When I simply drop AVCHD files onto the timeline (Canon HF-S10), and preview without doing any edits, they look very poor. However, If I do a render they look OK. Is this my PC or am I doing something wrong ?
Intel core 2 Duo 2.8g 6g RAM Vista.

RonC.

I suppose you have set your preview quality to "Best(full)"?

Thanks Rainer, yes, I have.

RonC.

hi Ron, I don't think it's a fault in Vegas 8, it's been around too long. You don't really say what you mean by very poor - I was supposing it was a poor monitor image, in which case I suppose you have also you tried playing around with the Options/Preferences/Preview Device settings, setting your monitor to the output resolution or ticking the scale output to display box? If you are on two monitors you could also try switching them around (not physically) to check if its something to do with your graphics card. If on the other had you are referring to choppy playback, yes, its your computer being unable to process the AVCHD. I'm so used to this I figured everyone else was aware of it also.

Thanks again Rainer. Sorry I should have been more specific. I am referring to just the view in the little monitor window in Vegas itself. It just looks blurry - not very good res. and really too poor to see edits properly but when I render, even without any edits or corrections it looks much clearer, and what I am used to when just editing DV.
I assume it must be another #$#@ AVCHD artifact !

RonC.

Hi Ron, no, even on a very slow computer the AVCHD preview (once it gets there) will look good with the right settings. Sorry, we'll have to wait and see if anyone's go better suggestions.

Hi Ron

Regardless of your preview settings, if the CPU is struggling with playing AVCHD files Vegas will automatically reduce the preview settings to lower resolutions If you take two short file s and add a nice heavy crossfade and then play the clip you will see that preview will start at say "Full -Best" but as it hits the transition it will suddenly drop the preview down to "Half - Good" or even lower then once the preview gets past the crossfade it will revert to the higher setting again!!

This had me fooled for quite a while!! Now, if your puter is slow even raw AVCHD files will have the preview quality pulled down when you start playing the clip!! I'm only running a DuoCore 2.2GHz with 4gb ram and it keeps raw video at the highest setting but drops it on a transition!! If you have anything slower than me you will battle to even play HD files!!

Chris

Aha! thanks Chris. I hadn't noticed, probably mainly because I've given up trying to edit straight AVCHD and have accepted that proxies are part of the workflow.

Thanks Chris, but it still has me mystified as my PC is an Intel core 2 Duo 2.8g 6g RAM / Vista and both before & after rendering, the events play perfectly and don't slow down at all, it's just that the res. is poor, pre render when just put on the timeline & played.

The PC is a fairly new Sony Vaio Laptop so I wonder if this is restricted in some way but I can't figure how.

RonC.

right cliick on the preview window and uncheck scale video to fit preview window and see if that helps a bit.

While my comment is of no actual help, I like to remind those who use AVCHD that AVCHD is not an editing format. It was not designed with the idea that it would be edited to begin with, only for playback from consumer cams. Since it has taken off, editing programs such as Vegas are trying to catch up, its just taking time.

Hi Guys

Bang goes that theory!!

Ron, if you play the AVCHD file in a media player like VLC or similar does it look pristine????
I must admit that my files look excellent in preview BUT I have dragged the preview screen onto my second monitor and resized it to fit the screen and it's sharp as anything. (I used to use the "external monitor" setting in Vegas but the images were very low res!! Dunno why??) The dragging the actual preview window across to the second monitor works well and Vegas remembers that it's been done too!!

Jeff, I agree 100%!! I don't edit AVCHD...being Panasonic I use the Mainconcept P2 Transcoder to transcode the MTS files to widescreen AVI ..faster workflow and I'm rendering to SD anyway. I have done exhaustive tests with AVCHD to DVD and AVCHD to M2t to DVD and finally MTS to AVI to DVD and you need a BIG magnifier to spot any difference in resolution!!! Of course the Widescreen AVI's render 4 times faster than MTS too and there is no problems with Upper Fields (HD) and Lower Fields (SD)

I assume that other video looks great in Vegas, Ron??????? Is it only the Canon AVCHD files that preview badly???

Let us know if you find the problem!!

Chris

Another way to confirm the video quality is to pause the video and then set Best, Full in the preview window. This will give you a full resolution view of the frame where you are paused.

Thanks again guys, I will try these other suggestions but, yes, Chris, they do play very well in VLC and I think they were OK in media player as well.

I hope then Jeff, that Vegas keeps updating the current version for AVCHD rather than waiting for V10 to force us to buy another program, particularly as I have just bought Veg.9 but not installed it yet.

RonC.

Chris, just picking up again on your exhaustive testing of AVCHD to DVD, are you saying that is is difficult to spot the difference between AVCHD (HD 1920 1080), and your final O/P to DVD in std. def ?

RonC.

Hi Ron

With weddings I have the situation that all the couples have a honking great 52" plasma or LCD TV but can't even spell BluRay so all my products have to go out on DVD.

My testing was using AVCHD raw footage (1920x1080((it's actually 1440x1080 due to the PAR!!) and then the same footage transcoded to HDV (1440x1080) via Upshift and finally the same footage transcoded to AVI Widescreen with Panasonics MainConcept Transcoder.

All 3 samples of footage were then rendered to MPEG2 and dropped onto a DVD and I seriously had a hard time trying to tell them apart on a brand new 42" LCD screen. I got a few other people to look at the footage and most just make an educated guess as to which was better (one even preferred the transcoded AVI)

Sure, AVCHD rendered directly to SD MPEG2 should technically be slightly better but it seems that the human eye cannot detect it all the time!!! It's not full HD so if you do want full HD on BD then your only real option is probably Win7, an OctoCore chip and Vegas 64 bit.

As I need to distribute an SD product transcoding straight to AVI increases by workflow and gives a pretty satisfactory result with lightning fast renders!!

If you go onto the VAAST website and download a trial version of UpShift you can do some tests using HDV footage rather than AVCHD and your computer will be a lot happier!

Chris