DISQUS

James Shearn · 1 year ago

How powerful a computer do I need to edit high-definition video?

Mark Robertson · 1 year ago

depends on whether you mean a mac or a pc. I assume that you mean a pc. I have a pc that is about a year old and it works great. You will likely need at least 2GB RAM and a computer that could support Vista, although Vista is not needed. Really it is going to depend on the video card as well. Take a look at - http://www.videomaker.com/article/10482/

-Nash · 1 year ago

Thanks for this info, Mark! I have a Sony HD camera and it still is super choppy in Vegas Studio 9!! I will give Pinnacle a try. ;)

Will Green · 1 year ago

Anyone knows this solution works or not?
http://www.avchdediting.com/
I would like to look for the best software to edit my Sony camcorder videos.

Virt · 11 months ago

Lately I had tested the new avc hd editor software of little known Elecard company and I want to say that is the new Word in AVCHD editing software.

Tim · 6 months ago

I just purchased a Sony HDR-XR200V and paid a grand for the camera and went with an extended warranty (yeah, I know), and all I wanted was to be able to shoot nice quality video, simple import and simple edit of the video. Did little to no homework on latest video specs, being a former Sony MiniDV users, I just figured I'd get the latest/greatest and I'd be good. Shot my first video today that I wanted to edit and wow, I'm now finding out that there isn't a simple solution to editing AVCHD video? Give me a break. I'm a techie kinda guy, and don't scare easily with this stuff, but dag-nabbit, I just want this stuff to have a simple work flow.

I have Adobe Premiere 6 and also have (and just installed today) Sony Vegas 8. I'd expect the Premiere would be outdated for HD, and the Vegas seems to work, but I now have to learn to edit in that program. And do I still need a file converter, as in another third-party software to make this all work.

I know I'm just blowing off frustration, but Lord, why can't this stuff be easier, or am I missing something?

Mark Robertson · 6 months ago

Well, this posts is a bit old and might be good to provide an update but I have found problems with AVCHD and especially Sony Vegas. however, I hear that Sony Vegas does work with Sony Cameras. I can tell you that it does NOT work well with Panasonic Cameras, at all... So far, Pinnacle seems to work ok and even IMovie and Final Cut. I even had some success with Premier CS4, but I digress.

Sean · 6 months ago

So Adobe Premeire Pro 4.0 (part of CS4) can edit AVCHD video. It's can't output it in that but there's not much reason to want to. Vegas 9.0 can edit AVCHD video and do a decent job of it (from a Sony HDR SR12) But whenever your done editing it you need to export (render) or output it into something.

That's where I'm running into trouble.
Anyway my issue is what format and codec to save the editied output with the best quality.

See if your going to shoot something in HD 1080iorp at the highest quality you can... you would want to save and maintain that quality through to your 1st print or Master. The problem is what woud that video be?

Now Let's say I want to use this video and put it onto something... Say a DVD? Say a website? You would need to convert or transcode the video to a new format in order to do so it seems.

All this is very time consuming. That's the sucky part. Every time you want a new media you need to transcode it.

So again what's the best video type to save your edited master?

Jan C. · 5 months ago

I know what you mean. I have excatly the same problem. I want to be able to a little editing and save it as avchd as a master and then use that to encode to what else uses i have.

I just have not found anything that could do that yet. All programs i have tested, encodes the video to another format :(

If i remember correct, the software that comes with the canon can do a little of that, but its just very crappy :(

Mark Robertson · 6 months ago

I imagine that when you refer to Master, you are not referring to the file type that you want to save for web use?

Paul · 6 months ago

Hi, new player with HD video. I just bought a Panasonic HDC HS300. Thought if I bought top end it might last longer as technology moves so fast. I now know I need a new computer to edit HD video as my current one is to old and slow. Can anyone tell me what I need in a new computer so I can edit HD video. All I want to do is download footage (family videosof kids). Do some minor cutting and then burn onto DVD. I have full HD TV and blue ray player. System I am considering is: Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q8200 / 2.33Ghz , Intel G31 Chipset Motherboard, 750GB Hard Disk Drive (SATA Interface), 4GB / DDR2 800MHz Memory with on board sound/graphic/lan. Paying about $800. Please help?

Jan C · 5 months ago

That computer should do just fine. I have a dual core 2.4Ghz and when i tried with only 2GB ram it had trouble, but it seemed to be gone after adding 2GB more. However i bought a new computer i7 and 6GB ram, so i dont have any issues anymore.

Mike Peterson · 5 months ago

I have a Sony HDV camcorder and purchased Pinnacle 11 Ultimate and was disappointed that it would not open the files at all. I contacted Pinnacle support and they told me that HDV files from my Sony were not supported. So I wasted $130 on Pinnacle Studio 11 and then ended up buying Sony Vegas Platinum for $140 and it supports HDV video and I have been converted after being a Pinnacle user since version 7 - no more.

Ken Robertson · 3 months ago

I have the Canon HG 10 and all I want to do is pull the videos from the camcorder, string all the different "scenes" from one event (vacation, etc.) into one continous video and burn to dvd. I am struggling finding software to do this without having to buy a lot more than I need. I have an HP machine with Vista Home Premium, 64-bit, 2.4ghz and 6 gig RAM. Help

Ken Robertson

Mark Robertson · 3 months ago

Ken, have you tried the software that comes with the camera? Ill tell you what I do and I have the same camera. I plug it in, navigate to the .mts files which are usually in a folder called "streams" and then import those either into pinnacle, or adobe media encoder on a PC. If on a mac (which I see you are not), you can also just import them using imovie or finalcut.

cwilliams · 3 months ago

September, 2009. Wow, what a mess. I just went through a week with my new CAnon HFS100 and the much-touted Sony Vegas Platinum 9. In short, pure frustration. By the way--because I dont see this opinion on the forums much--I found the Vegas NLE infuriatingly nonintuitive. Even their DVD burner, DVD Architect, is designed to confound you from the git-go.
Maybe the problem is that Sony and Canon arent friends--Vegas may function much better with a Sony camera. I dont mind editiing with proxy files but even they played back choppy for me. We're not talking about editing here, just trying to set up a timeline and publish tests.
My issue now comes down to "Why shoot in high def"? If you like to heavy-edit your projects and put them on DVD, my sense is that AVCHD is not for us at this moment. Simple as that.
I'm sending my Canon HFS100 back.'That's sad, because it is an absolutely wonderful camera and esthetically beautiful. I'll go back to SD. I have to be able to edit and make DVDs, and with AVCHD--forget it.

Mark Robertson · 3 months ago

Honestly, Ive had no problems with AVCHD in the past year. I did find that Sony didnt work for me either. I would also say that I agree that it is entirely counter-intuitive. Unfortunately, so is Pinnacle. As I mentioned above in the post, I found that Sony only could handle sony AVCHD - similar to what you found. What I do nowadays is to copy the raw MTS files to my computer, and then to convert those using either Sorenson or Macromedia Media Encoder to AVI or MP4. Once I have those, Im good to go.

Berend Engelbrecht · 3 months ago

I found that the AVCHD support in Adobe Premiere is just not working. The program usually freezes when trying to import an .MTS file (my camera produces 720p AVCHD). The solution is to transcode the file to .m2v video and .wav audio and use that in Premiere. Unfortunately, the Adobe Media Encoder has similar problems with AVCHD: it happily starts on one of my files but soon almost grinds to a halt an becomes really agonizingly slow. It takes many hours to convert even a short AVCHD video sequence with the Adobe converter.
I found a good solution though: use a third party converter. I found a good review from someone who tried 9 different Windows-based converters and selected the Elecard converter, that he liked best.
http://www.dvscene.nl/video/avchd-converteren.htm... (review in Dutch)

Elecard Converter Studio AVC HD Edition costs $75 (57 euro), but it converts the same files in less than a minute for which the Adobe converter needs many hours. The converted m2v/wav output works fine in Premiere, no more sluggishness or software freezes. Well worth the money.

scott · 2 months ago

Which software is better as of 9-23-09

Adobe premiere elements 7 or Pinnacle Ultimate (latest version)?????????????
Both note that they can be used to edit AVCHD. I don't want choppy frames. The default software that came with my Sony SDR-HD7 camcorder couldn't handle a straight download (very choppy footage - worthless)

I like the fact that they package Adobe photoshop with premiere, but want to be able to handle HD without the "choppiness" and wierd look. Is one better than the other at AVCHD editing? Does it come out clean? Looking to buy very soon, any thougts?

Mark Robertson · 2 months ago

I haven't used premier elements but I have used premier as well as pinnacle. The newest version of pinnacle coming out is 14. I have had no issues with editing AVCHD with either program. However, there is a big difference between premier and pinnacle in terms of learning curve. Pinnacle is much more a program for those that have very limited editing experience (such as myself ;-)... Premier Pro is a more advanced application and for me, I felt that I would need to spend a lot of time learning the program to be able to use it. If you have a Sony camcorder, Sony Vegas may be the one that you should go with. Although I had problems editing AVCHD on it last year, I wasn't using a Sony camcorder and I have been told that this was the problem. Sony Vegas was built to handle AVCHD from Sony Camcorders. They may have changed that since then but at the time, it wouldn't handle AVCHD from a Canon Camcorder, which is what I use. Hope this helps

scott · 2 months ago

Great input. thanks!


scott

Mike · 2 months ago

I just tested Adobe Premiere Elements 7 and Sony Vegas 9 on my computer, here is what I found out.

My computer is a 4 year old HP Pavilion using P4 CPU at 3 GHz with 2 GB RAM.
My Camcorder is a Sony HDR-XR520V

The Adobe Premiere Elements 7 can import the AVCHD files from the camcorder without any issue, but it can barely play back. While the preview sound is fine, the image is very choppy. I didn’t bother to render since I can’t really edit.

I then downloaded the Sony Vegas 9 which gives me a 30 days free trial. I expected it work, since most people said Sony’s software at least work for Sony Camcorder. But I was really disappointed to find out that it also can not play back the clip smoothly, though it is better than Premiere Elements 7. However, after played with it a bit more, I found that Vegas 9 can render a preview video in avi format. The avi file can be played in Window media player fine, but I suspect it may not have preserved the HD resolution. A 1 minute 15 second clip is only 288,034 KB.

Mark Robertson · 2 months ago

I had the same problem with Sony. Premier Elements, I havent tried. I did not have this problem at all with Pinnacle. Perhaps you could download a trial of that. Your computer should be fast enough I would think but it would depend as well on how big the AVCHD file is. Also try Sony Vegas with all other applications closed to max. your Ram. Let me know what you find out. Thanks Mike

Ali · 1 month ago

After reading this blog I am now very concerned, I purchased a Sony XR200 took a bunch of lovley movies of Halloween and I am ready to edit. However I loaded up the Sony application that came with the camcorder and realized that the only editing allowed in the app was trimming the length, so I opened up my Adobe CS3 suite to see if there would be options using flash and the flash Video Encoder, I thought I was making progress as I converted the file to an FLV which appeared to be FLASH compatible but when I went to open from flash, I was brought to an import wizard which at the end of the process left me with a navigation bar and NO MOVIE!! So the googling began. So now I am here with what appears to be no software to edit my great movies. I certainly don't want to invest in carppy software that still doesn't get the job done. The goal for me would be to have full flexibilty of editing the video (flash like) adding images, slow down scenes, tweening etc and pushing that back onto a DVD or better a Blue-Ray disc. After reading I don't know if it is possible or if I can afford it LOL.
Computer Hardware is up to date and capable (development machine) but software just not there. What would you suggest? Do the programs mentioned above have the full suite of REAL editing like Flash or are they lightweight remove red eye wizard crap? I am currently a web developer (not designer) but if I had the correct tools for this type of work I might persue it as a career. As you probably know most of challenges with software is more about knowing where to start rather than can it be done, what tool would you recommend for the challenge, is it the new version of Flash (CS4) does that software allow a straight upload, edit, burn option?

Alejandro Ramos · 1 month ago

Thanks for your advice. Is an amazing help

You did a great job¡¡¡¡¡

Best regards form Mexico

tonyfinbarrsmith · 1 month ago

I have a canon hg10 and have been editing avchd successfully on sony vegas platinum 8.

There is a plugin from canon that makes it work, but now I can't find it (editing on a new machine now).

very frustrating. but be advised; it IS possible to edit canon avchd files in sony vegas.

Cheers.

Leow CT · 1 month ago

Mark,
thanks for your post, the info provided benefited me significantly.

I am very new to HD and just bought a SONY HD camcrder recently with Vegas. I am looking for a S/W to edit my SONY AVCHD file, and be able convert the editing outcome into HD format, is there any way?
Reason being, if I convert the file into DVD format, there would be lost in resolution, am I correct?