I'm not getting the advertised 24Mbps out of my Canon HFS10
 

Just purchased a Canon HFS10.

For sure, I have it set to 24Mbps mode (MXP mode).

I shoot several videos, then imported using iMovie. When I check the stream info in MPEG stream clip and Final Cut Pro, they both tell me the same thing ...approx 14Mbps.

Anyone have any ideas as to why I'm not getting the video bitrate the camera is advertised to do?

Looking at page 45 of the Instruction Manual, under Selecting the Video Quality (Recording Mode) it says:

"The camcorder uses a variable bit rate (VBR) to encode video so the actual recording times will vary depending on the content of the scenes."

Going alone with your theory. I would expect to see 21Mbps or 22.5, or even 19Mbps. I could except that. But when a camera is rated for 24Mbps I doubt it would vary by that much. I've never seen anything above 14.3? And shooting a busy scene? Don't think so.

Sample footage I have seen here from both the HFS10 as well as last year's HF11 (another full rate 24 Mbit/sec AVCHD camcorder) both clearly show 24 Mbit/sec (or thereabouts) rates in any of my editing and playback sofware.

I am guessing that iMovie has no ability yet to process the full bit rate video at 24 mbits/sec or, possibly, that it is ingesting it but then transcoding it down to a lesser rate as a Quicktime mov file format.

Larry

If you are using an SD card, make sure it's fast enough. I have no problems like this one with my HFS100... Maybe try and calculate the bitrate on your own, using the filesize and clip length, to see if the application got it wrong.

I'm using the camera's internal card. I calculated the bitrate on my own and it confirms the stream info I get from MPEG stream clip and final cut pro.

Clearly the camera is set to MXP. I just tried using Final Cut's Log & Transfer utility and i see that it converts the file to Apple Pro Res during import. I'm see getting bitrates in the 17.x range with these. iMovies imports are still below 15 no matter what I do.

It's really difficult to calculate VBR data rates, so can you take a look at the clips with MediaInfo, which should tell you a good deal more than FCP. The URL is: MediaInfo

I'm the same as others, I consistently get ~22-24MBs out of the camera (a HF S100) in MXP mode. A really obvious suggestion, but can you point it at the leaves of a tree in the wind (something where the entire frame has detail and movement) and check out the specifics of that clip?

Are you sure you had set the option to import the footage at the full 1920x1080 and not the default 960x540 resolution?

If you had, then try transfering the footage direct from the camera using a USB cable, or changing card reading interface from the express card slot to a USB slot etc. It looks to me there is something wrong with the interface and not the card.

When it asks if I want to import at the FULL 1920 x 1080 I always select it. In fact, I have never, in my life, ever, checked the other box for the lower resolution.

I have also tried coping the entire directory for the internal card to my hard drive, then imported the video from that folder. And of course I've done direct transfers while the camera is connected with USB.

Same result on MacPro 8 core (12gig ram) and MacBook Pro (4gig ram). Files that are under 15 Mbps. Both running Leopard 10.5.8

In one of my tests I shot video while rotating and waving the camera around erratically. Same thing, files under 15Mbps. I just don't get it.

I talked to two Canon customer support reps yesterday, they had no clue.

Apologies for sounding like a scratched record, but what does MediaInfo say? It might reveal that the camera is using an odd profile.

We know that the camera curtails the data rate if the device it's writing to isn't fast enough, so to rule out an issue with the internal memory, have you tried recording to an SDHC card instead, and copying its contents directly to your computer?

No need to apologize. The clip info looks normal. Not sure what you mean by "odd profile."

I bought an SDHC card yesterday (overnight) and will be here today. I'm going to test it today. I'll post the results.

I should've been clearer; you're looking for High@L4.0 and CABAC. If the data rate is being curtailed, you might see a different profile.If that doesn't help, then I think we're stumped and it'll be a trip back to your dealer.

It's like broadband. 'Up to' a theoritical maximum. Like my 20Mbs broadband chugging along at 1.7Mbs.

Craig, I'm not a Mac user but there are many editors out there proclaiming that they handle AVCHD, but in the fine print they only handle up to 17 MBps. Perhaps you should check the Mac's specs. In fact does anyone know of an editor that actually DOES fully handle 24MBps AVCHD ?

This is apparently the case in Vegas which I use, and, further, in the manual on "Handling AVCHD" it states :- 1) Shoot your video with a "SONY" AVCHD camcorder !

Tough luck, if like us, people use the great little Canon HF-S10.

It's a minefield out there when it comes to AVCHD, which personally I think they should never have unleashed until it was a fully uniform format. As it is now, AVCHD is Mpeg4 / H.264 in all different wrappers, few of which seem to be compatible.

RonC.

As my earlier post in this thread indicated, I am pretty certain that Apple does not yet handle the 24 Mbit/sec rate in AVCHD. Very few video editing program do.

The camera is NOT at fault in my opinion.

Larry

To confirm my original theory, I invite you to download a brief 24 Mbit/sec sample .mts file at the link below.

I am guessing you will have the very same experience with this Canon 24 Mb/s file as you do from your own camcorder.

Larry

http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/20080723/ezsm021.mts

Transcoding into FCP
 

When you "transfer" video from AVCHD into FCP, you are converting that video from AVCHD to Apple ProRes 422 codec. In other words, the video files you get in FCP are not the original AVCHD files; they are in entirely different codec, and different size.

The only way to find out the actual bitrate of an AVCHD file is to open the original file in VLC (VideoLan player) and look at "Media Information". There you can easily see the exact bitrate of the video.

AVCHD is extremely difficult to work with on all but fastest computers. Some of the Windows PCs may have a slight advantage to the comparable Mac in that they may offload some of the heavy decoding to the display card hardware. Either way, it is much easier to edit AVCHD by not editing it directly; instead, transcoding to something larger, but less compressed and easier to work with (ProRes in FCP, AIC in FCE/iMovie, or perhaps Cineform on Windows).

On a Mac, the only software package that allows you to edit AVCHD files directly is Premiere. It is an unpleasant experience when doing it directly to the AVCHD.

In Windows world, there are about half a dozen major packages that can edit AVCHD directly (Sony Vegas, Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio, etc). The experience is still very unpleasant. Transcoding is still the best way.

So, try it with VLC and check the itrate there. It should be 24Mbps or close.

I really don't agree. I've been editing h.264 and similarly comppressed formats for years, including AVCHD which I started using in 2006. While I will readily admit that it WAS "very unpleasent" years ago, the introduction of quadcore machines a few years ago made a huge difference.

I very strongly dislike the wasted time and quality loss which transcoding requires, and much prefer to use software which natively handles AVCHD very well.

Personally I prefer Cyberlink Power Director 8 Ultimate and VideoReDoTVSuite (h.264 version) for doing cut editing, as well as other software for quick AVCHD processing.

AVCHD disks made on the Mac look noticeably softer than the Windows equivalents owing to the transcoding and down-rezing I have encountered, and take much more time to create.

Larry

I agree with you, Larry. Having the requisite QuadCore and Vista 64 with 6GB of memory, I never transcode to edit. I start with AVCHD files and I end up with AVCHD files. If I want to post to YouTube after editing, I'll still create an AVCHD file and then convert it to MPEG-4 HD for the upload. But I figure all of this is somewhat like taking the same JPEG and editing it over and over again. Each re-encoding will cause some quality degradation, so doing really serious ones or doing them repeatedly isn't a good idea with lossy compression. Of course, I'm assuming each frame isn't stored and edited individually and we ARE talking about lossy compression... ???

Tom,
Just as you predicted, h.264 is especially lossy, and this is, in fact, the feature which allows it to compress to a far greater extent that any of the other codecs. AVCHD files are nominally less than half the size of mpeg2 files for the same perceived quality.

The penalty for transcoding and recompression becomes greater with h.264 as compared to, let's say, mpeg2, and thus I am especially opposed to transcoding to another format.

Given the low cost of quadcore hardware today (a complete system for well below $1000) and the recent introduction of 6 core CPUs which will further drive the price of quadcores down, I can see no good reason to recommend video editing on a dual core or single core machine, except for the rare situation where a low cost laptop is required. For that situation, I would readily admit that AVCHD editing might be "Very unpleasant" unless first transcoded. Even in this case, I would hate to have to wait for the transcodes to and from mpeg2. They would take 10 or 20 times real time based on my experiences.

Larry

Just about every single user that have tried Edius Neo 2 Booster are very impressed with the native AVCHD editing. They've hit a home run with that software.

The same technology will come to Edius Pro with the upgrade to version 5.5 around NAB time.

Ron Evans

Once it hits iMovie it becomes AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) so the usual AVCHD bit rates won't apply. The rate will now be based on AIC's rates. Also make sure you're looking at 14.3Mbs(megabits) and not 14.3MBs(megabyes) with what I know about AIC it's probably MB you're actually looking at which is higher, which is why the footage grows in size once you import.

Prores on Final Cut should be able to handle your 24 bit avchd files without noticable reduction of quality. It is considered lossless or near lossless by many of it's users.