Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

DSLR's seem daunting with the length of capture time. Don't they only get 22mins of continuous capture on a memory card? Seems like a hassle? Not against the idea...but I think they are a bit out of my "upgrade" budget. But again...this is the first time in YEARS that I have been poking around to see what's out there and what the current prices are.

Lots to take in at once!

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

That would depend on the size of the memory card ;) We use 32GB cards mostly and get around 88mins or so. What you may be thinking of is the continuous recording time (after which it stops and you have to press record again). Some cameras it's as low as 12mins, others it's 29m59s. Using DSLR means you also need a separate audio recorder otherwise you lose audio when ever the camera stops, and DSLR audio is not that great anyway.

However, while DSLRs are gorgeous, and much better than traditional camcorders in lower light conditions they are a LOT harder work, and I do mean a LOT. They are not for the faint heated by any means, and if you like to set a camera and leave it alone then DSLRs may not be for you. Combine that with the shallow depth of field that everyone craves for (for the 'film' look) not giving you much latitude if people don't start where they are supposed to (unattended camera) or keep moving about and they can be a major PITA.

Also, while some DSLRs (e.g. 550D / T2i) can look cheap to buy initially, you'll soon end up wanting some nice fast prime lenses which cost way more than the camera themselves and...well it's a slippery slope ;)

If the final quality worth it? Absolutely. Are they for everyone? No.

We shoot with a combination of video cameras (Canon XF100s) and DSLRs (5D3). We have enough of each that we can shoot entire weddings one one or the other, or we can combine them where needed to give us lots of unattended cameras and flexibility of moving around with the others. The most we've shot with recently has been 6 cameras (thanks to multicam editing it's a no brainer sometimes). We also have 768GB of card capacity so that we can shoot back to back weddings without having to erase the first day's cards in order to shoot next day!

For any one looking to operate DSLRs in an unattended mode but haven't seen this yet - check out the CamRanger ( CamRanger | Wireless DSLR Remote Control Tether for iPad ). I'm hoping to pick on up in the next couple of weeks, but we'll see.

Kelsey, you say this is a second job, so hopefully you aren't relying on all the money to live on. With that in mind, I'd be thinking about how long term you plan on doing this. Buying gear now, only to find it's not quite what you want, selling it and buying different gear gets expensive. It's worth taking your time to get this right, notwithstanding the fact that your current gear is depreciating by the day (isn't all gear!!!).

Try to find people using your proposed gear as their main camera for weddings. A lot of people are happy to use them as their second/third/fourth camera, but then have a better camera as their main camera operated more in manual mode. Get some examples of weddings shot on this kind of camera in low light. Almost any camera can look great in good light, but winter weddings in dark churches or speeches in candle lit venues have a nasty habit of making the gear look like what it really is, 'consumer quality'.

While the consumer cameras appear at first to do an awesome job in low light, what they are actually doing it applying massive noise reduction and then boosting saturation to give a very plastic smeared appearance with drastically reduced detail. Of course, the B+G could well be happy with what ever they get and it may not be an issue for you.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Sony SLT's, NEX's and their P&S line do 29.59 minutes, and can restart. There are potential heat issues with some models on longer clips, and they are a different "animal". Unless you spend for "fast" glass, low light may or may not be better than a good videocam. But they serve a purpose and tend to provide a bit higher production value to the footage, maybe pay for themselves if you can raise prices? I already had a good comfort level with an SLR, so it's not a big leap for me, but for some it can be tough!

As for the computer, took a gander at cpubenchmarks, you'll be struggling with a Core2Quad platform, and likely underpowered to work with 60p video, unless everything else is pretty optimal - this is where sometimes a newer system has some advantages as it might be better optimized for video. I'd at least have it in your "budget" to upgrade that as well.


@ Dave - I think that's not a fair characterization of ALL consumer cams. MAYBE lower end ones? I know I've not been impressed by some of the footage I've seen from Panasonics in "low light", but I've seen other footage that looked fine - maybe operator error is a larger factor in the end quality than the camera?

No camera can take footage of a black cat in a dark room at midnight with no moon... but with even a tiny bit of light, I can get more than acceptable quality with my Handycams...

I've seen side by side comparisons of small cams with more expensive cams, and done a few myself over the years - you're not typically getting 2-4X "better" images, commensurate with the costs of the cameras, usually it's more of a "pixel peeping" single digit percentage. There is a reason many people use small cams for secondary angles, and sometimes you realize the "image" of the big cam isn't worth the extra $$ if you want to meet your market and make a few $, but a few smaller cams do the trick.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Well, I can tell from experience that if I put a f2.8 lens on my 550d and use the standard profiles and set it at 1600 iso my cx730 outperforms my dslr in low light

Not necessarily true, if you get some Samyang lenses as they are cheaper then the body and a few about the same price.

Again, my cx730 can be placed side by side with my 550d when it gets dark, it even is close to a f1.4 lens on my 550d and using 1600 iso. You can squeeze more low light performance out of a dslr by using the technicolor cinestyle preset, use higher gains and use neatvideo to clean up but don't underestimate those top level small handicams. I bet they even outperform your xf100 in low light. I am against any form of image clean up as it is too time consuming, I don't have to use neatvideo on my cx730 but have been using it more then once on my 550d.

F.i. I"m filming a dance play today and used my nex ea50 with the stock lens as I have to zoom to reframe, the ea50 is a tiny bit better then my 550d in low light if you use the standard profiles on both camera's, the stock lens is a slower one but yesterday during the rehearsals I saw the cx730 put the ea50 to shame and I even have to use the cx730 as a main camera today and put the ea50 as B-cam. Even with teh gain turned all teh way up on the cx730 stays sharper then my 550d and retains color equally good, if not better.
A few days ago I was filming in a church and had a f2.8 lens on my ea50, I needed to go to 5000iso to match my cx730 at it's highest gain, only then the ea50 was noisier and just a little bit sharper, the ea50 has a sharper image then my 550d.

If your previous camera was a gl2 the image quality on a cx730 will be better in every way, so can't see how any client would have an issue with that.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Yep, the 7xx series Sonys are pretty tough to beat when it comes to clean low light performance... definitely better than the VG20/stock lens, or the A65/A77, even with a "fast" prime. They lose some as you zoom in, but that's going to be true on any camera due to lens physics.

There are plenty of "bargain" lenses out there for Sony A mount, I'm sure there are options for other cameras/mounts... but Lens Acquisition Syndrome is always a "risk"! One can pick up an A57 body and something like an 18-200 and maybe a fast 50mm fairly reasonably (used) and have a good still/video camera.


Camera technology has changed a lot since tape based SD... even cell phones are capable of surprisingly good results in many cases nowadays... so I'm sure Kelsey will be "impressed", it's just a matter of finding a happy place between "new toys" and "budget" that makes good business sense.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Noa, I can agree that the 550D is not great. Had one for a while and sold it along with the 60D and 7D. I only kept the 5D2 bodies and then eventually replaced them with 5D3. Now, if you put your camcorder next to the 5D3 I guarantee a whole new story. I can use the 5D3 quite happily at ISO6400 and beyond.

Also, I'd like to bet the camcorder you are using is applying massive NR, which the 550D isn't, but it can be added in post. With the 550D I topped out at about ISO800. After that it was too noisy for me.

The result is, I don't recommend the 550D for weddings, though some people use them quite happily. Coupled with magic lantern and a grip it worked quite well for an unattended camera for a while but I got tired of the not-so-sharp pictures coming from it, even with primes.

The 60D's only good point is the swivel screen. The white balance adjustment is buried in the menus so you can't see the picture as it changes colour. Again, I topped out at about ISO800 on this one then it got too noisy without NR.

The 7D was useful, but only up to about ISO1250 then it got to the point I was wanting to de-noise it.

The 5D2 was useful up to about ISO2000 and then I had to start de-noising..

The 5D3 is unbelievable and I've used shots up to ISO6400 without NR and pushed it to 12,800 with a slight kiss from neat video and it's been totally useable! The only gotcha with the 5D3 is it does need some sharpening in post.

We live in interesting times. I can't imagine what we're going to be like in 5 years, with the likes of the 1Dc showing the way things are going....

Oh, and the Nikon D800 was sharper than any of the Canon bodies straight out of camera, but it starts to get noisy around ISO1600 and is not really usable beyond ISO2500. Sold it.

Quite simply, unless you're in love with the DSLR look and are wiling to put up with the much harder workflow I don't recommend the DSLR route to any one. Camcorders can produce fine looking footage and are much easier to use on the day (in general, subject to their on-camera controls of course).

Small handycams don't look as professional, but they are certainly more discreet. OTOH, audio is always my biggest complaint with small handy cams and I've almost never used audio from them (or DSLR) in a final production.

I should perhaps reiterate that my little Canon HF G10 doe an amazing job in low light, or at least that's what it appears to do at first sight. Once you start watching it at 1080p you see 'why' it looks so good. It's had massive NR applied which robs it of all the fine details. If those details aren't important to you then small handycams are just great!

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

SLR/SLT is harder to work with, but the results may be worth it. It's worth looking into if you're making a big gear change anyway and have some prior SLR experience. It's a tool that can be handy to have in the toolkit.

I'm familiar with how Canon handles certain "details" from a brief stint with the HV20, that's why I'm shooting the Sonys. I'm sure there is some "digital magic" taking place to keep a fairly clean image even gained up, but I prefer the way Sonys handle, when the lighting is difficult, over Panasonic and Canon... it's a matter of opinion, each brand has it's "look", but I prefer the way the Sonys "look", some like Canon, still others Panasonic. Just because your camera smears or mushes up the details in low light (not uncommon) doesn't mean the next cam does the same. I know the HV was short lived in my lineup because of that general problem...

As far as audio, I'm presuming Kelsey is using some form of dual audio already... camera audio is somewhat of a non-issue when what you need is a "point" audio recording close to the source - the many options to achieve this have been well discussed, but the ability of the camera to record the ambient sound in its immediate vicinity is probably a very small factor in choosing a camera (though I don't like the audio from the SLT's very much, fine for sync but that's about it to my ears!).

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Kelsey shoots documentary style, shoots alone, currently has a gl2 and a limited budget, so I don't think we should even be discussing a 5dIII, with a set of lenses to cover all focal lengths you are easily looking at 5 times the price of what I paid for my cx730. For that extra money I would be fully equipped to handle any kind of wedding. I might even get a cx730, a pana ag ac90 and a set of audiorecorders and still be cheaper off.

Who cares if your output is good? I did add a beachtek adapter and a cheap chinees shouldermount and a hoodloupe so I have a much better grip when going handheld and I can assure you, you will never get that stable shots handheld like I can do handheld with a sony cx that have those magic eyeball.

I always say, it's not the camera, it's the person behind it that makes the difference, not to show off but just look at following video. all slider and tripod shots where done with a cx730 and only the steadicam shots with a dslr, all audio was external and the interviews at the end was with my beachtek adapter. They ask me every year again to shoot that event eventough the guys doing the live projection work with ex1's and a pmw350. When I shot the presentation on the stage the guy with the pmw350 and a tvlogic monitor attached was sitting beside me and I had my cx730 alone on a manfrotto tripod. No that looked plain silly next to his beast of a camera, I had about 500 business men sitting behind me so they could clearly see me. Did that bother me? Not anymore and given the fact that they ask me year after year means they don't care about the size of the camera either, only about what I deliver.


For me a camera is only a tool and a cx730 is a very versatile one, would I use it for every shoot? No, I would use my dslr's if I"m doing steadicam or want to get creative shots, I use my ea50 if I want to have controll and better audio capabilities and if I"m working for a client that would not accept a handicam, unfortunately size does matter in some businesses and they like to see that they paid for a bigger camera, then I still would have a cx730 will be in my backpack and my dslr's just in case.

I think anyone working with 5dIII, c100, fs100 and up will tell this and they are basically right,all mentioned camera's are better, no doubt, but it doesn't mean you can't do any weddings or events with it, I do and if you have a limited budget they will serve you as well as any camera, you only need to work around it's limitations (like you have to do with any dslr) and make the most of what you can afford. Give some talented guys a few gopros, let them shoot a wedding and the client might find it better then what the untalented would produce with his c300 camera.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Went and looked at the camera today. Frankly I was impressed. I brought my own memory card and filmed in a bunch of conditions etc. Now I just need to upload it and see what I end up with and if it's workable.

I agree with Noah...I have seen people use AWESOME cameras and end up with shitty results.

I have a good eye. I can edit together a nice piece. I just need a BETTER camera.

Remember my goal here is NOT to end up with the BEST on the market...my goal is to walk away with BETTER than I am using now. Even with this antiquated equipment I am still getting bookings. People like my work. I just want to UPgrade.

I would say that the camera I looked at is as good if not better in low light situations. My real concern at this point is what kind of audio I am going to get from it??

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Noa that piece is very well put together. Nice job.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

OK, so the camera "impressed"... that's a good start. In all honesty, you SHOULD be impressed by a newer camera when compared tor tech that's as old as the GL's, there's been a lot of changes in that time!

What is your current audio setup? These little cameras do a fairly good job of picking up "ambient" audio, and you can mount a shotgun or interface a wireless. But you'd still probably want a couple small digitial recorders with lavs for specific audio capture, sync it in post?

I guess what you have now and your specific concerns will help us cover that aspect....

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Hey Kelsey....

I'm in much the same boat as you..
Again, asking yourself "what kind of wedding" will better answer your question.

Run'n'gun is a tough gig, and without a team of DSLR shooters with $10000 in equipment, it's almost impossible to "keep up with the Jones'".

The DSLR's are great but out of budget (from what i gathered).
I personally believe the Panasonic AF100 offers the best versatility, in regards to DSLR/Video options...
An affordable Panasonic GH2 still camera is great as second camera, since they're essentially the same chip.

I didn't want to mention any camera names, since there's a plethora of styles and names. But since everybody's chiming in, perhaps I'm allowed the same freedom..
Last year's steadicam pilot purchase set me back a few bucks, but if i stay in the game any longer, than the Panasonic AF100 is my next goto camera...

Good luck..

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Hi Peter

Being a solo shooter without a team at my disposal I tried DSLR's but really found then tough to use on your own !! I also use a huge amount of handheld work and a tiny DSLR was hard to use in run 'n gun.

Without a doubt, the easiest camera to use is something you can flick onto full auto and concentrate on the shoot rather than the camera and DSLR's do require a lot of attention so try to also get a camera that can look after itself!! The CX can do that too.

I also thrive on shoulder mount cameras for my extensive handheld work so I stayed with Panasonic HMC80's for 4 odd years.... I looked at the AF100 but it also looks like it needs a lot of operator attention and running two cameras I knew that wouldn't work so I opted for Sony's new EA-50 (Noa has one too)

That way you have either a handheld or shoulder mount camera and the facilities of both a video camera and a DSLR (the 50 has an APSC sensor) For me that was a really good compromise!

Chris

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Hey, yeah Chris..Seems like there's plenty of us in the same boat.
This Sony looks like a gem also. I've kept out of the game for the last few months, and have had my horse blinders on for a while. Think i'll have to re-asses what's out there.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Hey Noah

Did you use 'Presto' for FCP or APPro for the suply chain awards?

I am covering a smaller but similar event and will use Panasonic ac90 and TM900 to cover it and was looking at the software plugin presto by red giant yesterday

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

I forgot to mention that the shallow dof shot at the evening reception where also dslr but I guess that was obvious, it's not only Sony that can deliver but also Canon and Panasonic have great little camera's that each have their own strengths and can output an image that rivals much more expensive smaller chip fixed lens camera's. They only have their limited control with missing physical buttons as main disadvantage.

Beside my cx730 I used canon 550d's which do the job but I would not recommend Kelsey to step into that arena, especially if your shooting style is documentary, in that case small chip, large dof camera's are much more forgiving.

At the event I showed I had a tascam dr40 which was connected to the audio mixer to record the voices on the stage and the interviews was done with my beachtek adapter and my audio technica (at897) microphone that was connected with a xlr cable, the cx730 was connected and mounted onto the beachtek. At weddings I have additional recorders like a zoom h1, yamaha c24, iriver and all with clip on lav mic attached to them.

2 day's ago I did a dance performances with my 2 cx730 and it turned out great, my nex ea50 went along as I needed a live feed from the audio mixer and the image from that camera was noisier at 3200 iso compared to my cx730 at 21db gain where once you donwnconvert to dvd you can't see any grain at all.

For me if I do weddings, business events and dance performances those handicams have been the best investment yet, only if I need more real time control and a better image I"ll use a bigger and/or better camera. If you have a limited budget, do documentary style video the current top end handicam line can do the job, I also would like to have two 5DIII, two c300's and a bmc camera in my backpack but as long as I can't afford that I will happily use my current camera set up and use each camera to what it was designed for.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

What does this software do? I did all editing in edius 6.5 pro with no extra plugin.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Thx :) it was not my intention to show off but I was very satisfied with the result, and I just wanted to show that handicams can have a place in documentary style of productions. I agree that you certainly can't use them on any production, often you need control, or good audio as direct feed into the camera, or just a professional camera that outputs a better image overall.

But for weddings, certain business events and certain dance performances they can be used if you are working alone and they output an image that doesn't have to look like it was done by an amateur on holiday.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Hi Kelsey,

I have been following and participating in this thread, and maybe I missed it, but I did not see what NLE you work with. While your current Core2 Quad 9300 processor might work just fine with DV footage, I think you will be very disappointed with trying to edit AVCHD or DSLR HD clips with that 5-year-old PC technology. You'd be lucky if those formats even play smoothly in the timeline. Rendering and exporting will be excrutiatingly slow. Sorry. Also, if your NLE software is a few years old, it may not even support all of the latest video formats. A new camera purchase could be putting the cart before the horse.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Yeah, even my Core i7 920 is starting to "feel" sluggish, and some software doesn't play 60p smoothly (but other software DOES!?! Probably CODEC issues somewhere!). I'm nearing the dreaded "refresh/reinstall" cycle, and beginning to debate whether there should be some new "iron" under the hood before I do...

It's interesting though, that a little Core 2 Duo Alienware handles 60p video playback rather nicely when the
gaming video chip is invoked. It's tricky getting the right combination of parts, and it's obvious that since video has become more pervasive, some of the components are being optimized for video so it might even be that a "plain vanilla" 2013 machine will "do" video just fine - technology marches forward...

We've all been mentioning the entire workflow shift, it's a BIG leap from SD MiniDV tape to HD 60p AVCHD - each frame will be a minimum of 4x the data points, and even more when shooting progressive at 28MBps... AVCHD takes a lot of horsepower to decompress on the fly, as it's unpacking a lot of data in the process.

I think we should also mention that that 1Tb HDD that likely was huge (if a Q9300 even had that big a storage drive?), is now going to be eaten quickly. Even with compression, you're looking at much larger files for the same length of clip if you stick to the highest settings. Storage capacity will almost certainly need to be enlarged with the "upgrade".

All of these things are good reasons to keep the camera budget as reasonable as possible, so there's money left for the other parts of the workflow... the desire to update and have a better product shouldn't break the bank!

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

I actually shot some footage on my own memory card to test at home and see what I need to "tweak" for a smooth work-flow. I use Premiere Pro so an upgrade to 6 was neccessary (just got the trial for this purpose). Aside from a SLIGHTLY longer rendering time I didn't encounter any glitches.

One interesting thing about this camera...you basically "star" some footage as you are shooting (bride prep, key ceremony moments, some photo shoot clips) then while you are eating your steak tartare you press a button and the camera creates a "Highlight Clip" complete with transitions and music. You press another button and the camera projects the Highlight video on the wall.

Same day edit while you are eating dessert! Clearly "in theory" it sounds interesting but could be a piece of junk to watch?? Still an amazing little feature!

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

The main problem is to read the avchd files as that is still mainly up to the processor to handle this, your processor is the absolute minimum to handle avchd, I used to have a q6600 processor and that was just barely able to play 1 stream of avchd video in realtime in edius 6, your set up is a bit faster so you probably are ok as long as you do one stream only.
I have a I7 950 and currently I"m editing a multicam shoot (3 camera's) of native avchd 2.0 1080p 50p footage in realtime in edius 6.5, adding a 4th stream is too much for my system but since I never use more then 3 camera's my set up can cope just fine.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

That's good news except.... CS6 introduced a new AVCHD bug which only effects SOME cameras. I know that some Canon and some Sony cameras are effected, but of course I don't know it yours is one of them.

Everything runs perfectly for shorter clips, but if you come back with a longer clip (e.g. a ceremony or speeches) then Premiere Pro basically disappears up it's own backside trying to play the file.

Adobe don't seem motivated to fix this problem. I reported it back in May 2012 and sent sample footage which they acknowledged showed the problem exactly. Since then, no updates to fix it. Lots of other people have the problem to.

So, before you get too much further down the line, see if you can get a full 30-50 minute clip and see how it plays from (say) 30 mins in until the end. If all is well then you are good to go. If not, you may have to find a workaround (which generally means either re-wrapping it or transcoding it).

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

That I can't understand, they are probably busy making and spending too much time and money on advertisments trying to get as much new clients in as possible. For a piece of software costing that much acknowledged and repeatable bugs should be dealt with an update asap, not one year later. Probably it will be dealt with in a new paying update.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

CRAP! Is there a list of what cameras are effected??

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Sorry, it's not in Adobe's interest to promote lists like that so we only have scattered lists from people complaining on Adobe's own forums. I am just one amongst many.

@Kelsey: The problem only exhibits itself with spanned clips. AVCHD clips are limited in size due to the cards using FAT32, so once they reach the max size they start a new file, and when that one get's too big another one and so on. The metadata the goes along with the AVCHD video files tells the NLE which clips to play as one long clip and while ones are individual. It seems that Panasonic files don't have the problem but some (possibly all) Canon files do and some (not sure if it's all) Sony files do. The only real way to find out if yours is one that's effected is to try it, or find some one else who has one who can try it.

@Noa: Adobe claim it's caused by a 3rd party supplied codec, but if it were me I'd be on the phone every single day asking where the fix was and, oh, that payment you wanted? Sorry, we're withholding payment until you fix the bug!

All the complaints on the Adobe forums died down after about 6 months, not because we got a fix, but because nothing happened and we got no updates. There's only so many times you can post a complaint over and over.

It effectively stopped me using my Canon HF G10 for long shoots if I knew I was going to edit in Premiere Pro because the footage was basically unusable.

You can't blame the camera though, every other piece of software I have, such as FCPX and Premiere Pro CS5.5 (!!!!!) plays it fine. The bug was introduced in CS6.0.

If Adobe tell us it's "fixed" in the "next version" but we have to pay for the upgrade there are going to be a LOT of unhappy people.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

I had a Sony HXR-MC2000E as a B cam but it wasn't really that good so after looking around i've identified this a PJ760 (a CX
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/858085-EG/Sony_HDR_PJ760E_96_GB_HDR_PJ760E_Flash.html almost the same as a NX30 except for the audio but a lot cheaper.
It might be a good small cam for the OP to consider.
and yeah a new computer is probably required!

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

If the budget is really tough you can also edit AVCHD footage on a DuoCore if you are prepared to transcode it down to HDV MPEG2 ...you won't see any difference in the footage (not visually anyway). I used my DuoCore exclusively when I first went the HD route ...AVCHD files simply stalled Sony Vegas on my DuoCore so I used to transcode using Upshift and the resulting HDV files ran sweetly... admittedly your render times will still be slow (typically around 8X realtime so a 20 minute clip could take nearly 3 hours to render down to MPEG2 SD but at least it works ...weddings just took longer to edit.

Once I upgraded to an i7 machine things were a lot easier..no transcoding and clips render in about 1/3rd real time so my 20 minute ceremont that took 3 hours was done in around 6 or 7 minutes.

However it can be done on a DuoCore until you do some more weddings and make some extra cash to upgrade the computer

Chris

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Dave do you know of a Windows app that will re-wrap AVCHD files without transcoding? There are a few I've found for Mac but none for Windows :/

Pete

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

I'm not Dave but I think that what you are looking for is WinRewrap FATPIGtures Software

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

@Dave P -

Are you talking about a glitch at the stitch point? Typically caused by trying to drag clips into the NLE rather than importing them using the manufacturers software to import? There is also a little standalone program to perform a proper stitch that was flaoting around here on DVi.

You can't just drag clips from the camera for some reason (ran into it early on with a Sony, using their software to import solves the problem). It makes sense that you SHOULD be able to, but something about the AVCHD format keeps it from working that way - I know the Sony required the last clip to complete the earlier clips and stitch them properly, otherwise the earlier clips wouldn't play properly...

In short, I don't think its an NLE issue (Vegas wouldn't handle clips right out of the cam either), but rather an AVCHD workflow/import issue.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

NO. Premiere Pro has a bug there once you get in to the second clip, it keeps opening the first clip and appears to have to read through that entire clip again. Once you get to the third clip it opens both first and second clip and has to re-read those. And so on.

I've never dragged the clips in directly and always imported them the official Adobe way via the media browser.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

OK, "importing" via the NLE rather than using the manufacturer software to recombine the clips into one on import might be where the problem is, yours sounds similar to the issues I had with Vegas.

Not sure what it is, but those 2G AVCHD sections of longer clips really need to be "stitched" before bringing them into the edit, all sorts of odd problems if you leave them in pieces.

I've had NO problems once I imported with Sonys software, which does the stitching so you have a single clip rather than 2G "chunks". What I was able to determine was that the "sub clips" created when AVCHD exceeds that 2G file limit have "reference" information to allow import software to correctly reconstruct the original single long clip/file (since the computer doesn't have file size limitations), but the way the subfiles are tagged makes them so they don't "read" as a proper file, so you may or may not get predictable playback of the subclips if they have not been "reconstructed".

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

That sounds like your software is re-wapping it then?

Even some re-wrapped clips still exhibited the problem. For instance, using ClipWrap to re-wrap the files in to a single file didn't fix it. Nor did using the re-wrapped file that FCPX created. These work flawlessly in in other apps for but some reason Premiere Pro still had problems.

My understanding was there was a Windows utility that produced re-wraped files that worked perfectly, but I can't recall it's name. ClipWrap may have been updated by now too - you'd have to check.

What I found was that "sometimes" you could ingest using Prelude and transcode to ProRes (or other chose format) and "most" of the time things went fine, but "some" of the time it would go belly up just like Premiere Pro. It became so much of a lottery that in the end I gave us using AVCHD in Premiere Pro and either transcoded it to ProRes (using FCPX), edited it in FCPX, or just didn't use that camera.on the shoot.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

I've heard it called "stitching" - it's really just the importing software re-connecting the subclips into a single clip - the problem arises if you are trying to bring in the SUB clips, you'll have problems at the 2G "break" points - and/or with the clips individually.

For Sony at least, just use their (badly named, Windows only) "Play Memories Home" to import, you'll have perfectly "stitched" full length files, no matter how many 2G "subclips" you started with on the camera media.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

How is 'stitching' different to re-wrapping it in to one file ?

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Presto is a plugin for premier pro which allows you to sync multicam editing automatically

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Kelsey, you mentioned that you test "the camera". Which camera did you test? I am in a similar situation as I have been shooting with Canon HF G30 camcorders and would like to upgrade.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

This is a thread of more then a year old and if I"m right Kelsey's last post on this forum also dates back over a year.

Re: Upgrade neccesary for weddings?
 

Almost 2 years... it's 2015... probably a new thread would be better for getting answers?