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Gear / Technical Help => Photo / Video Recording => Topic started by: fanofthemule on August 13, 2010, 09:52:41 AM
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What is everyone using to edit AVCHD video? I'm working on putting together a computer that will be dedicated to editing video and know the HD / AVCHD formats need some pretty good juice to properly process.
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What is everyone using to edit AVCHD video? I'm working on putting together a computer that will be dedicated to editing video and know the HD / AVCHD formats need some pretty good juice to properly process.
Are you planning on a PC or MAC build?
- kobi.
liveween.com (http://liveween.com)
WEENTV (http://ween.com/weentv)
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I'm using very modest dual 1.6 GHz CPU WIN Vista 32 bit PC, 5400 Rpm WD/Seagate Sata drives, and Cyberlink's PowerDirector 8 editor. Works well, but seems slow for some AVCHD endering functions
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My desktop is:
Intel Core I7 920@2.67ghz
6.0 gb Ram
64bit operating system
I have been capturing with Adobe Premier Pro, and Editing in Sony Vegas 9. Premier pro doesn't seem to have the problem of splitting up my footage in to separate non-seemless clips. Vegas seems more user friendly to me.
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What is everyone using to edit AVCHD video? I'm working on putting together a computer that will be dedicated to editing video and know the HD / AVCHD formats need some pretty good juice to properly process.
Are you planning on a PC or MAC build?
- kobi.
liveween.com (http://liveween.com)
WEENTV (http://ween.com/weentv)
PC
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For avchd you will need at the very least a quad core amd phenom 2.5 ghz or higher with a 64 bit operating syrtem with at least 4gb of ram.I would recommend 8gb of ram .OR core i7 processor with 64bit OS and 8gb of ram.
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For avchd you will need at the very least a quad core amd phenom 2.5 ghz or higher with a 64 bit operating syrtem with at least 4gb of ram.I would recommend 8gb of ram .OR core i7 processor with 64bit OS and 8gb of ram.
thats an awful lot of processing power. guysonic has far less than that and processes videos without issues, according to him.
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For avchd you will need at the very least a quad core amd phenom 2.5 ghz or higher with a 64 bit operating syrtem with at least 4gb of ram.I would recommend 8gb of ram .OR core i7 processor with 64bit OS and 8gb of ram.
thats an awful lot of processing power. guysonic has far less than that and processes videos without issues, according to him.
Less processing power will work, but if you are building a new computer, why would you want to build it with less processing power?
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For avchd you will need at the very least a quad core amd phenom 2.5 ghz or higher with a 64 bit operating syrtem with at least 4gb of ram.I would recommend 8gb of ram .OR core i7 processor with 64bit OS and 8gb of ram.
do i need to worry about the integrated vs dedicated video card? i plan to use this cpu for video only so there won't be any other programs on it other than my editing stuff
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I would go with a dedicated video card. In fact I installed two video cards that split the work. A friend of mine builds computers. I can't really explain how it works.
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Im using a Nvidia geforce 9600 with 768mb dedicated memory.You wont need more than 1gb.Dedicated video memory means that percentage of your ram is tied to your video card and cant be used for anything else like rendering etc. And to the other poster avchd comes in different bitrates from 4mbps to 24mbps and i can assure you that to do any high profile avchd multicam editing with 1 or more avchd streams to get anyhere close to 29.97fps you need to meet those specs.Can you work with avchd on a less powerful computer? Yes...but not with full frame rate and surely not with 2 or more cams an hour or more in length.Trust me ive tried it on core 2 duo 2.0ghz with 2gb ram gets about 4fps with 1 cam in draft auto mode.Now drop in a few 24bit audio sources and some color correction...
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I should add my very modest dual 1.6 GHhz system desribed below has only 3 GIG ram (max for the 32 bit OS), but does have a very inexpensive (<$50 usd) .5 GIG 8600GT NVidia capable video card with CUDA processing ability helping to handle some intensive rendering tasks.
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Intel Core I7 920@2.67ghz
16.0 gb Ram
64bit operating system
needless to say I have no issues but rendering isnt the issue - its whether you can playback raw files in real time.
I'd go Quad core too
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I'll chime in.
As for the minimum, like others have said anything you buy new can handle it, but might take ages to render. BUT, if you are looking at doing things like multi cam video then the system demands can go up very fast.
AVCHD uses h264 for the video compression which is a motion compensation based codec. So to render a given frame properly it has to refrence all frames since the last keyframe. This means lots of disk read when you are jumping around within 4 concurrent AVCHD streams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_compensation
My experience was a core i7-920 (Quad, Multi threaded- 8 total threads) , Windows 7 64bit, 8GB of RAM and dedicated video were not enough at times. The big issue for me was disk subsystem performance with multicam AVCHD playback. I was running a single SATA3, 2TB 7200 RPM drive and it was NOT enough. The challenge with AVCHD is, it is a efficient recording CODEC, but not great for the random access to the video stream that editing demands. Frequently when doing a 4 cam video my system would just stop responding when I would cue to another point on the Vegas multicam track. I ended up picking up and converting the entire source video to Cineform and that largely resolved my issues, but disk performance could still be an issue at times even using the purpose built Cineform codec. Dedicated video is not a huge deal even the cheapest dedicated video cards naively accelerate h264 these days. Spending more only improves 3D graphics performance which is mainly for gaming.
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I should add my very modest dual 1.6 GHhz system desribed below has only 3 GIG ram (max for the 32 bit OS), but does have a very inexpensive (<$50 usd) .5 GIG 8600GT NVidia capable video card with CUDA processing ability helping to handle some intensive rendering tasks.
That's why I would recommend nVidia graphic card (with CUDA technology). It helps, I myelf have ATI but you will find one that fits you in any price range from both companies so why not choose the one that is designed to handle video processing.
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Having a video card with h264 abilities(the codec inside AVCHD) will vastly improve things. Assuming supporting OS and drivers. Nvidias Cuda cards are fairly well supported, even in Linux. Plus after market cards come with their own RAM, to beef up even more. Versus the shared RAM of the integrated variety. That being said, you can edit AVCHD on almost any computer now. Just not in real time and in my case more towards the command line approach to script it and forget it. Without a beefy computer it can take me a good 24 hours to render out 2 hours of ONE video track with minimal editing. Multiple cores and loads of RAM as also important. Video editing is one of the few options that are multi-threaded by design. So every little bit of resource can and will be used. You might be able to speed up things by putting the source files on an SSD drive. With your outputs to a different drive. And other options depending on where your bottleneck(s) end up being.
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kind of ass backwards, but right now i'm actually take my AVCHD clips, downgrading them to SD, mixing in SonyVegas 7 w/ Ultimate S plug-in, and once everything is done I open the project in Vegas 9, switch all the files to their according HD file, and then render.
First reason for this is that I don't like Vegas's mixing process without UltimateS, which doesn't work on 9. You don't have that maximum control over every last cut and edit like you do when using UltimateS. Either that or I'm missing something. From all I saw, in Vegas 9 it throws all the videos you want mixed down onto 1 track and you can only cut b/t cams, not do any real special effects.
Second reason is that m y PC is too fucking slow to edit AVCHD
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kind of ass backwards, but right now i'm actually take my AVCHD clips, downgrading them to SD, mixing in SonyVegas 7 w/ Ultimate S plug-in, and once everything is done I open the project in Vegas 9, switch all the files to their according HD file, and then render.
First reason for this is that I don't like Vegas's mixing process without UltimateS, which doesn't work on 9. You don't have that maximum control over every last cut and edit like you do when using UltimateS. Either that or I'm missing something. From all I saw, in Vegas 9 it throws all the videos you want mixed down onto 1 track and you can only cut b/t cams, not do any real special effects.
Second reason is that m y PC is too fucking slow to edit AVCHD
That's a perfectly legitimate technique.
A simplified version of the Offline Edit/Online edit process used by innumerable if not all professional productions. Don't think it's assbackwards or inefficient in any way.
I do a similar thing. I use full HD resolution but low bitrate MPEG2 files to edit with, not SD files, but it's near enough the same.
Edit away to your heart's content on the tiny proxy files, replace footage and leave for days at a time to render if you need to.
Nothing wrong with that.
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I am on a dual core Sony Vaio 1.83ghz machine with 1gig of ram. bought in january 2007.
I use sony Vegas 9 and 10 and I can edit my AVCHD stuff but obviously not in real time. render times are typically 6-8 times longer than the clip.
I too use the proxy file method on larger or more important projects. I usually render to 720p HDV for multicam editing. Once you get used to this method it is fairly easy and since I have a 2nd laptop that makes it easier.
Can someone tell me or recommend a good laptop computer that would work well for multicam AVCHD editing with Sony Vegas 9/10. Can I get something decent under $600? when i look on amazon alot if it is greek to me, my main confusion being which processors work faster.
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I don't render much video in the manner you are planning on, but I do render DVD to AVI and all I can say is a nice Quad Core with 6+ GB of RAM is totally worth it.
Previously I ran a 1.8GHz machine with 4GB of RAM running XP. It would render the DVD's to AVI but took many hours to do so.
Now I'm running a Core2Quad 2.6GHz with 8GB of RAM running Win 7 Pro and it blows right through those files. We're talking an hour max...usually less. I don't do that often so I can't be 100% sure on exact times, but it was a gigantic difference.
So...yes any new computer will do what you want, but I think it's worth it to get something nice.
I don't recall exactly how much I have into my system, but I would wager in the $700 range. I basically went with middle of the road hardware across the board (other than the RAM).
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I am on a dual core Sony Vaio 1.83ghz machine with 1gig of ram. bought in january 2007.
I use sony Vegas 9 and 10 and I can edit my AVCHD stuff but obviously not in real time. render times are typically 6-8 times longer than the clip.
I too use the proxy file method on larger or more important projects. I usually render to 720p HDV for multicam editing. Once you get used to this method it is fairly easy and since I have a 2nd laptop that makes it easier.
Can someone tell me or recommend a good laptop computer that would work well for multicam AVCHD editing with Sony Vegas 9/10. Can I get something decent under $600? when i look on amazon alot if it is greek to me, my main confusion being which processors work faster.
AVCHD is a VERY processor and disk intensive codec. While you CAN edit on pretty much any processor and just accept long render times. Multicam editing means you need near realtime playback. For that the CPU and especially the disk performance become critical. The only thing I can think of on a laptop that might provide that type of performance is a Solid State Drive. My desktop with a very fast traditional Hd did not have the performance I needed for a 4 Cam HD AVCHD edit in Vegas. I really need a RAID array an dedicated RAID controller to get the performance. Any traditional laptop HD is going to be even worse. If I was wanting to multicam AVCHD editing I would not even think about a laptop, I just don't think you can get there performance wise unless you are willing to do proxy editing like others here have suggested.
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You can get a faster desktop cheaper.There are some laptops with just as good specs but cost double as the same specs in a desktop. If you must go with a laptop i would suggest no less than 4gb of ram.intel core i5 processor and windows 7 64bit.i think Acer has the cheapest prices.
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Thanks for the info, it seems like I will stick with proxy files for now. I am used to it.
I like the portability of a laptop, being stuck at a deskop for hours editing doesnt sound like much fun.
I will look into the Acers. I dont need real time avchd playback, i would be happy with 10-15fps playback vs the 2-4 i am getting now
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Just under $600 ,this would be a great laptop compared to what you are using now.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/736176-REG/Acer_LX_R4F02_036_Aspire_AS5742_7653_15_6_Notebook.html
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Just under $600 ,this would be a great laptop compared to what you are using now.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/736176-REG/Acer_LX_R4F02_036_Aspire_AS5742_7653_15_6_Notebook.html
Thanks that looks like a very nice system. I launch as an official company this week, email to over 1500 bands, labels, PR, managers and so forth. Hopefully their is enough response to justify picking up a better computer.