AVCHD Workflow
 

I have a new Canon HF20 for shooting videos of the kids and playing back on a 52" HDTV. Produced videos are 3-10 minutes. I'm trying to put together a workflow that maximizes quality and ease. Can the experts help?

My starting point: My PC seems
AMD Phenom triple core 2.1Ghz, 3GB RAM
Window Vista Home Premium 32bit
ATI HD3600 graphics (1GB)

Camera Settings: I'm shooting in MXP 24MBS. The quality seems a bit better than other modes and storage is not a big issue for me. Does the higher bit rate require more processing while editing?

File Download (Pixela), this seems to be the only thing Pixela does OK

NLE: Power Director8 - this is a problem. Power Director8 isn't stable on my machine. I also tried Premiere Elements and it was too slow. Can you recommend other NLEs? Especially products I can try a free download. My PC is a bit under powered, so effiient products that are stable are my priority.

Output and Playback: I am debating between Blu Ray and WD TV HD Media Player. First, I don't have a Blu Ray burner, but my understanding is that I can burn DVDs with H.264 and palyback on Blu Ray. Is this true?

The WD TV HD Media Player supports "H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution." It sounds like an interesting alternative and would speed production without having to burn a disk. Any recommendations for this product?

I recommend Edius for editing and the WD player for playback.

Edius is available as a free tryout for a month, it's incredibly stable and in case your machine is not powerful enough to handle your video natively, you can transcode to Canopus HQ and edit away. And in case the full version scares you, go for Edius Neo.

You're not the only one skipping over BR - I made the same decision, and I love my WD player.

Good luck,

No. At least not that you'll notice.

Editing AVCHD requires an amazing amount of processing power so you may not be happy with any software on your current machine.

Yes, but you have to limit the data rate. I tried this a couple of times without complete success. My Samsung player apparently cannot read a DVD fast enough so the picture stutters badly. I cannot remember exactly, but I think I limited the data rate to 15Mb/s.

Why do you recommend Edius specifically? Other programs (Vegas, Avid, Premiere) offer free trials also. I'd say the stability of Vegas and Avid are very good also. And clearly, if one is going to transcode, any NLE will work as you are no longer editing AVCHD files.

Just curious what you feel the major advantages of Edius are over its more well known, and popular competitors in the AVCHD workflow.

Why Edius?
 

I felt like the OP needs a solution for simple and quick editing without complex corrections or special effects - and Edius fits that bill. It's fast - the only NLE with a true realtime performance, no need for rendering except with very complex filters, and it's inexpensive. It has a small footprint on your PC, and it supports all of the video formats in use today, both acquisition and delivery formats (Neo supports most formats, including AVCHD).

I didn't say it's better than the others! They all have strengths and weaknesses. I tested all of them from FCP through Adobe, to Vegas and Avid - then went back to Edius knowing it does everything I need, and from the description, will do everything the OP needs, and a ton more.

Both Neo and v5 should edit AVCHD on the OP'c PC without any transcoding.

Please prove me wrong if any other NLE offers all of the above for only $150 (Neo).

Peronne, I hope that answers your question.

Ervin,

Really, I was just curious. I was reading something in the latest HDVideoPro magazine that compared all the NLE's and they had mentioned that some news agencies had gotten Edius for their field work on the laptops, so apparently it's quick and good with quick cuts. However, the article didn't mention AVCHD specifically.

I also noted that "The Videoguys" have started carrying Edius too (I bought my first Vegas from there years ago) so it seems that business for Edius is picking up.

Does Edius have anything that specifically speeds up AVCHD workflow? Can it leverage a GPU for instance? Apparently, I am going to be doing more work with 5D footage so that could be quite useful. After attending the Sony Expo and learning that there is nothing forthcoming to assist in that area, I am even more interested in jumping to something to make my workflow easier.

As far as GPU acceleration, Grass Valley considers it's not necessary, so it has very limited usage as far as I know.

For speeding up AVCHD they launched an add-on for Neo 2 just a few days ago, it's called Booster, and it is supposed to handle 3-4 streams of AVCHD in realtime. Speculation is that it will get thorough testing on the entry level Neo, then they will make it also available for the full version.

If they do that, I think Edius will gain even more popularity... too bad GV does little to advertise it.

[I just Googled around, GV claims that an Intel i7-based PC can handle 3+ streams of "full" 1920x1080 with smooth timeline scrubbing and full quality preview using the HDSpark HDMI out board. Edius Neo 2 costs $230 and runs on XP/Vista/W7].

Google "edius neo 2 booster pdf" for the official GV flyer.

Thanks, I'll check that out. I am really on the fence, because I've been looking to jump to Avid for numerous reasons, but at this price, I might be able to swing both.

Video Studio
 

Hi, I have a similar setup in terms of camera (Canon HF100) and computer specs and was recently asked to video a family member's wedding. I used Video Studio x12 pro and it handles AVCHD files really well because it creates lower quality clips for editing. When you are finish, it outputs the final sequence back to AVCHD or DVD using the original AVCHD files.

Not sure what happened in the meantime, but a few years ago I tested Avid briefly, but dropped it quickly because it was first transcoding everything to QT on import, and that, depending on the quantity and type of the video material imported, took up significant time (depending on computer speed).

Does Avid still do that? The 'beauty' of Edius is that you can import hours of video with a quick click, and start cutting the next minute, no matter what your sources are, same format or tens of different video formats, different frame sizes or frame rates.

No, Avid doesn't do that. They've made some massive gains in the past 2 years, and Media Composer 4 looks to be one heck of a program. I can drop and go with Vegas so I'd hate to lose that. And I need to find out a few things about Avid before I make the jump. I am somewhat less than impressed by the plugin structure of Edius. Seems to really be built for newscutting or other no-frills work. That's fine, and that would generally have been great 2 years ago, but I find more and more that my work is getting creative. The high quality apps bundled with Avid alone would cost as much as they charge for the program. When I looked at adding Boris, Sonic, and some other tools to my Current Vegas workflow, I was right at the Avid price point.

I'm sure my Avid trial in the spring will net some answers, but for now, I'm just researching options.

AVCHD Workflow
 

I have now tried the following pieces of the original and recommended workflow.

NLE: Premiere Elements, Power Director and Sony Vegas Movie Movie Studio. These are all trial downloads of the latest versions. Premiere Elements was very slow. Power Director very buggy. Sony Vegas Movie Studio is working well, but has it's issues as well. First, using AVCHD native editing it is the fastest of the bunch. It is generally stable; however mutiple JPEG images and certain custom rendering settings seem to make rendering more crash prone. I also like the fact that the full versions of Vegas are well used, so there is solid user community and internet support and comments. For these reasons, I did not venture on to trying Edius.

I purchased the WD HD Media box for playback. I found using the 8Mbps 1440 x 1080i 1.33 ratio Windows Media rendering in Vegas produces good results on my HDTV. Higher bit rates don't seem any better. I am a bit confused by the rendering settings, since I would expect 1920x1080i with either square or 1.33 pixel ratio to be optimal, but this yields boarders all the way around the video.

One clear dissappointment is that JPEG images (typical camera resolutions) do not render well (clearly worse than the video). In particular, hair has a choppy look to it. Any help on this?

Note, multiple full resolution JPEGs also seem to make rendering less stable.

Grass Valley EDIUS Neo 2 with AVCHD Booster Option
The Perfect Solution for Editing AVCHD

Native AVCHD files have previously been difficult to edit with NLE software, due to the high compression of the video, and often required dedicated hardware solutions. The new EDIUS Neo 2 Booster allows for smooth, full-frame editing of native AVCHD video in software only, courtesy of a newly-developed AVCHD codec engine that can process more than 3 real-time streams simultaneously with EDIUS Neo 2 (tested with an Intel Core i7 CPU system - just like the Videoguys' DIY 7 system configuration).

Grass Valley EDIUS Neo 2 with AVCHD Booster option is an affordable NLE software featuring basic, entry-level range of tools and features, EDIUS Neo 2 software is perfect for those new to video editing. Yet it also provides powerful nonlinear editing features common to all EDIUS solutions, such as real-time, multi-track, mixed-format HD/SD editing, chroma keying, titling, and Blu-ray Disc and DVD authoring. Built on the same highly-acclaimed technology as the EDIUS editing software, EDIUS Neo 2 offers native editing of various formats including AVCHD, HDV, DV, Windows Media, and QuickTime — and provides a seamless, real-time workflow that supports the mixing of all formats within the same timeline.

The EDIUS Neo 2 Booster makes real-time AVCHD editing an affordable reality and enhances Grass Valley's commitment to the real-time "anything in – anything out" editing platform. The EDIUS Neo 2 Booster is compatible with Windows XP, Vista (32-bit/64-bit) as well as 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the new Windows 7 Operating System.

Videoguys Blog - EDIUS Neo 2 Booster Realtime AVCHD Editing Solution, Blu-ray Disc Authoring... and more!

Gary

It really does excel at that kind of stuff. You can work really quickly in it. In his presentations, Mike Downey makes a bit deal about all the stuff you can do without going into menus. But it is a pretty good all-around editor. I certainly don't think it is limited to news.

The thing I like most about Edius is the information display. You've always got current time, in, out, duration, and total time right there on the screen. I'm currently doing most of my work in Vegas and that lack is something that really bugs me. The other big draw is the real-time-atude. Even dropping quality and frame size, Vegas bogs down easily--makes it hard to gauge a good dissolve length for example.

I actually kind of like the way Edius handles filters. Kind of a toss-up with Vegas--much different presentation but it gets you to the same place.

Also from Mike Downey's presentation, a lot of wedding people use it. Its got a pretty darn good multi-cam mode (sorry only got Vegas 7 so I can't compare).

Note: I'm using Edius 5 with Canopus HQ. I really can't speak to Neo with AVCHD.

Um, I've always got that information in Vegas too. Not sure what you mean. But yes, Vegas can get bogged down easily. It's decision to not leverage the video card for anything was probably viable with SD, but with HD, and especially mpeg4 based HD, it's getting hammered. They will either have to change course, or get passed by.


How does it handle filters? Can you describe the difference?


Oh, multi-cam in Vegas isn't too bad, but could certainly be smoother. I haven't done a multi-cam shoot since moving to V9, but I may try it out.

There have been some conflicting reports on Canopus HQ. I'd really like to get a sample and have a look at it.

How's this:

In Edius, you have a list of effects/filters with a bunch of info about the clip (red area). You can have mulitple copies of 'em and change the order. You can also turn 'em off and on individually. Works out to pretty much the same as Vegas.

And in the record window (using 'one monitor' mode, you can also have a play/source and rec/timeline mode), you always have those counters right there. (yellow area)

In Vegas, I've got an in/out loop selected and I see, in the lower mid corner, the current time and the duration of in/out but not the times. Do I need to turn something on? I've got 'edit details' shown in lower left but can't find a way to display this info.

Canopus HQ? They tell me its a good codec. Best I can figure, the equivilant of Cineform. I haven't done any comparisons--just resting on Canopus/GVs reputation on codecs.

Andy,

See if the timecode filter helps you.

Above the preview window, click the "+" to add a filter. Select "Sony Timecode". Does this help?

With this new booster thingy, Neo 2 is probably the best basic editor for AVCHD right now (reasonable native AVCHD editing without having to build some super computer with multiple overclocked quad-core CPUs, that needs liquid nitrogen cooling and dims the lights when you turn it on).

I downloaded the evaluation copy, gave it a quick try, and it appears to handle AVCHD footage dropped straight onto the timeline quite well (silky smooth 720p60 AVCHD real-time playback, which is just as tough on the CPU as 1080i60 or 1080p30, with CPU utilization hovering between 30-40% on an AMD Phenom 9850 - a fairly modest quad-core CPU). From what I saw, just giving it a quick look-see, basic native AVCHD editing performance should be pretty smooth on any quad, and probably okay on a fast dual core or triple core CPU. Also, Canopus HQ is a viable alternative to Cineform for most purposes. Technically, Canopus HQ uses a very different approach to compression (more conventional - Cineform uses wavelet compression), but from a user's perspective, they are pretty similar.

I sure like that Edius has a built in discrete frame codec in HQ. Vegas used to do that with Cineform. That's a big thing if you ask me. If you're work in HQ, you could probably edit with a Pentium 4 and not miss a beat.

Aye, you can but with very light use of filters and short effects. Core 2 gets you a whole lot more but even then its fairly easy to max out.

Edius Trial
 

You talked highly enough about Edius that I downloaded the trial. In particular, I tried Edius Neo 2.5. True to your comments the editing performance is good. Relative to Sony Vegas, the software loaded faster, the transfer of video clips into a project was faster and most importantly it didn't drop frames during editing playback. This is all with 24Mbps AVCHD from my Cannon.

I have two issues I'm trying to resolve. One, the audio drops frames continuously. This is both annoying as well as a problem for audio editing. Any suggestions on how to resolve? Second, how do I perform the equivalent functio of cropping with key frames, like I do in Sony Movie Studio?

Cropping with keyframes is done via the layout tool in v5 - not sure in Neo.

Please elaborate on audio frame dropping; what do you call audio frame dropping?

Edius Audio
 

It's a bit difficult to describe what I call dropped frames in the audio. Thinking of the audio on the timeline, it sounds as if small slices have been deleted. This is how it sounds in the preview, not how it looks on the timeline. The drops are frequent, and short. Maybe a few per second that are 10ms in length. I made the comparison to dropped frames, because in some situations when frames are dropped the audio is dropped with them and this sounds similar. It is sort of a jerky voice sound. It could be related to sampling rates of the audio.

That's my best attempt at describing. Thanks for your comments.

Looking at your system specs, I think you will have to upgrade - not a bad PC but when it comes to AVCHD, you need more horsepower.

A LOT more.

From my quick look at Edius Neo 2 with the booster thingy, I would think a Phenom X3 could handle basic AVCHD editing with it (kinda cuts it close tho). When I'm getting only 30-40% CPU utilization with a Phenome X4 9850, playing back AVCHD from the timeline, there's enough headroom there to use a less powerful CPU. I'd suggest dropping a Phenom quad in there though. You can get em cheap as dirt, especially the older ones. I know you can get older ones under a hundred bucks.

Grass Valley has recently redesigned their website and the new layout does not do a lot of good to Edius, so you might not be aware that it also comes with some bundled software. Have you checked that out.

Honestly, I would be very surprised if you gave both Avid and Edius a fair trial and still go for Avid. I know people who use or used both and other than old timers coming from 'real' film, they all have Avid gathering dust.

Avid brings some things to the table that Edius just doesn't have. Some that are important to me. And some that important to "old timers" who have come from film and are still using film.

You don't find Edius used to cut feature film because it's missing some very crucial elements. Broadcast is different, and Grass Valley is VERY strong there.

John - I just purchased Neo 2 after testing and can say it put Vegas Pro 9 to shame in my tests. What you're experiencing is drops due to Edius not buffering enough frames to keep up with the timeline being played back - a simple way around this is to hit Shift-G and that will prerender any clips you have selected on the timeline. You can also specify how much memory is allocated to Edius in the applications settings as well.

I discovered this stuttering issue due to my only having a 128MB video card. Edius Neo 2 uses the memory on the graphics card to buffer frames I believe - I just ordered a 1GB nVidia video card to address this very issue (GT-220).

HTH

... with some exceptions... Page Not Found | Grass Valley - edit: for some reason the link seems dead but it does come up if you Google "feature film cut on Edius".

At the end of the day, it's a personal choice more than anything. I simply can't think of anything I can't do in Edius, but of course your situation might be different, especially if you work in a team environment, where, admittedly, Avid is the king.

Have fun learning Avid, and please report back on your final decision.

Edius does not do 10-bit codecs. So for anyone needing to do real color grading, it's a show stopper.

On the subject of video compression, this is probably a good thread to pass along a tip for folks that want to use a good intermediate codec, without spending a dime to purchase something like Cineform (which is an excellent product, by the way).

XVID is an excellent implementation of an MPEG-4 ASP codec, and it's free. We usually think of (almost any) MPEG video compression as almost synonymous with interframe compression, but it doesn't have to be.

You can easily configure XVID for intraframe only compression (by setting the maximum I frame interval to 1). If you also configure the codec to for constant quality, using the highest quantizer setting (1), you wind up with very high quality intraframe only compression. I've done some testing, and as far as I can tell, this method appears to result in quality that edges out the quality of the Canopus HQ codec, which is pretty good, and very suitable for many purposes. I did a few tests, using the SSIM metric, and the results beat out Canopus HQ in my tests. My eyes tell me that it's safely in the realm of what most folks would consider a "visually lossless" codec.

XVID is limited to 8 bit color, and you won't get 4:2:2 either (like with Cineform), but can also be quite a bit more flexible than Canopus HQ, in that you are not confined only to the common video frame sizes and framerates. For example, you can do 960x540, at 15fps, just fine (can be quite useful for things like DIY web video projects). XVID will work with Virtual Dub nicely, as well as generally with other apps that allow the use of 3rd party codecs installed on your computer, in an AVI container.

XVID could also be used for archiving the results of projects, with visually lossless compression, yet with smaller file sizes than something like Cineform or Canopus HQ. It's slightly more involved, but you can configure the codec to take advantage of interframe compression also, and still maintain the same quality as with the intraframe only method (by also setting quantizer offsets to zero, for P and B frames), as outlined above, and achieve notably smaller file sizes (depending on the material being encoded). You don't even need to slow down the performance all that much, while still getting somewhat smaller file sizes, using short I frame intervals (like 3 or 4).

Color grading is the process by which we modify the look and feel of video by altering it's colors. Whether that is to get a very naturalistic tone, or to get an ultra-stylized one. Color affects our moods, and manipulating that with video is a part of the art.

So color grading is just another term for color correction, right?

No.

Color correction attempts to get the color to a neutral state. Let's say for instance that we're shooting a scene for a movie. The cameraman puts the camera on tungsten balance when we are actually lit for daylight.

When I got in the editing suite, I'd first color correct, and get the color balance correct. THEN I would apply whatever artistic effect I wanted to.

Correction is generally used to match shots. To try and get all the exposure and colors to match from shot to shot, and day to day if the same scene was shot on multiple days. The grading comes after everything is matching and seamless.

Gotcha. So, color correction is truly about correction and color grading speaks to artistic effect - a somewhat subtle difference, but significantly different meaning.

I've got another little tip, that might be useful for newbies (or even maybe for some folks that have been shooting for awhile).

I often lend out an inexpensive camcorder to friends who don't own a camcorder and rarely (if ever) shoot video, for shooting stuff that's important to them (like their kid's high school graduation ceremony or something). I even bought a cheap MiniDV camcorder on eBay a few years ago, for just that purpose.

When I hand them the camcorder, I usually try to give them a practical 5 minute lesson on shooting, so their video (hopefully) doesn't come out completely awful.

Basically, I set the cam to it's widest zoom, and first thing I tell them is to forget the zoom lever is even there (unless they REALLY need to use it - with genuine emphasis on REALLY). I've actually thought about crazy gluing it to wide (cause some folks just ignore that counsel, to really sad effect - sometimes almost makes me get motion sickness, when capturing the footage for them later - especially the stuff that's zoomed in to the max, and looks like it was shot during a major earthquake!).

The second thing I tell them is not to ever use the AWB, because if they use a preset, even the wrong one, I can at least do a somewhat reasonable color-correction pretty dang quickly, after capturing the footage. Then I tell them to think light source, not whether they are indoors or outdoors, to choose the preset. That really does help, because it's easy to wind up with a tungsten preset, shooting indoors when most the light is coming from the sun through windows, if you don't pay attention to what you are doing. (Occasionally, they even remember that!)

Color correction & grading are terms that need to be clarified by the specialists. While grading comes from film times, color adjustments are nowadays made on computers even by those shooting on film, then transferred back to film.

For getting colors to neutral, some use the term color correction, others prefer white balance... correction and grading are used interchangeably.

Very true Ervin,

I prefer NOT to use the term white balance because I find it ambiguous. When I "correct" a scene I am doing a white balance, black balance, and often adjusting mid-tones as well. It is only after doing that, that I will begin stylizing the colors if desired.

I don't edit professionally. In my little world, I just color grade I guess. I set white balance manually on the camera, or use the closest preset for the conditions (often actually - and rarely miss by a whole lot that way anyway), and then in post I don't spend time trying to make color neutral, but rather go directly to getting the color the way it actually looks best to me, even if that isn't true to life (and if matching to other clips, doing it pretty much at the same time).

I guess in a sense, shooting and editing to please myself, and nobody else, affords me the luxury of simple practicality. I'm pretty picky, but I don't need to satisfy anyone with any arbitrary standards. A lot of pros might say you should always manually white balance, but I get results that work just as well, as a practical matter, using presets often. I just don't need the color to be spot on out of the camera, to suit an editor, or anyone else's likings. I know I'm going to be adjusting color a tad anyway (always do), even if I do take the time to white balance properly, so it just doesn't really make any difference in the end. From getting to know a camera for awhile, I can pretty reliably tell, just by looking through the viewfinder, if a preset is off so much that it will matter, and then take the time to do the manual white balance if none of the presets is decent for the lighting circumstances.