[Perrone Ford]

Both methods have their merits and both are intended to reach the same goals... namely faster work in your NLE. I've edited HD both ways, and used the combination.

The Proxy is going to be fast. You're back to cutting SD or smaller sized images, and in intraframe codecs. They fly. The disadvantage comes when it's time to make critical decisions about shadow, highlight, and anything involved with screen depth. HD just shows up so much more. In a 2 shot or a 3 shot, it's REALLY hard to tell if you've got critical focus on the eyes of the talent, or if something in that gaffers tape you forgot in the background is really visible or not. Bring up the 1080p version and you see it all.

The HD transcode is going to move a LOT faster than AVCHD because you're moving to something with that is intraframe, and hopefully that decodes much faster. You'll maintain the advantage of working in the native resolution or at least close to it. Hopefully, you can preview at full res.

So ask yourself these questions:

1. Can you preview the footage at HD resolution? If not, it makes no sense to cut in HD because you'd have to render it out to see the differences.

2. Is your computer fast enough to work with a lighter codec at 1080p? If not, then cut SD resolution and render cuts to see where you're at.

3. What are you shooting and what is your intended audience? Frankly, it may not matter all that much, so cut in the fastest codec you can, and just render out the full-res version at the end.


Hopefully, this helps you on your path to making a decision.