24Mbps AVCHD Playback Requirements
 

Hi all, I've always been a fan of the HDV format for the ease of editing, however I need something more practical for recording hours and hours of footage out in the sticks and would rather not carry dozens of tapes. I was looking at getting a Canon HF11 camcorder for recording onto 32GB SDHC cards. I'm also planning to get an ASUS EEEPC 901 netbook, as it happens the eeepc has a SDHC slot and I was wondering if it was capable of playing 24Mbit AVCHD footage, spec would be Intel Atom 1.6Ghz, 2GB of ram. I see a lot of people saying you need a beast of a machine to edit it but I'm not sure about playback.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Thanks
Danny

For playback a 2.66GHz QUAD.

Danny,

AVCHD playback requires a really fast CPU or a special video card with h.264 support. My previous Dell 3.0 GHz P4 Pentium with a cheap video card was totally unable to play back AVCHD from my Canon HF100, so I would NOT expect that the much slower Atom chip used in the ASUS could have a prayer of handling it.

On the bright side, you can use the ASUS as a good method of backup, to allow you to take the SDHC cards you have already recorded and copy them onto the ASUS hard disk. The ASUS hard disk is unfortunately small and this may be something you want to consider also. A more conventional, larger laptop would solve both problems, since you could get much faster hardware with much larger storage if you were prepared to pay the premium.

Larry

Thanks guys, I had a feeling that this would be the case but just wanted to confirm it.

Larry, the reason for going with the eeepc over a full laptop is because of its size and battery life, rather then cost issues, its handy for throwing into the bottom of my backpack and not having to worry too much about it. I'll be backing up cards to a 320GB external laptop drive so the small SSD drive isn't a problem.

Again Thanks
Danny

Danny,

I totally understand the Asus issue and am awaiting the touchscreen version myself to use it as you describe. This Asus version and a competing HP ultralight have been tempting me for the last few months. Great companion to the little Canon HF series!

Would a laptop like this be able to handle playback (and a bit of editing)?

Procesor: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.4GHz) 1066MHz FSB
Vezje: Mobile Intel PM45 Express Chipset with ICHM
Pomnilnik 4096MB DDRII 800MHZ (ni proste reže)
Trdi disk 250GB SMART SATA 5400rpm
Optična enota: Blu-ray ROM DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL Drive
Grafika: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3430 256MB
Vgrajena VGA kamera
Zaslon 17.0" TFT 1440x900 WXGA+ Bright View

Jurij,

The Core 2 Duo P8600 is not a quadcore, and will probably be marginal / inadequate for AVCHD playback / editing at full HD resolution. Dell and others sell quadcore laptops but they are quite expensive ($2300 and up).

Larry

Wow, I just let out some swear words... Whenever I searched for AVCHD playback specs, everybody said any core 2 duo will do, but now I'd need a Quadcore? Please tell you're joking...

"Any" core 2 duo will not. You have a lot of folks who just don't know what they are talking about that are "pontificating" and expressing "opinion" that often misleads.

My laptop is a Dell with the T7250 dual core running at 2.0GHz and it will play back HF100 MTS files using the Pixela Player that comes with the HF100 but the latest version of VLC (which is supposed to handle AVCHD) won't do it smoothly at all while it will on my quad core desktop machine. Editing on the laptop? Forget it unless I drop the quality in the camera to 1440x1080 12Mbps, and then it just barely handles it.

My desktop has an Intel Q6600 quad core running at 2.4GHz and I am having some problems editing 17Mbps MTS stuff, I can probably forget 24Mbps bitrate until a serious computer upgrade.

The fact is...AVCHD display and especially editing require real serious computer "horsepower", there is no getting around that.

There is the option of EDIUS which will convert AVCHD to Canopus HQ. That will enable any 2GHz DUO to edit. But he'll need a very big disk. CineForm with Premiere will also work, but still he needs a very big disk.

Last resort: convert to HDV or DVCPRO HD. Now the disk need not be big.

just to add the important caveat that programs which transcode AVCHD into other formats to allow easier editing take a lot of conversion time to do so, particularly on a laptop with slower 5400 RPM disks, slower busses, and stepped CPUs.

The result is a big delay in doing any useful work.

If one is in such a hurry, AVCHD is not for the best choice. HDV takes an hour to capture. Unless one is in TV news, an hour is nothing.

The AVCHD solution is run the conversion overnight. That way no time is lost.

But, his question was about viewing. So if he goes AVCHD it's a 2.66GHz QUAD Core.

That's the price of super compressed media. Of course, if he chooses to use 24Mbps there is no real storage savings over HDV. And, he still hasn't spent the money and time needed to make a backup copy to a Blu-ray disc ($20 or $40) which tape automatically provides.

It's a classic case of buying what's hot and not realizing the camera makers are pushing products to consumers that make no sense. Thankfully, JVC didn't go that way and offers 30Mbps MPEG-2 that's 1920x1080. One has the recording quality and frame-size of AVCHD but the ease of editing that only comes from MPEG-2. Any computer that can edit HDV can happily play and edit. But, still no backup copy as provided by HDV tape.

Sometimes true but not neccesarily. I have gone from SD card to finished AVCHD disk in well below 10 minutes, with the admittedly unusual combination of very light editing, a very fast quadcore, a program which does not normally re-render, and a very fast 20x burner.

My ingest time is seconds, my editing / authoring time is 3-4 minutes, and my burn time is around 5 minutes.

HDV ALWAYS takes me longer owing to slow ingest time.

And indeed a quadcore is the only way I have also found to smoothly play AVCHD although nVidia and their hardware assisted playback may alter this for some newer systems.

an example: T7200 + 7900gs + mpc home

avchd full 1920x1080 smooths playback.

If you have an "enough" graphic adapter you don't absolutely need a quad to play avchd (off course the editing is another thing...).

ciao!!

I hope more people confirm this, because I cannot imagine being ale to afford a quadcore laptop in next couple of years...

Does anyone use Linux? I use Kubuntu and I live in the constant fear that it possibly doesn't support the use of GPU for decoding...

Some interesting discussion here, especially on the practicality of the AVCHD format, personally I agree with Steve. Ever since it came out I have always said I would never use it however in this case its very practical, you can get many many 32GB SDHC cards in the space of just 1 MiniDV Tape. I'm happy to compromise time for editing for the portability aspect, though i agree it certainly wont suit everyone.

I've just had a friend test some 24Mbps footage on a Core2Duo E4500 2.2GHz and he said it was very jerky video.

What we really need is a compact camera that records HDV to flash memory like the Sony Z5 & Z7. As a side note, is there a device like the FireStore that can record HDV to flash memory instead of a hard drive?

Thanks
Danny

Is there a reason you aren't recording to a harddisk?

You can now buy the Sony CF recorder which i THINK can connect to any HDV camera via Firewire. If so, Sony is selling the FX7 for $2000. But, perhaps a Canon HDV camcorder could be used. The little CF recorder is nice because it work as a your source player.

I think this is what you are looking for.

My JVC HD7 records HDV to harddisk which you can capture as HDV via Firewire.

Indeed, and if 'playback' is the only targeted purpose, a recent ATI video card is enough to correctly play a AVCHD video with a dual-core.

I was able to play a AVCHD 17mb/s video on a Desktop PC with a dual-core at only 2.4Ghz/ 2GB RAM and with a ATI 3870 card. I've not yet tested a 24mb/s video, but the load of the processor and the disk during the payback of the 17mb/s test showed that there's still a margin to be able to do it fuently in 24mb/s.

Now the problem is with the actual portable PCs: the actual ATI video cards for mobile PC are not in par with the ATI desktop versions.

Yes Steve, I'm concerned about the robustness of a hard drive in a hiking/camping situation, they are also effected by altitude. Also they eventually fill up... where as flash I can keep feeding it more cards.

Interesting, I was aware of the CF recorder but wasn't aware that It may be compatible with other camcorders, can anybody confirm that this will work with a Sony HDR-HC9?

Thanks
Danny

I confirm what i told at the bottom of the previous page about the playback requirements.
on my dual core dell i also played a 40mbit avc from 5dmkII.
What is also important is the choose of player.
mpc-> http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/
or also powerdvd 8 is good and requires not too much resources.

I think the best decoder for avc is always nero decoder (nero show time) in its last version, but it requires many resources, in particular it is greedy of RAM (at least 4Gb and better a 64bit o.s.).

Ciao!!

My MACBOOK PRO 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo with nVidia 8600GT 256, and 2GB of Ram can't play 1980x1080 AVCHD videos... I dont know if i increase the RAM memory to 4GB i will get better results..

One day i will try to install on bootcamp, a windows xp or vista and try on powerdvd.. I think is more software issue than hardware..

About the HD @ 5400 rpm, can't be, because the data rate is 24 Mbits and the hard disk can handle with that needs....

The only place I have been able to find technical specs for it so far is here:

Sony : HVR-MRC1K (HVRMRC1K) : Technical Specifications : United Kingdom

When I read through it, what struck me was absolutely no mention of specific camera model compatability. Nothing about the HVR-Z7U or HVR-S270U whatsoever. Just that it be a DV, DVCAM, or HDV camera.

I still also note nobody seems to have it in the USA.
They are taking orders, but nothing in stock as of yet.

Additional Note: Check this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-xh-...non-users.html

If it works with a Canon XH-A1, the odds are really, really good that it will work with your, and mine, HDR-HC9

From what I understand, you need a FAST cpu to playback AVCHD. I think alot of it has to do with the software you're using to play it back (quicktime is one of the worst, drops the most frames).
I think a lady by the name of Eugenia has benchmarked a few. Search her blog: Eugenia’s Rants and Thoughts

edit: I just came across this on her blog:
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/1...oder-there-is/
Bob C

>an example: T7200 + 7900gs + mpc home
>avchd full 1920x1080 smooths playback.

MPC and MPCHome usually use the h.264 decoder with degradation ON. This means that whenever they don't have enough CPU power to decode it, they bring down quality instead of skipping frames or make it slow-mo. VLC, which uses pretty much the same decoder but by default does not allow degradation of quality during decoding, is extremely slow. Quicktime is very slow too.

As Bob wrote above, the only decoder I found that can deal with AVCHD is CoreCodec's. Here's how to use the CoreAVC decoder with MPC instead of its default ffdshow-based decoder: How to change/install Media Player Classic codec filter Art Life and Technology (follow only the instructions on how to use the CoreAVC codec, not the stuff about ffmpeg or KLite). Works like a charm here.

CoreAVC costs $14, but it's worth every penny IMHO. Try the trial version with the latest version of MPC: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gul...c_20081005.zip (and with the instructions above on how to force MPC to use the CoreAVC codec). To force CoreAVC to decode .m2ts or .mts files, you MIGHT need to rename these files as .mp4. To force CoreAVC to decode .mov files you need to rename them as .hdmov

EDIT: if you rename avchd files to .mp4 and .mov files to .hdmov you will be able to play them back on WMP too, no reason for MPC. If you decide to use WMP, you need to play with the de-interlacing options in the CoreAVC Pro preference panel. In my tests a few days ago, I got over 20 fps performance on a 4 year old P4 3Ghz with an HF11 24mbps AVCHD file. Which means that even any DualCore PC should be able to perform full speed with CoreAVC. And indeed it does so on my new Vista PC.

That's an interesting bit of information. Would Windows Movie Maker be able to edit AVCHD and .mov files, if they are re-named as .hdmov? The inability of WMM to accept .mov files has been a frequent complaint on some other forums. If WMM could re-publish AVCHD as one of the .wmv HD formats, that would be a big advantage to those on a small budget. The shift by Canon to .mov for its new SX1 and SX10 digital cameras, for video, would be made much less problematic for a lot of users, if that could be done.

No, MOV files won't work on WMM no matter what renaming I do to force CoreAVC. I would suggest you invest and buy Vegas Platinum 9 for $90, it works with the new Canon files.

So is it mainly software not being optimized for avchd that is the real culprit of people not being able to play back their footage at full fps? I mean, can't the PS3 play back avchd just fine... yet a much higher spec'd CPU has problems? Is it all in the software being used? Is the PS3 decoding software that good?

Just making conversation...
Thanks,
Bob C

The PS3 is actually a fast machine, when all its cells and its media decoding chips are utilized, it is faster than most home PCs for these jobs.

As for AVCHD editing, usually editors can't be as fast as media players because they have a whole lot of things to take care of with their editing engine. Usually, seeing a 50% speed drop inside an editor compared to a media player, is normal. Regardless, most editors are not as fast as they could be with AVCHD either.

But for media players and decoding codecs in general, yeah, they don't have any excuse to be that unoptimized. CoreAVC shows that it's perfectly possible to be fast with such codecs.

Hi, Bruce. I disagree. I have a AMD Dual Core 5400+, and I am able to edit HF100 17mb/s AVCHD with no trouble by using the smart proxy aspect of Videostudio 11+. It also smart renders which doesn't take much time. I am also able to watch the 1920x1080 AVCHD video played back in windows media player, and it looks quite good, although probably not perfect. I usually make pretty short videos, so maybe the speed would be an impact on hour+ long projects, however the system requirements for smart proxy are quite low.

Im not sure why everyone is saying you need a quad core, it would be nice, but NOT NEEDED.
I am currently editing and have been for the past year my HG10 footage (i know its not 24mps, but its still avchd). All on my laptop; Intel Duo Core, 2GHz, 2GB of ram.

For me playback is bad in any media player (probably because of the codec?).
But playback is fine in Sony Vegas (using 8) setting at the Preview window at AUTO.

When i render to any format, playback is smooth. I always shoot to edit..
BTW, when im editing, i only have the editing software running. Absolutely nothing else...

Just my 2cent.

The Vegas 8 preview window is low rez, low frame rate / bandwidth and not actual HD playback. Most late model PC and Mac laptops can handle this without issues.

Full frame HD 1920 by 1080 at normal frame rates is much more demanding.

Jurij

On my Dell laptop with Intel Core 2 duo T7250 processor at 2.0Ghz and 3 GB Ram I can play AVCHD files using the Pixela viewer that came with my Canon HF100. If I set the camera resolution to XP+ (1440x1080 12Mbps) rather than the highest quality (1920x1080 at 17Mbps) I can do some editing on it. Not very fast and I would not want to have to do a large project but if one is patient you can do some work on it.

And the finished product does not look bad at all. I am now able to view HD rendered to HD WMV formats on my TV using a new media player from Western Digital so I can get a direct comparison between the XP+ and FXP modes on the camera.

The latter looks just as good as highest quality played back from the camera connected to the TV with HDMI cable.

My advice: Get the fastest laptop you can and the fastest quad core desktop you can make yourself afford.

Steve Mullen:

I have a Q6600 machine which struggles to play back 21/24 MBPS AVCHD material (PH mode) off a Panasonic HMC-150 when using the latest VLC media player, the only player I have that will reckognize the raw files.

Playback is fine until pans or fast motion is encountered, then it falls apart.

Looking at the CPU utilization during playback shows utilization vary according to the scene but it never exceeds 25%. So Im guessing that the latest VLC is not yet optimized for this raw AVCHD file.

A Q9650 machine will play these files glitch free with the VLC software. My older P4 3.4GHz HP laptop won't provide any effective playback of AVCHD, but it plays HDV extremely well.

My point is that there are variations to what plays back AVCHD files well. It's safe to say you will need a lot of power, especially for the render, which a Q6600 does very well.

Jeff

Since I only play AVCHD clips within an NLE -- I've never worried about "players." From reports there does seem a huge difference between players. In any case, on the Mac and with EDIUS, I'm playing the intermediate codec not AVCHD.

For AVCHD playback, CoreAVC is probably the most affordable option.
but if you already buy PowerDVD to play back dvd's, and you have a recent GeForce video card like the 8800GT etc, then you can use that to play them back much smoother than anything else. The hardware acceleration I get is astounding. If I disable ffdshow and use PowerDVD, it will play back my h264 video with about 5% cpu usage. If I use CoreAVC, it plays it back at about 25% cpu usage...and ffdshow uses around 65-70% cpu usage.

On Windows, I suggest seeing if VLC (free) will play AVCHD.

The 5DII video files are H264 in a quicktime rapper. Mac users report no problem playing 1080 30p. PC users report VLC is the best, as it is a multi processor app.

Apparently the video card supporting H264 is important. I don't know exactly what protocol is used. Macs from the last few years seem to include whatever is needed.

Thanks for the info Paul! I have PowerDVD but never installed it, but will ASAP. I have the latest mega video cards but VLC does not use them on the PC platform.

I like to preview the video files right off the card and discard the trash and test shots right away so they never make it to the hard drive. A smooth playback will help a lot.

Im interested in the 5DII and have been meaning to download some footage. I bet there are going to be issues handling the raw footage. It's an even higher bitrate (30 MBPS?) than the 24 MBPS off the HMC-150 which chokes some machines.

5DII is 38mbs in a simple quicktime wrapper. On my dual core 2.4 Macbook pro with an 8600GT it plays off the CF card without a dropped frame.
So it doesn't take a real high end machine to play, but the software needs to use multicore and the graphics card. The PC answer is "it depends".