Lost in Vegas with AVCHD. Help!
 

Recently got a Panasonic TS-1 camera that shoots AVCHD lite in 720P. I'm trying to edit with Vegas 9 Pro 64 bit. I starting my project settings to "match my media". I can preview the footage without any problems when not in the timeline. As soon as I place footage in timeline to view in preview window, video has weird contrast flicker with no dropped frames. I also rendered and saved as MP4 but still had weird flicker. Tried changing dynamic ram from default 300 up to 4000 of 5500 total available with no success. I have a self build Windows 7 64 bit OS 2.6 Ghz quad core processor, 6 gigs of ram and two large SATA 7200 HD's. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

My thoughts:

1. Your computer isn't fast enough
2. Transcode to MXF or a .AVI file with a good editing codec (like cineform)
3. Edit as normal.

Done.

Good luck.

What Perrone Said.

IF you just need to edit and are not particular about preview full resolution just set Preview to AUTO. It will reduce resolution for you to edit. The render file will not be effected. I edit AVCHD all the time on Q9450 2.6Mhz Quad core, 8G RAM, Vista 64 using Vegas 8.

Ron Evans

I have the same Panny TS1 camera and a similar editing rig.

Definitely set the preview resolution to Auto.

It's a bit of a pain, but I always convert the AVCHD Lite clips to MPEG2 HDV 720P 30P via batch render in Vegas. Then I start a new project and edit the MPEG2 clips. (I'm sure Cineform is better, but this workflow has been successful for me so far). AVCHD just isn't a good editing format. Transcode the files and you will be much happier.

If you are interested, this entire video was shot with the TS1.

YouTube - RVIA? We've Been There!

(It's kind of ridiculous owning a Sony EX1 and shooting with a TS1, but the EX1 doesn't fit in my pocket. ;-))

I would go with the recommendations from other members first. Transcode to either MXF or AVI before performing any editing besides cutting out unwanted footage and/or stitching together multiple clips of the same format and similar video bitrates. Normally I would not transcode directly from AVCHD to MPEG-2 HDV or lesser because transcoding from a lossy codec to another lossy codec at or near the same bitrate would result in some reduction in image quality. In fact, IIRC HDV has always been a CBR format rather than a VBR format. And in the case of 720p HDV, the maximum allowed overall video bitrate is only about 19.7 Mbps - low enough for any editing attempts to potentially reduce image quality. (MXV is a form of MPEG-2 compression, but the overall video bitrate in MXF-encoded footage is high enough to minimize the reduction of post-edit image quality.)

However, the typical bitrate of AVCHD Lite clips is less than 10 Mbps; thus, the image quality should not be reduced nearly as badly when transcoded to HDV.

Neo Scene
 

After some reading, I've found the best solution would be to purchase Neo Scene to do my AVCHD transcoding. I went on their website and found Neo Scene for $129.00 and Neo HD for $499.00. My question is which one would suit my needs best? Thanks in advance.

The $129 version should do everything you need.

If you check the Cineform website you should be able to download a trial version of the software. You might as well try it before buying it.

I tried using Cineform Neoscene with the TS1 AVCHD Lite files (which I believe max at 17 Mbps) and was disappointed by the results. But perhaps you will have a better experience.

VAAST and NewBlueFX make a similar program called AVCHD Upshift that batch converts the files to MPEG (.m2t) files.

Roy check out Videoguys for Neoscene $99. There's a link on the bottom of the page for them. They are a DVinfo sponsor. At one time they were giving a 5% discount for DVinfo members - I think the code was DVINFO5OFF.

Dazed and confused. What to do?
 

As a newbie, I thought purchasing my Panasonic TS-1 that shoots AVCHD lite would be easy to edit the footage with my super fast self build rig. I never thought I'd have to deal with so much extra work just to edit. When I had my Panansonic GS-250 3CCD DV camera, it was so easy to place in Vegas and just edit. This HD stuff if a whole new language I have to learn. ARRRHHH! Now, to confuse matters even more, I'm getting different opinions on which transcoder to use. Yes for Cinaform, no for Cinaform. You can imagine what I'm going through without knowing too much about HD editing. Is there a website the takes you through step by step on simple HD editing? You know, like:
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Or, can someone definitively tell me I can or can't edit AVCHD with the specs on my rig? The specs are posted on the 1st post above. Thanks in advance.

I answered your question in the first reply. You can believe me, or you can not.

Sorry
 

Perrone,
On my knees, I'm truely sorry. I simply wanted a second opinion.

I would follow Perrone's advice. While I don't post a lot, I've been reading here for close to 2 years now and would say that his advice is usually dead on!

Good advice
 

Thanks, Jim

LOL! RISE UP my friend!

Getting a second (and third) opinion on the internet is usually VERY important. No worries.

I agree with the other posters about needing more horsepower for editing or previewing, and about using an intermediate file conversion (including what you can render natively within Vegas).
However just a question about your settings when you originally saw the flickering problem in your preview and your rendered output. What was your deinterlace setting in the project properties? Did you experiment with the choices for that setting and do test renders while changing no other setting?

Settings
 

Jay,
Thanks for your input. I did try different deinterlace settings to no avail. I'm just really dissapointed that with 6 gigs of ram, two fast and big HD's and a 2.4 Gzh quad core cpu, I can't edit AVCHD lite. I did mention it was "lite" didn't I? As I posted before, It's not stuttering or dropping any frames. I'm only getting the weird flicker in the preview window and final render. No flicker when played outside of the preview. I guess I'll have to get Cineform. Thanks again.

Here's a second opinion (that's not very debatable really). AVCHD (lite or otherwise) takes just a whale of a lot more CPU horsepower to edit than DV (from a GS-250 or any other MiniDV camcorder). It's not even close.

My editing rig (less than two months old) has 12 GB RAM, a 2.66 GHz Core i7 CPU, etc. Yet it still has issues with AVCHD Lite. Worse than the occasional playback stutter is the random Vegas crash.

Unfortunately, you will need to transcode the files for a satisfying editing experience. You can do a batch render within Vegas to whatever codec you choose (or just get Cineform or AVCHD Upshift). I've done the transcoding within Vegas using the batch render scripting tool and it has worked okay. It may not be the "best" workflow, but at least it works.

Problem solved!
 

O.K. After many hours of arduous heartache and tedious research, I finally came across a post on another site concerning my specific problem. It turns out that there is a bug I SAID BUG, in Vegas 64 bit Pro 9 “c”. I simply reverted back to “b” and all is very well. With my rig specs I’m able to preview at the highest setting, edit, render and no transcoding with absolutely no problems. This has been documented and actually Perrone, you were part of the thread on the other site. I’m wondering why you didn’t point that out to me when you saw my post looking for help here. Hmmmm. Anywho, all I care about is now I can run Vegas and edit AVCHD lite with no problems. Thanks again to all!