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AVCHD Format Discussion
Inexpensive High Definition H.264 encoding to DVD, Hard Disc or SD Card.

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Old February 15th, 2009, 03:41 PM   #31
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Hi Jim
If you are happy with Video Studio Pro X2 then stay with it and upgrade your PC to a quad core. Make AVCHD videos on standard DVD's for the family to play on their Bluray players and everyone will be happy I am sure. You will be limited to about 30 to 35 mins but you can always upgrade to a Bluray burner and make the real thing in the future. Get at least two hard drives, one for the OS and programs and the other for video storage. Get three if you can so that the output files go to a separate drive from the source files. I mean real drives not partitions.
From what you have told us a computer upgrade is the most useful thing for you to do and leave everything else the same. You can always get more ambitious in the future but a fast computer will be a must for any more complex editing even if you use an intermediate file format. You can keep iso images of the discs.

Ron Evans
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Old February 15th, 2009, 04:16 PM   #32
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Yes, I for the most part always argue that if you use a particular piece of software you are happy with, stick with it...

In this case, Corel being a very novice oriented application, what Ron is saying is really probably the way to go...

However, your computer is actually pretty decent right now and I can tell you for certain that if you used Sony Vegas Pro 8 ($200) along with Cineform NeoScene ($130), editing the AVCHD converted files via Cineform on your existing rig would work quite well. an E6600 is still no slouch and easily capable of working with this type of footage..

You could then upgrade your PC down the road to reap even more performance benefits.

Jon
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Old February 15th, 2009, 04:48 PM   #33
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software upgrade to Bluray players

If Corel X2 is simplistic, what will Vegas 8 add to toolbox of editing tools? If I buy a bluray burner, can you save that output as an ISO? I believe I'll spring for a Bluray burner as I have read that software upgrade to such players may at some point eliminate the ability to read and play avchd disks (e.g. PS3 I've heard left that ability out of the latest update).

Jim
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Old February 15th, 2009, 05:15 PM   #34
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Sony Vegas 8 can output directly from the timeline to bluray discs in the bluray format. So, for 1, if you're heart is set on Bluray, I see it as a very good option.

Jon
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Old February 15th, 2009, 07:12 PM   #35
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Jon -

What about menus for the bluray disk? Is this accomplished from the timeline somehow? With X2 it is in the "share step." As an aside, my practice with SD was to edit, add titles, special effects, etc to each segment of the "annual DVD" right after shooting the video. I would then save it as an mpg vid file (e,g, Christmastime, Spring Visit, Summer Travel Adventures, etc. I would them import these mpg segments all back into X2 at year's end, go right to the share step, create the menu, then save and ISO and burn disks using double layer. How will this process be implemented with Vegas and Neo?

Jim
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Old February 15th, 2009, 08:15 PM   #36
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Well, Neo has nothing to do with the burn process and as for bluray authoring, unfortunately you'll have to wait until the next version of Sony before you can get advanced authoring of menu's. So I suppose that could be a hickup point for you.

Jon
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Old February 16th, 2009, 06:07 AM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce Foreman View Post

. . . . right now I play my HD content from thumb drives plugged into the media player connected to my 42" LCD TV with HDMI cable and it looks great.

Hope you find this info useful.
Bruce:
By "thumb drives" I presume you mean USB 2.0? What kind of player do you have connected to your TV? Is it connected by HDMI or component? Can you player these same thumb drive in a capable laptop or desktop. Might this be the answer to my work with avchd which is distributed to grandchildren? It seems the thumb drive would be seriously more damge resistant. Or am I embarrassing myself because a thumb drive is something of which I am completely clueless!?

Thanks, Jim
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Old February 16th, 2009, 11:32 PM   #38
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Jim - he may be refering to the Western Digital media player (about $100), which I also recently purchased. It takes JPEGs or video from external hard drives or thumb drives, via a USB input, and plays them out to a HD TV via a HDMI port. So far, I've only used it to play JPEGs from a thumb drive, but the quality is excellent. It also comes with its own remote control, which is great for giving high-quality slide shows. It "reads" a number of different video formats, but I haven't yet had time to experiment with the video side.
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Old February 17th, 2009, 02:14 AM   #39
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The Western Digital media player is brilliant! I use it to show all my SD / HD video files in various formats. I'm not even thinking of BluRay at the moment...
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Old February 17th, 2009, 01:52 PM   #40
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Jim, Look at the system "recipe" in the VideoGuys Forum

Jim,
The current system build DIY 7 project is based on the new i7 processor. I built the DIY-5 system 2 years ago with astounding results and I am looking forward to the i7 system. Yesterday I bought 2 1.5T drives, an i7 (920) processor, 6 GIG of 1600 memory, an Asus MB (P6T) for just under $900. I will complete the system with a case, power supply, and appropriate video card in 2 weeks (when the bonus check arrives). You cannot beat the system anywhere else for price and performance.
Once the system is up and running (preferably) with Vista 64 (at least the business version) any of the editing suites should run great. I have Vegas 8, Pinnacle Studio, et.al but I just went to the new CS4 version of Premier. This was the editing suite that I started with years ago, went to Liquid, and then to Vegas. Vegas was one of the first to offer not great AVCHD editing. Premier CS4 has finally arrived and now supports AVCHD. My current system is ok but only just! Hence the move to the i7 processor.

Videoguys Forums :: View topic - DIY7 Update
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Old February 17th, 2009, 03:14 PM   #41
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"thumbs" up

Thanks, Robin and Mark. I'll have a look at the West Dig Media Player. Do you mean I can "burn" my edited and menued project to a usb drive instead of a DVD or Bluray disk? This would then play like a DVD in the WD media player with HDMI to set? If so, what software enables such a "burn" to thumb (usb drive)?

Jim
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Old February 17th, 2009, 03:19 PM   #42
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Hardware for AVCHD editing and ??? authoring

Thanks, Larry - I'll check it.

This is where I think I am going with my hardware setup. Can I get opinions from anyone who will give me one on what will help my video editing and bluray authoring speeds and what might be useless in the package shown below. I suspect I will be trying vegas and, perhaps c4, in the future as my patience and time allows. I intend to secure Neo Scene and test the avchd to avi to blueray scenario described earlier. In the end I want to continue the process of shooting avchd video and creating an assortment of menued bluray or avchd disks playable on the bluray player. Sooo, for starters, how does my proposed hardware set up look? Comments, please.

• CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-965 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366
• CD: LG GGW-H20L 6X INTERNAL SUPER MULTI BLUE BLU-RAY DISC REWRITER & HD DVD-ROM DRIVE (Black Color)
• CD2: Sony 20X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)
• FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)
• HDD: Single Hard Drive (300GB Western Digital Velocity Raptor 10,000RPM SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache WD3000GLFS
• HDD2: Extreme Performance (RAID-0) with 2 Identical Hard Drives (2TB (1TBx2) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
• MOTHERBOARD: MSI X58 Platinum Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA,Dual GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394a,&7.1Audio
• MEMORY: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1800MHz Triple Channel Memory Module
• OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition)
• POWERSUPPLY: 800 Watts Power Supplies BUSINESS DAYS
• LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
• SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
• TVRC: TV Tuner with FM Stereo + Remote Control (watch and record TV on your PC)
• USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
• VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 X2 1.7GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+284] (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA

What software will take advantage of the power of this video card in particular?

Thanks much,
Jim
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Old February 17th, 2009, 04:22 PM   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Bigg View Post
what software enables such a "burn" to thumb (usb drive)?
Jim, you just export your finished video from your NLE in whatever format you choose. I tend to use mpeg2 which gives a bigger file than H.264, but I think it looks better. You can then just drag and copy the file onto your USB drive - either a little memory stick type or something like the Western Digital Passport 500GB USB storage device which is powered from the USB socket on your PC or the WD Media Player.
Dead simple...
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Old February 17th, 2009, 04:48 PM   #44
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Overkill, I beleive!

Jim,
That is why I suggested that you read the DIY articles. They put together a great editing system and test and review 3 or 4 video cards with the different editing suites. Some of the suites (Vegas, for example) do not appear to take advantage of the video accelerators, the others may favor one card over another.
That is why I listed the components that I bought; the i7 920, 6 gig 1600 Corsair memory, the ASUS P6T,... One well chosen video card will be more than enough. Go to the VideoGuys forum and you will save enough money to buy the suite of your dreams!
Lp
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Old February 17th, 2009, 11:17 PM   #45
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Jim - I did a few tests today with the media player. I took a DVCPRO HD clip (720p60, 100 Mbs) and used Procoder 3 to convert it into MPEG-2 and into WMV. Both files were then transferred onto a USB thumb drive, and both played very nicely with the media player onto my 40" LCD TV via the HDMI port. There is a pause/play button on the remote, and you can select which file to playfrom the main menu. Both files seemed about equally sharp, but I'm going to be doing more tests to see if one is better than another. I did note that the pause works immediately on WMV, but with a slight delay on the MPEG-2. The video play length is limited only by the size of your thumb drive or hard drive.
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