You could be right, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.
I'm thinking that Sony has just put their toe in the water with the VG10, while Panasonic has jumped all the way into the pool. The AF 100 may be absolutely brilliant, or may have significant shortcomings. We will see. Either way, Panasonic is married to it now.
Sony Pro division would have to be crazy to not have an NX sized, APS chip, EX featured cam in the skunkworks as we speak. If they pull that out of the hat in 2011, at a $6-$7K price point, they will be in the game indeed.
...and still be in position to spread the APS KoolAid to the masses with the VG line. I don't know the numbers, but surely that's where the real money is :)
Exciting times...

You shouldn't find it sad in the slightest, as all the manufacturers have used high pressure injection moulded plastic aspherical elements in their zoom lenses for very many years. If they used glass you wouldn't be able to afford the lens as each element would have to be ground individually and they'd soon be out of business.

Also remember that hundreds of thousands of people walk around all day long looking through hugely complex aspherical plastic elements in their glasses, with no complaints.

Or do I read you wrong Bill? When you say 'Sony using plastic in a lens' might you be referring to the lens barrel construction?

tom.

"You shouldn't find it sad in the slightest, as all the manufacturers have used high pressure injection moulded plastic aspherical elements in their zoom lenses for very many years. If they used glass you wouldn't be able to afford the lens as each element would have to be ground individually and they'd soon be out of business."

It's not the lenses being plastic that is the issue. It's the mechanism being made of plastic because the friction is so great.

Some CUs at 200mm.

I'm actually dating myself, Tom. In my mind, my first "real" camera was a 1977 Pentax KM SLR with ~50mm f1.8 lens. There wasn't much plastic in it and the out the door price was $150. I remember that last part well because as a graduating high school senior, that's all I had. And I think we all know as the value of the dollar keeps falling, manufacturers keep finding ways to pull out cost. The use of plastic is one of those ways. When I say "How far we have fallen" I'm actually referring mostly to the incredibly shrinking dollar.

I do understand how modern lenses are built. I personally don't like plastic in the barrel construction and mount to the camera.

I'm one of them. If it's farther than about 15 inches away, I have to wear glasses to see it clearly...even the computer screen as I'm typing this. When I finally made the switch from glass lenses to plastic, my glasses lost a massive amount of weight.

Materials science has come quite a way (one of the reasons I suspect Sony is trying the translucent "T" pellicle mirror in the SLT's, although they still make it sound like it can't be touched by anything ever... which scares me), and plastic is pretty common in about everything...

BUT, boy oh boy is there a difference between my older metal and glass Minolta A mount lenses and the new Sony plastic fantastic ones... yes they have heft, but they also move quieter and smoother, looking forward to putting a couple on an a55, even though they are relatively cheap "slow" lenses!

Frankly Sony could right now release a "VG11", with the sensor from the a55/a580 (I suspect they are already going to have a sensor shortage!). From the things I've read, the higher 16MPixel sensor also has a bit more light sensitivity over the 14.2, and it'd be almost "plug and play".

Anything that the "auto" functions "touch" can probably be mapped relatively easily to a button/wheel/touchscreen (yeah, I'd like to see a touchscreen in the VG... love it for certain things in the "handycams"). It's a matter of firmware being allowed to "touch" the same internal hooks so the user can make the adjustments manually. Anyone remember the HC9, which added peaking and a few other things to the HC7? I'd bet those functions were "in" the DSP chips all along, waiting to be unlocked... The CX550 added 24Mbps and more manual control access... but it's pretty much the same sensor block and guts as the CX500 (and to a major extent the XR500). Odds are good it was there all along...

MANY of the feature set decisions are made on what Sony believes the market will demand/accept, but they are already showing remarkable responsiveness, with a pending update that has been hailed as completely revitalizing the NEX3/5 user interface (which was roundly criticized!), and a VG10 update supposedly around the corner. I suspect many of the capabilities are already engineered in, it's a matter of figuring out what, and how the user wants to use it, in these "new" ergonomic designs!


Sony will sell a boatload of VG10's on sex appeal alone, but I suspect the secondary market of slightly used ones may be busy... I just don't see the average user "getting" the camera after getting (buying) it. I'll be watching...

Meanwhile I've got to sell a couple older cameras, but an a55 will be the the direction I go... it's got heat issues (internal to the body Super OIS rather than OIS in the lens of the VG10), meaning short clips, and I'm a bit leery of the new pellicle "no touchy" mirror (hey, things get touched!!), but For $750, $850 with kit lens, and I've got some decent Alpha glass, it should get me the shallow DoF aesthetic.

I think in the end it's that aesthetic ("value" as Robert noted) that these cameras bring to the table. People "expect" the cinematic style, with the shallow rack focus, and overall look (heck, Sony is even putting a faux DoF in their P&S line, and it actually does work OK to "fake" the SLR DoF). The only question really is whether they can cram all the expertise of a skilled camera operator into the controller chips that "help" the camera decide which object to track focus/exposure on - the XR/CX550 shows that is possible, and it's available RIGHT NOW in $300-400 point and shoots... Sony needs to put the accessability to the manual features into the higher end cams so the "pro" will accept them though...

Uhhh...that's my camera, Dave. Memory has nothing to do with it. I thought it was a far better value than the HDR-HD1000. I could think of other things to spend the difference on :-)
When I buy a new camera, it tends to be a huge jump in feature set. The NEX-VG10 qualifies.

I know, I've been watching the updates roll out for the NEX-5 and NEX-3 on SonyStyle, you know an update for the NEX-VG10 has got to be on its way. Leaving out RAW for stills, among other things, is just a sin. For me, the gravitational pull of this camera is amazing...

You and me both will be watching. The average user wants brain-dead simplicity. Imagine their shock that consistently getting good DOF shots REQUIRES focus & aperture skills.

"BUT, boy oh boy is there a difference between my older metal and glass Minolta A mount lenses and the new Sony plastic fantastic ones... yes they have heft, but they also move quieter and smoother ..."

I think one of the reasons, beyond the fact I'm no longer working all around the world, that I no longer enjoy shooting is there is NO tactile feeling to today's "cameras." When you combine the move to plastic with the fact the kids who design "camera" products for the "electronics" companies have never used a Euro built camera -- you have an image capture "device" but not a camera.

I sold my Minolta Maxxon (sp) immediately because I hated the menu-based operation.

For many years JVC, unlike Sony and Pana, built consumer video cameras that were just like Super8 cameras. Now they have joined the gadget makers.

The question is not will Sony make newer VG10's, but if you go to their Japanese site and read interviews with the NEX-series designers, it seems they are very dedicated to creating a new "non-camera" device for consumers. It is a STYLE driven design. As I said before, it is an iPod concept. Create a NEW market.

And, it is working big for Sony. The VG10 is designed not to compete with other Sony camcorders or DSLRs. It is CONCEPT driven. Meaning, marketing first created the marketing buzz-words (BIG chip, shallow DOF, great sound, really sexy look) which is THE goal of the NEX=series and has engineering deign it.

We have to find a way to use what we have been given. Just like we learn to use an iPad.

PS: you should read HOW the new Sony tag-line was created. These folks are stylists.

The VG 10 firmware update is supposed to be in November, but I have seen nothing about what features it will have, what problems it will correct.
Has anyone heard any rumbles about it??

The firmware update will add support for Autofocus with A Series lenses. Haven't seen anything else about what's in there for the NEX-VG10. This article talks about what's in the NEX-5/3 software

Sony NEX Firmware Update

sigh...
 

I hear you, Steve, regarding the loss of enjoyment in shooting. I don't know if it's my age (57) or the 2 herniated discs in my lower back (I started shooting back in '79 with the 30-pound TK-76) or something else. But in the last 5 years my only projects of any substance have been a solitary backpacking video I've been shooting with the Sony HC-3 (which tells you when I started the project).

I so want to have a camcorder that gives me the HD, the large sensor, the nice audio, the LACK of video artifacts (I'm so tired of the video look) and is affordable. I'd then like to live with this camera for a number of years and get to know it inside and out. The same way a violinist buys a Stradivarius and uses it as his lifelong instrument without fear of it becoming "obsolete." Maybe we're still far away from such a camera. Maybe not in my lifetime. But I was kind of hoping the VG10 might be 'the one.'

Lynne -

In all honesty the HC3 had one of the worst "HD" sensors I think I've seen over the years - it was an interim camera to bring the price of entry down into the consumer space vs. the HC1, and while it laid the foundation for the later HC's (and for that matter the current SR/XR/CX) with better sensors, it's very very outdated compared to cameras from the last couple years. I think that the HC3 sensor is probably your source of "artifacts", I remember seeing macroblocking from that camera... great size and weight, not so great image quality...

While the large sensor is a big draw for DoF, and the mic system of the VG10 looks pretty nice, you might at least take a look at the other camera several of us are using as a reference... the CX550V is a pretty solid all round performer, very very clean (low noise), good in bad light, big 3.5" LCD and a viewfinder, very stable when handheld, and yet still very light and compact (nice for those discs!). Honestly, aside from the oddball tripod mount location, I'd have to try really hard to come up with a list of "must have" improvements to the CX550... not a lot to quibble with, it's the culmination of several years of Sony design refinements.

Worst case the CX550V might be worth a look to keep your toes in the water with a camera that's "state of the art" as far as video cameras go. The "big sensor battle" really has JUST gone from a skirmish to all out war... and if you are after that "look", Sony pretty much doubled the choices in the last couple months, and added new and previously unseen designs (NEX, SLT). If you're into still photography, an SLT- a55 plus a CX550V would probably prove to be a more versatile combination, and just about as compact as the VG10, as long as you didn't go stir crazy on lenses!

As sexy as the VG10 is... I'm not giving up the CX550, and adding an a55 will get me most of the things I would use a VG10 for, along with a pretty amazing still camera at a bargain price point.

Well, here's an update on the moire artifacting with the VG10, and some other recent observations as well.
I have shot a fair amount of test footage with the VG10, and was seeing an alarming amount of moire when viewing the transferred raw footage on my desktop monitor (1920x1080).
I wanted to see what was the best BR presentation the cam could provide, so I followed my usual HD workflow- converted the raw clips to Cineform HD.avi, put the Cineform clips on a timeline, trimmed and tossed a bit, rendered out to 25mbs h.264 Blu Ray, burned the BD, and just now watched it on a 50' Sony HDTV.
I saw two amazing things:
1) The footage really, really looked good. Images that looked a little flat, a little Ho Hum...yawn, on the raw AVCHD, looked absolutely lush. Beautiful color, excellent detail, good motion rendering, including pans. The DOF capability, even at f 6/7 range, provided a very subtle artistic effect to what were otherwise just "snapshot" type grabs. Autofocus seemed to be very effective at sticking to the foreground subject, and would gently refocus to the background on panning off of the subject.
I am finally impressed.
2) Most Amazing of All!!:
Maybe 80%-90% of the moire had mysteriously dissappeared. Minor moire was gone. Severe moire was still visable, but not very noticable except to critical observers like us. Footage that had looked unusable as raw AVCHD was now (with one single exception) usable in the BD version (by my standards anyway). This pretty well minimizes, for me anyway, what seemed to be a very severe flaw in the camera.

The other big issue to me was the effectiveness of the OIS for hand held shooting.
I did some shots with OIS completely off- wow, was that awful.
Now that I see the size of the problem, the OIS is looking much better to me. I'm just realizing that I have to use killer technique for holding the cam. No casual one hander's like with the CX550.
The more I get to know this camera, the more respect I'm developing for what it can do, and what I can use it for.

Thank you for that concise assessment of the VG10, Robert. It confirms what I was already finding out with my VG10. Awesome cam! I'm loving mostly everything about it.

Jr.

Anybody else notice the 'pattern' in Steve Mullen's images? Zoom in and they are very easy to see, and look like an interlace pattern, but I thought this camera was not capturing interlace. While the bokeh looks beautiful, the rest of the image does not.

How many times does it have to be said -- it shoots progressive.

However, to ALL software the files are seen as interlaced. So your ProRes, HDxND, AIC, HQ files will be interlaced. Once it goes into a progressive Sequence the original nature is ignored.

However, I loaded it into the QT Player so god knows what it does when it makes a BMP frame. :)

It could bob deinterlace which would double the thickness of every line.

This is why one should never look at postings to check "quality." And, why I don't post videos on the internet.

I've been looking at the video on a 47-inch Sony LCD and the video is spectacular!!! First consumer camcorder that resolves great detail on leaves at full wide -- very EX1 like. A long long way from the V1!

Rack focusing is very easy -- even hand-held which these shots were. The DOF can be made so thin one can move focus from the front to the back of a flower. The 1.8 is amazing, but you can hear the focus dial being turned. Consider that when using non E-mount lenses. ("The firmware update will add support for Autofocus with A Series lenses.")

PS: OT, before altering sharpness on any camera, be sure you have set your monitor correctly. Typically sharpness should be between 5 and 15. Also, remember, that Sony sets the Default sharpness to obtain the optimum frequency response with the least edge ringing. Altering to get a film look wipes out FOREVER fine detail. And, setting Contrast to +3 clips bright AND dark detail when shooting bright high contrast situations.

It's a little weird how Sony has done this.
The cam is shooting 30p, but dividing each frame into 2 fields and outputting the file as interlaced.
Seems like there is some confusion as how it should be presented to the NLE- as 30p, or 60i, how the NLE and various player software are interpreting the frame rate, etc.
It is possible to get artifacts if the settings or NLE/player interpretation are incorrect.
For my workflow, trial and error have shown me that my best result is for Cineform to interpret the footage as 30p for conversion to CFHD.avi 30p, then edited on a CFHD 30p sequence.
For the moment, I am steering clear of doing anything much with the raw AVCHD. I am not happy with how they look on playback, on my system anyway. Watching the Cineform and Blu Ray versions was a revelation for me.

Sony has been using this method -- PsF -- since the days of CineAlta where 24p was placed in a 48i container -- which is 50i slowed down slightly.

The point is an interlace file can universally be used. It is INTERLACED video that has no time difference between fields. In the old world this could not cause problems.

Now it can if you don't treat it right.

Anything that needs to deinterlaced video will do so. However a good deinterlacer will notice there is no motion between fields and use Weave deinterlacing which combines both fields into one frame.

Software typically only uses the fastest method which is bob that cuts vertical rez. in half. As I said, who knows what the QT player uses?

With the exception of iMovie 09, NLEs these clips should pass through through either a 30p or 60i timeline. However, it's best to use a 30p Sequence.

With some NLEs you can batch change all clips to progressive. My iMakeFullHD software does this for a folder of iMovie 09 imported (AIC) clips.

PS: Attached are 2 pix of the long and short zooms fully extended. You can see how much rotating the zoom ring must force the long zoom to move in and out.

It does seem to be a bit tricky.
If I tell the Cineform software to identify the AVCHD footage as 60i, and put the resulting files on a 60i timeline, the images have artifacts which I associate with interlacing.
If I tell the software to identify the raw clips as 30p (not to "deinterlace" them, but simply to interpret the AVCHD as 30p), and put the resulting Cineform files on a 30p timeline, everything looks terrific.
I had expected this to not make a difference, but it seems to.
Go figure...

Which NLE are you using?

I'm as puzzled as you.

Finally worked-out a way to burn 1080 to a DVD-R as a AVCHD disc. My goal was to avoid the use of an intermediate codec as is needed on Macs. And, it plays on a Sony BD player.

WOW!

We are talking "pro" quality HD from a $2000 camcorder.

Nothing I've seen on the net prepared me for this.

PS: Begas Movie Studio can import ProRes 422 or DNxHD to which I add a 5.1 soundtrack and then make a BD. Because there is no way to monitor the mix -- I do the simple: stereo to L & R, narration to C, and stereo music to the rear. Crude, but fun.

I'm using CS5
VG 10 footage on BD...Priceless
Yeah, it knocked my socks off too.
I know it's an unpopular view, but I really think AVCHD sucks for anything beyond acquisition purposes.
I will continue to edit and do serious previewing in Cineform HD codec.
But I am finally well satisfied that the camera/lens can produce outstanding images.

Hi Steve,

Why are you interested in avoiding using conventional BDD disks?
And also, have you posted a review of this camera yet? Love to hear your evaulation.

I'm not sure why you use CineForm, but there is not only no QUALITY advantage to transcoding to an intermediate code there is a quality disadvantage.

When native editing is used, the AVCHD is decompressed in the NLE to RGB/YUV 422 just as each frame is needed.

When you use an intermediate codec, first AVCHD is decompressed to RGB/YUV 422. Then it is recompressed. No matter the claims, this second recompression can NOT improve quality. It can NOT even preserve quality because it is a second cycle of compression. You are ediing second generation video. Moreover, the file has now greatly expanded. So more storage and a decrease in quality! In the NLE, the intermediate codec is decompressed in the NLE to RGB/YUV 422 just as each frame is needed.

All NLEs work with RGB/YUV 422. In no way is quality lost by keeping the source files as AVCHD until the instant each frame is needed.

Likewise, it makes NO difference when 4:2:0 is converted to 4:2:2. In fact, it is better to wait and do a direct conversion from 4:2:0 to 4:4:4 rather than do it in two steps.

If rendering is needed, no good NLE ever renders to AVCHD, HDV, XDCAM EX, etc! This is one of the big myths. Folks worry their graphics will be compressed to AVCHD, HDV, XDCAM EX, etc. Nope.

FCP and MC force a render to ProRes 422 or DNxHD or uncompressed.

Moreover, FCP NEVER EVER uses rendered files during export. Every frame starts with the AVCHD source. MC can use renders, but not if you delete them before export.

This is why I'm checking quality with Vegas. Each AVCHD frame is decompressed to RGB/YUV 422 and recompressed to AVCHD.

You use Premiere and its code base is old, so it MIGHT render to AVCHD -- but I can't believe it does. Adobe lacks its own Intermediate codec so perhaps it uses DVCPRO-HD which cuts horizontal resolution and is only 100Mbps. Buying CineForm's codec to use within Premiere makes sense.

Having said all this, Premiere can NOT play AVCHD on an 2.53GHz I5 without audio stuttering and never has been able to do real-time transitions -- unless you have an Nvidia board.

Vegas does a better job, as it slows down on transitions.

Bottom line, there is VERY GOOD reason to use an intermediate codec -- performance!

I use Cineform for HD editing because in my personal experience with CF (beginning with Premiere Pro 1.5) it does the best job of preserving the original image quality throughout the editing process, including (and particularly) all the way to any and all of the final delivery formats required.
I have never experienced a quality decrease as a result of using the CF DI.
It also often provides better quality previewing during editing, and does increase the NLE performance/speed compaired to editing highly compressed acquisition formats.
For me, there is no real downside.
Conversion of the raw files is quick and automated, and that's really the only extra step.
The rest of it is simply the ordinary workflow of editing, and rendering out to delivery format.
An awful lot of commercial productions, including many Hollywood movies utilize CF DI.
I am using CS5 on a Win7 64, 12GB Tri RAM, Intel i7, nVidea CUDA GPU system. There's no question that it's dealing with native formats impressively these days. But I have a bulletproof workflow with CF that produces terrific, consistant results at the delivery end.
So far, I remain unconvinced that native format editing would be an improvement in any way

You're using CS5 on an i7 system with CUDA.....and you don't edit native?? I'm sure CF is great, but surely you don't need it anymore? Have you tried native edit, I'm looking to go to CS5/CUDA because it seems like it can chew through AVCHD with multiple tracks and all kinds of color correction like butter......is that not the case?

I was a big fan of CineForm and know the folks well. They provided an real-time engine to Premiere that was NECESSARY. The fact it used a great codec was fine with me.

But, then they started pushing that MPEG and AVC had to be transcoded to keep quality. which simply is not true. So performance was the key. But with CUDA there's no need since -- as you point out -- it screams thru AVCHD!

Yes...
That is indeed the case, but all of that simply has to do with the editing experience being more smooth, fast, and capable.
It has no bearing on the inherent problem with AVCHD of maintaining final image quality as you apply effects, complex graphics, color correction, maybe apply a Magic Bullet Looks "look" to an entire sequence, etc.,and then finish it off by transcoding to a variety of delivery formats.
I have used native AVCHD edit on short, simple "trim & stitch" pieces, then out to web format. Looks fine.
But, even Adobe "World Wide Evangelist" Jason Levine quickly mumbles some caviets about native editing when discussing the "no need for DI anymore" topic.
Certainly, the bottom line is that if whatever you are doing looks good enough to you, then it's as good as it has to be.
But, my view is that AVCHD is a lossy codec, and Cineform, ProRes, etc. are substantially less so.
Steve Mullen is the first person I have ever heard make the claim that editing in AVCHD actually provides BETTER final image quality than Cineform. Even Adobe has not gone quite that far with their enthusiasm.
I should add that a lot of what I do ends up being delivered on DVD. The Cineform workflow to get from interlaced HD to DVD is excellent, and has consistantly provided me with the best looking DVDs I have ever made.

Well this is very interesting, I'm no engineer, but I'd sure like to know what the best workflow is. It's one area that has always caused confusion. What Steve is saying makes sense if the AVC is decompressed into RGB/YUV 422 anyway....not sure that recompressing again makes any sense? Especially with the massive transcode files that get created and eat up tons of disc space. Guess I need to experiment more.

I'm not an engineer either, but
AVCHD is a highly compressed acquisition codec, never intended to be an editing format.
It is very lossy and if you beat up on it in post with effects, color correction, transcodes, etc. it will show it.
Storage is dirt cheap. The larger file size for CF is not a big deal at all.
If you are doing simple editing (trims with an occasional crossfade, etc), or if it's all going out to the Web, it's not a big deal to edit AVCHD in CS5.
It's all in the eye of the beholder. If you are happy with the results of your AVCHD edit, how does it get any better than that?
It's not rocket science, you can use your own judgement :)
IMO, the "ultimate truth" of these things is elusive. People have different opinions and experiences. A lot of different approaches work well for different things. Which is REALLY better- 30p or 60i, P.C. or Mac?- answer: all of the above.
At the end of the day, it's about finding out what you like and what works well for the things you are doing.

I avoid doing anything with raw AVCHD footage in Premiere, and use CFHD instead, because of this: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-cr...hroma-bug.html

Interesting.
I haven't followed that particular issue, but I have certainly had the impression that CS5 AVCHD previewing does not look quite as good as the Cineform.
It's not that the AVCHD looks bad, it's more like: Hmmm... looks pretty good, vs. Wow... Oh, yeah!
Not a very scientific analysis, but enough to convince me for the time being anyway.

"AVCHD is a highly compressed acquisition codec, never intended to be an editing format.
It is very lossy and if you beat up on it in post with effects, color correction, transcodes, etc"

Don't mean to beat on you, but you can't "beat-up" on AVCHD because that's not how NLEs work.

ANY/ALL source codecs are decompressed to a frame ONCE. CF also decompresses AVCHD once.

After a frame is decompressed it is NO LONGER AVCHD/HDV, etc. It it now uncompressed RGB or YUV.

From this instant onward, ALL FX are done on this uncompressed RGB or YUV frame. You can stack as many FX as you want, they are all done on uncompressed RGB or YUV frames. (You can add as many uncompressed RGB or YUV frames from other streams of AVCHD -- it makes no difference.) With CUDA, you are doing these FX very fast.

-------

When you use CF, each CF frame during editing is uncompressed to RGB or YUV. No NLE can work on a compressed frame.

The only difference with using CF is that you originally uncompressed an AVCHD frame to YUV and then recompressed it to CF. Recompression MUST degrade the uncompressed YUV frame because the very definition of compression is DISCARDING information! It doesn't matter if you don't notice it. All compression is designed to toss out what the designer hopes you won't notice. But something MUST get removed from each uncompressed YUV frame -- or each CF frame would be the size of an uncompressed frame!

Only if you convert AVCHD to uncompressed and stored it in a file, would the uncompressed YUV frame be PRESERVED. And, that huge frame could never have a better image than that which was in the AVCHD frame.

And, when you edit, that uncompressed frame -- from a huge file -- will be identical to an AVCHD frame that is decompressed on-the-fly. So NO intermediate codec edit can ever be as good as a native edit. That's simply a math fact.

-------

When all the FX have been applied to the uncompressed RGB or YUV frame, it is sent to your monitor. Then it is discarded. It is NOT compressed as an AVCHD frame. It is not compressed as a CF frame. It is not even stored as an uncompressed frame. It is gone.

Every time you view your timeline, your NLE starts over with the untouched source frames which are once again uncompressed to RGB or YUV. That is what NATIVE real-time editing is all about..

When you export, the only difference is each uncompressed RGB or YUV frame is not discarded. It is compressed using your chosen export codec. Each exported frame will have been decompressed ONCE and recompressed ONCE. But, by using CF, each exported frame will have been decompressed TWICE and recompressed TWICE.

=========

What happens if YOU choose to render some or all of a timeline?

The one thing I can tell you is you would never ever render to AVCHD! FCP only renders to ProRes 422 (you get to chose its parameters) and MC only renders to DNxHD (you get to chose its parameters) or DVCPRO-HD. Each of these NLEs has a menu where you specify the render codec.

I have no idea where you tell Premiere what codec should be used. Since you own the CF codec, that's the one you should choose.

When you export, you decide whether or not to use rendered files. FCP will not let you. With FCP you know each exported frame will have been decompressed ONCE and recompressed ONCE.

With MC you delete the render files prior to export to force it not to use the files. I suspect the same is true of Premiere. Of course, if you are in a hurry you can use the render files even though some quality will be lost.

=======

The bottom line is that back in the days of DV someone coined the term "acquisition" codec because of the way NLEs worked in the olden days -- and it keeps being used. An acquisition codec is a SOURCE codec. It is never an EDIT codec. And, it may be an export codec -- that is incorrectly called a "distribution" codec.

HI Steve.

When you said in your last post that you would never, ever render to AVCHD. Can you expand on that, explain what you are talking about? Are you saying not to edit AVCHD and burn an AVCHD DVD?

Thanks,
Mike

Steve
I appreciate your exposition on what is a complex and somewhat controversial subject.
You make a good case for the durability of AVCHD.
I certainly would not rule out the possibility that I might someday switch over to editing HD in native formats.
However, presently I have a work flow with CF that is quick, and an absolute no brainer.
I can easily mix material that was originally in different formats from different cameras.
I get splendid, predictable, consistant results no matter how involved the project is, or what sort of delivery is required. It's like- if it ain't broke, why fix it.
Maybe I'm sort of like the kid who is asking his mother about the stars and planets. She says "Why don't you ask your father- after all, he's an astronomer"
Kid replys "I don't want to know THAT much about it" :)

Render has at least two meanings:

1) Render FX, means perform the FX math on the RGB/YUV frames. No compression is used -- the frames are only displayed.

2) Render FX, means perform the FX math on the RGB/YUV frames AND compress the resulting frames to a file. One would never compress using any long-GOP codec.

Thus, during editing, one would not "render" to AVCHD.

During EXPORT, however, one can certainly compress to AVCHD. Many call exporting "rendering" which it is. But, rending during export can be to ANY codec.

PS: "It's like- if it ain't broke, why fix it." That's true, but most modern NLEs already let you mix anything on a Timeline. That's what's called an "open timeline." All the sources are native. They can be SD and HD. They can be progressive and interlaced. They can have different frames sizes. They can even have different frame rates.

Now I'm not claiming you can do these things with Premiere. The code base for CS5 -- with the exception of CUDA -- is still the old old Premiere Pro with bug fixes. So YOU may need to use CF. I'm only saying the reason you gave for using CF is not valid. And, the CineForm marketing materials have not been valid for years -- and are really not valid with CUDA.

And, while nothing may be broken, transcoding to CF is a huge waste of time and space because you have CUDA.

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I am curious about the report of gamma issues. Is this all AVCHD? Just Sony? Just Pana? Just Canon? Just 24Mbs? It if it's so major, why hasn't Adobe fixed it by now?

Transcoding to CF on today's systems is way faster than RT and can be done directly off of the camera card if you want to cut it to the minimum. Time is not a real issue.
As for space- space is the cheapest part of this whole deal anymore. That's hardly a problem either.

Thanks Steve.

Little by little I am learning, although I have a long ways to go. It will take me at least 5 more times reading your post before it begins to become somewhat clearer. I am, after all, a very slow learner. I do appreciate your patience and explanations. Thanks again.
Mike

Good call on the technology of native format editing.
I have been quite underestimating the process and it's potential.
This little discussion has been an eye opener for me- I appreciate your patience.

By the way, I am surprised at how long it takes to read AVCHD files WITHOUT conversion. And that's because as each file is read, it is processed to yield two additional files. One has non-video data and the other I suspect is a "hint" or "index" file that NLEs can use for editing.

Even Sony Vegas processes the data during import and creates a waveform file.

Bottom-line, native editing may well not be faster than is conversion to an Intermediate file.

And, in favor of intermediate editing, those without CUDA, will find it difficult to edit more than one stream with no more than 1 second transitions. EDIUS does very well, but you need four real cores -- maybe 8 cores.

So now that I've probably confused folks, let me sort it out. Native IMHO is better, but only if you have a monster computer -- which means not a laptop. Intermediate editing can use a far less powerful computer, but you need tons of storage -- which once again is not a laptop.

For those of us with laptops, 720p30 is a better match because each frame is half as big. Laptops simply aren't ready for 720p60 or 1080p30. It will take several more years to get 6 to 8 real cores in a laptop. And, it will likely burn your lap. :)

So far, with my MBP, I've found the free copy of Vegas running under XP under Bootcamp on a 2.53GHz I5 to be "reasonable" -- assuming you like editing with Vegas.My other favorite is far from free. Avid Media Composer v5 is REALLY sweet. It is now far more like FCP -- without FCP's negatives. For the classically trained editor, MC is very intuitive. For someone without decades of editing, Vegas is likely to be EZ to learn.

I am a premiere pro cs3 user and bought canopus edius pro specifically to handle my dslr footage on my 3 year old pc, importing those native 1080p files and dragging and dropping it onto the timeline is just a matter of seconds. Right after that I can view my footage, not in realtime though but sufficient to do some very rough cutting.

I mainly edit with Edius 5.5 but also have Vegas 8 and Vegas 9 as well as CS3 on the PC at the moment. The philosophy of Edius is to always edit at the choosen project properties. If that is 1920x1080 then the output is always 1920x1080. This made earlier versions of Edius not work with AVCHD as there was too much processor power needed with the then software algorithms. Vegas from Vegas 8 would edit AVCHD native by reducing the preview resolution to maintain frame rate of project or one can select the preview resolution and frame rate will drop based on PC power/resources.

My sources are from SR11, XR500 and NX5U both Edius 5.5 and Vegas will edit these native if there is only one track on my Q9450 quad core, 8G RAM running WIN Vista 64. For multicam I still need to encode to the Canopus HQ intermediate but I am aware that those with faster processors can do multicam native now in Edius 5.5.

I agree with Steve that native is preferable and went this way with HDV as soon as the editors were able which for Vegas and Edius was some time ago. I will also go full native for AVCHD as soon as I get a PC upgrade.

What one must look at though is the quality of the conversions through to the output. For editing the conversion is to RGB/YUV for preview but for export the conversion is from source through to selected output format. It may well be that choosing intermediates at some point leads to a better outcome depending on the NLE. As an example I prefer TMPGenc encode so I export a HQ file from Edius and do my encoding for discs in TMPGenc.

Ron Evans