from my canon HF200 , i edited the movies and then save it as a MPG4 sony HD .. Love it
i run a PC
dual core
3.2 GHZ
3 gigs of Ram
with a 500 gig hard drive

 

[aquaspider]

The thread is about editing mixed format footage. Can do that with Vegas and have everything blend seamlessly? Wow, must by wonderful software. I suggested Cineform because it allows you to do that and it works in Vegas and numerous other editors too.

 

[H20doctor]

Ive mixed Mpeg, and avi formats in Vegas Pro, with my MTS files.. so thats 3 formats I know it will import and render

 

[aquaspider]

I did a little bit of checking and it looks like many editors can handle mixed format video. I had a problem when I set up a 1080 timeline and imported 720 clips into it, where the clips displayed in native size and weren't automatically upscaled to match the project settings. I don't know if this is a concern for the OP since he didn't specify. I don't know, but doubt that many (any?) will. Inevitably, software help threads degenerate into 'mine is best' postings. Be sure you are comparing apples to apples. If all you need to do is chop clips down and string them together, the software that comes bundled with some cameras will do. The more processing you apply to a clip, the tougher it is to handle. According to the experts, AVCHD is one of the worst in this regard. My limited experience tends to concur with that. All the consumer market editors have problems. Check the user threads and read the gripes.

 

[drbill]

I did some tests with my older version of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum and it handled small sample AVCHD files fairly well. I have had no problem mixing SD AVI and HDV mpeg-2 files on a timeline for an earlier project, but still haven't tried all three on the same time line.

I'd better decide soon as I'll be spending 8 days diving in a submersible to depths of up to 900 ft and want to ensure I get some good video of the critters we see!

 

[kate59588]

Pinnacle Studio is a powerful video editing tool and ranks among the best.
How to get your Pinnacle Studio work beautifully with MTS files

camcordervideoshare.com/how-to/import-mts-to-pinnacle-studio-work-smoothly/

 

[kroorda]

Bill,
Premier Pro CS4 & CS5 handles AVCHD supurbly. It can also mix formats, and can burn to Blu-ray. Remember, if you don't burn your video to an HD Blu-ray, then there's no sense in taking HD in the first place. Rather, you would be better of going with a DV (Digital Video) in wide format.

I have been shooting Hi Def AVCHD for some time now and have gone through all the learning curves. If you have any questions, please feel free to reply.
Best Regards,
Kent

PS: Once you burn your Hi Def video to Blu-ray, you'll never want to look at a standard DVD again!

 

[ronscuba]

B..... Remember, if you don't burn your video to an HD Blu-ray, then there's no sense in taking HD in the first place......

Kinda. Blu-ray isn't the only way to view your HD video.

View on your computer monitor
Connect your computer to a HDTV
Use a media player connected to a HDTV
I think some Blu-ray players can read a HD computer video file