How to playback AVCHD files?

[Larry Horwitz]

Chippe,

I would like to know more about AVCHD playback without the need for high performsnce CPUs. The use of a videocard to do smooth playback sounds like a great way to avoid an expensive computer upgrade.

Have you tried running any video editing software with your Radeon card? Can any rendering be done or is it strictly for fast playback? Can you quickly scrub the timeline as normally required in editing, or only move through the file at playback speed only?

Is the output correctable in hue, saturation, sharpness, contrast, brightness, as it would be for making editing changes using the video card, only for playback or to a new corrected output file?

How much will a good card cost which supports AVCHD like the ATI you use?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Larry

[Mircea Voinea]

Chippe, of course I had Haali spliter and CoreAVC set as you sayed. I just discover my problem: in CoreAVC filter I had Deinterlacing option set to Hardware. I just set to Weave, this is the only option that works for me, the other freeze MPC.
I asked you about your settings in CoreAVC or driver regarding deinterlacing. I could deinterlace video in PC (and sending progressive signal to my TV) or let the TV do the deinterlacing (my TV has a good deinterlacing). However with this new driver I can't set in Nvidia Control Panel 1080i/50, just 1080p/50 (it works with old driver)...

[Chippe Wallace]

Larry,

I use Nvidia 8800GT which I bought for gaming but these popular gaming video cards have support for x.264.
I haven't been editing in AVCHD since I haven't bought a HD camcorder yet. I did try Ulead and imported a clip from a HF100 and I think it was pretty slow in the timeline even on my Core2duo E8400, 3000Mhz overclocked to 3800Mhz.
Maybe someone else here have more experience?

Rendering = pure cpu power.
Ati or Nvidia doesn't really matter but when Premiere CS4 comes out the rumor says it might take advantage of nivdias Cuda video accerleration.

I think it's recommended to convert the avchd clips before editing just like on a Mac.
I don't like Ulead that much but it can make a low res. copy of your AVCHD clip which you edit and when rendering it will use your original AVCHD. It's great if you have a slow computer but it will take long time to render I guess.

One thing is for sure, you don't want a slow cpu and a fast video card but it works for x.264 playback.
Almost every video card today use PCI-E and you might use AGP (port)

What kind of cpu do you have?
If you don't know go to: control panel > system and check under the general tab.





Mircea,

Aha, now I understand..
Well I actually didn't touch MPC, it works great by default with the CoreAVC installed.
Im sorry I can't help you :-/

[Larry Horwitz]

Thanks very much Chippe for your detailed reply. My questions were asked on behalf of people whom I have helped with AVCHD editing, on this and other forums and newsgroups. I went for a totally maxed out hardware platform for AVCHD since I do most of my editing in this format now, and found anything less than a quadcore to be painfully sluggish when editing. I am using an Intel Extreme QX9650 quadcore 3.0 GHz machine presently with extremely fast disks, front side bus, fastest multilane PCI Express, lots of RAM, and also have the 8800 GT card, so my personal needs are totally met. Many people somewhat naively buy AVCHD camcorders not knowing what they are getting themselves into on the editing and authoring end, and many can't even find an adequate playback method either for lack of hardware or a lack of software, more often hardware.

Thankfully the price of quadcore chips is dropping rapidly, and decent AVCHD machines are now becoming affordable. I am not a big fan of proxy editing, mostly because of the time it takes to make the intermediate files both when ingesting as well as modifying content, but I do very much prefer AVCHD to HDV when it comes to workflow and I now rarely use my HV20.

Any idea whether a cheap AGP card which uses the GPU for h.264 rendering is available from ATI or nVidia? I might want to upgrade one of my older HDV editing workstations with a new video card, to allow AVCHD playback, but have no PCI Express slots.

Thanks again for your excellent comments and answers Chippe,

Larry

[Mircea Voinea]

Well, from what I search on many forums, there are NO GPU support yet for rendering. One site tested the Badaboom (which uses CUDA) and the results are awfull.
One of the developer of the x.264 sayed on a forum that the bill for GPU support in x.264 will be several mil USD, it's very tricky...

From what I see here (thank's Larry) best solution for simple editing is Nero Vision; it's nonsense to render a whole file if you just join multiple files.

[Larry Horwitz]

Glad to help Mircea. Nero does a really good job with AVCHD.I wish they offered a complete non linear editing and AVCHD authoring suite with a lot of transitions, effects, better titles, etc. Their finished AVCHDs are the best I have ever made, even with the simple Nero Vision program. No transcoding, great animated menus, and beautiful looking video quality.

Larry

[Chippe Wallace]

Larry,

You're welcome :-)
You're right, I would only use proxy editing if I had a slow computer but I've read that people are converting their clips to a lossless format but it means lot's of space on the HDD as you already know.

I'll try Nero someday. I tried Ulead again and the timeline wasn't that slow as I thought it was but it seems like the program doesn't like CoreAVC. I can't play the videos in a normal speed. It goes super fast for some reason.

Yes there are AGP video cards that you're asking for. I think the first ones that came out were the Radeon HD2400 and HD2600 but there are many more today.

I would choose a fanless model for a htpc. I don't know if you need it but here is a list with AGP, passive cooling cards.
It's great info/bestbuy site in swedish translated to english (some links doesnt work on the site translated)
Översatt version av http://www.prisjakt.nu/kategori.php?k=v432&o=prod_rank

For more AGP models, scroll up and click on "With DVI"
We're not talking big money here :-)

[Larry Horwitz]

Thanks once again Chippe for excellent info. It looks like ATI would be the way to go for an AGP board for h.264. I know several people who don't want to make a major computer upgrade right away but would still like to be able to play HD content from AVCHD camcorders. This should be a good interim solution.

Thanks again,

Larry

[Mircea Voinea]

Well, after a whole day testing, for me the best AVCHD player is Nero Shotime. Has hardware acceleration with no glitches like PowerDVD, it's image is far more fluid than MPC HC+CoreAVC and for now without artifacts/judder. Combine this with Smartredering in Vision (it works if you use the settings described here by Stan and Larry) and a very good burner, you have a solid package with a decent price.

[Chippe Wallace]

Mircea,
so the timeline slider in Nero showtime is really smooth with no delay while dragging it?
Btw I don't see any artifacs/judder in MPC HC+CoreAVC.

[Mircea Voinea]

Chippe,
No, I don't understand why DXVA2 (hardware acceleration) works only in Nero Showtime (player) and don't work in Nero Vision timeline slider (I check CPU utilisation and it use CPU a lot in slider). But joining clips with transitions (great 3d effects) it's very simple and effective and with greatest quality. Like Larry sayed, I will never understand software (like Vegas) which render files when it's not necessary.

About MPC+CoreAVC, it's not much judder, but some blur in panning (it gives me some motion sickness). For the first time I thought it was my fault (fast panning) but in Showtime image looks much better, at least on my PC. Last time I checked, it's deinterlacing problems (Coreavc works for me only with weave options). Maybe I will search another MPC build...

LE: if you asked about player slider (Showtime), it's silky smooth in dragging (no delay), but I have no big problems in MPC+Coreavc (just a little delay).

[Chippe Wallace]

Ohh sorry I mixed showtime and vision but you gave me the right answers :-)
Thank you for explaining.

[Larry Horwitz]

Mircea, Chippe, et al,

It's kinda' embarrasing to recommend Nero Showtime as a player and even more embarrasing to recommend Nero Vision as an NLE, since they are so very cheap and supposedly very limited, but I keep finding myself using them for AVCHD. Nothing else is as fast, produces identical output quality to the input quality with no rendering, and seems so free of bugs. I ocassionally will use Vegas, and did some FCP and iMovie editing on the last MacPro I had here, a dual Xeon 8 core, but the bottom line is the Nero just got it right this time. Their HDV support and HD DVD stuff was weak, but their BDMV / BluRay and AVCHD is totally smooth. I also have found CoreAVC does a really nice job as well.

Larry

[Larry Horwitz]

By the way, ArcSoft's Total Media Theater is a relatively obscure / unknown product, but makes a really excellent player for not only AVCHD but for BluRay and HDV mpeg2. It is a bit pricey but well worth it, and it is fast and reliable.


Larry

[Mircea Voinea]

Larry, Nero it's not that cheap to feel embarased...
I was aware about Arcsoft TotalMedia Extreme suite. Unfortunately, there are too few informations about software, from another forum I read that it also uses smartencoding. I'm sure that player uses DXVA2, also.