AVCHD Workflow help

[Prof-McAlexander]

Hello all,

I will be migrating to Premiere Pro CS6 from FInal Cut Pro 7 starting this fall for all of my video production classes.  I need some guidance on workflow. 

We currently shoot on Sony NX70u which uses the AVCHD codec producing .MTS files.  I've been working with the native AVCHD files on PP CS6 for a few days now to get acquainted with the workflow and performance on our Macs (some iMacs and some Mac Pro towers) and so far so good.  My question:

I know PP CS6 will work with the native AVCHD files, but I'm worried about performace issues with my Macs.  Is there any reason to transcode the AVCHD files to another codec before editing in PP?  I guess I'm still in the Final Cut Pro-Log and Transfer mode of thinking about files

Cheers,

Micheal

[excited_Genie16B8]

it is also too long wihtout official information

Then maybe it's good you try something else.  Adobe is a publicly traded company, and there are rules about what they can communicate and when.  They never really say much of anything until something is ready to release.  If you find that vexing, then you probably won't be happy saying with Adobe.

Of course, both Sony and Apple are also publicly traded companies, so...

[ACT.onn]

Yasonline wrote:

I think with the price of these softwares we deserve at least an answer, if not, I think I should really start to move away. The time cumulated of my team lost with this problem is far beyond the price of this useless software....

The price of this software? Are you not a Cloud Subscriber? $50 a month for all these apps? That is $600 a year. When the full master collection is $2,599.00 you are saving 1999 and getting more than what the master collection can offer. I understand that employees sitting and waiting for a bug fix is also costing but there are other alternatives. My project was way past due and I also tired of waiting for Adobe to fix it. I decided to see if I could just convert the footage some other way. I ended up finding an MTS converter that did the trick.

I changed my footage to something that Premiere wouldn’t trip over and I finished the project. It stinks that I had to pay out another $30 for a third party program but now I don’t have to keep the customer waiting, wasting time trying to find a hardware combination to get around the problem or rely on a slow bug fix cycle from Adobe.

I am not letting Adobe off the hook however; this bug needs to be fixed. Even if they have to put some pressure on companies that make the cameras to see if they can do some sort of firmware fix for those cameras affected or create a team of programmers just for this one problem. This should have been fixed days after they knew about it as AVCHD is a widely used format.

The amount of time and money you are going to spend retraining and meeting the requirements of other packages can be saved by $30.

[UlfLaursen]

Which converter utility did you get?

Thanks

/Ulf

[josephs51576386]

I haven't had any issues with my own .MTS files however, my friend told me about a program called MTS.Merger that merges your mts files for you, so if your issue is spanned media it will solve it. The program is PC only though. If you want I can PM you a download link. Since it's only merging the files it doesn't actually touch the video, it also joins the video flawlessly just like when you import via the media browser, except it actually spits out a single complete file AVCHD MTS file.

[UlfLaursen]

It's not bad - I have used it for HDV files as well with fies off a fire store unit.

Ulf

[UlfLaursen]

Btw. You can get it here:

http://vontraining.net/download/

Ulf

[josephs51576386]

Ahh very cool my friend sent it to me I never actually checked where he got it from but now I know. I've only ever used it like 3 times though, since I haven't ever had any problems with the HXR-NX5U 1080i footage I use fairly often.

[Yasonline]

Yes we are cloud subscribers. We are even $75 subscribers so we can stop anytime. But I'm stupidily trying to believe the update is coming. But now it is too long, I hate it.

Even to buy a new camera I love to know which camera doesn't have the problem.

Does the Canon XA10 is having the problem also?

Wich MTS converter are you using. I should also try that!! I ll try to be positive again... Yeaahhh!!!!  It is hard but there is no choice I will give again energy to my team saying this converter is the solution. (I hope they won't ask why we have to spend time and money for a bug)

Thre is not retraining in my team, They are young, they want to try everything, and they want to move away from Adobe. I m the one keeping them on it.

Thanks ACT.onn

Yves

[ACT.onn]

Brorsoft MTS Converter

It was the first company that had a listing on Google that had a video converter that said it could do MTS files. That was the Brorsoft Video Converter. however, do not buy the plain Jane do everything Video Converter, instead buy the one made specifically for converting MTSs as the other one has problems with spanned media as well.

Even the MTS convert gives one little blip at the end of a file. I guess that it decimates the interlaced frames in a way that actually chops a about a second off the end of a MTS file. If you have footage from 2 different camera angles as I did that blip doesn't matter as I was on the other camera for those times that footage ended on one.

The video converter has the problem of knowing what to do with the beginning of a file, it seems to hold on a frame a few moments in to the file and then play the video when the audio gets caught up to that frame. At least this was my experience with it.

The great thing is the MTS and Video converter can be used in situations that Adobe can’t handle and I get my work done.

The other reason I post a detail of what I experienced with this software, maybe Adobe will do the smart thing and look at Brorsoft's MTS converter program and see what it does right and fix their software because this other software can give them hints of what it did to resolve the situation.

Additionally the Brorsoft converters can string files together or chop them up as needed. This software was easy for me as having used premiere for as long as I have, I kind of knew what to look for and found all these great features in a very efficient UI.

[UlfLaursen]

It's nice - they have an MXF converter as well.

Ulg

[excited_Genie16B8]

Even to buy a new camera I love to know which camera doesn't have the problem.

The Panasonic GH2 doesn't seem to have any issues.

[jgperez]

AVCHD has swept the serious amateur/prosumer field and the colleges. I can put 5 1024 30p AVCHD cams on an event for the cost of one mediocre 1024i MPG2 field unit. This is an epic fail. College classes are being disrupted by this bug, with the profs promising their students help on getting refunds for their appx. $350 "academic price" CS6 packages. The impact on College courses adventurous enough to stray from the Mac is total.

Adobe, my advice to you is to pull your head out of your butt but keep it between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. You may think you're OK because you put a bullet through your head an you're still here, but all that shows is that there was nothing inside.

Bring me the butter knife: you're toast.

[Blind Monk]

jgperez wrote:

Bring me the butter knife: you're toast.

Donnn't try to spin us all off topic with your sultry depictions of bread.

AVCHD is a challenging codec to use. It does not easily slide in to every workflow, and it is not easily managed; you've got poor metadata capabilities (sidecars) and heaps of third party softwares claiming to be the solution. It doesn't seem that going from card/FMU straight to edit makes sense at this point. It's a heavily compressed format, & isn't as solid a performer as some of the other file types out there.

It is very disappointing to be told you can do something only to find out that Adobe missed a few important caveats. For now, if you want to get work done, I have a suggestion: If you just convert your media to ProRes or DNxHD (or whatever) in between the capture and edit phase, you'll have a much easier time. Those are better performers (in my experience), and are better options than AVCHD in Premiere Pro.

[jrobba3]

Anyone who talks about transcoding footage is completely missing the point of this forum.  If you're a professional, you know that you can transcode to something like ProRes.  It's a work around, it's not a solution.  What you fail to see if that 1 of, if not the biggest reason to use Premiere as your editing software over something like Final Cut 7, is that you can edit your clips natively...no transcoding.  Not only is it a quicker workflow to edit natively, your file sizes are much smaller.  For example, I'm shooting with a Panasonic AG AF-100, and the file sizes once converted to ProRes are at least twice as large as the native files.

  If you post in this forum in the future, please do not talk about transcoding.  Anyone who's been editing in the last few years knows you can transcode.  It's been the only thing we've been able to do up until now where editing software boasts native editing.  It's not a small point, it is THE point for me.  Transcoding is a not a solution, and as long as I'm required to transcode, then what is the point of me moving to Premiere?  I might as well keep trucking with FCP 7.  Adobe needs to address and fix this, considering it was one of their major selling points of the software, and they have not delivered.  Quite frankly, those who have bought the software should be offered refunds, and subscriptions should be free of charge until they resolve this issue.

[Blind Monk]

jrobba3 wrote:

  If you post in this forum in the future, please do not talk about transcoding.  Anyone who's been editing in the last few years knows you can transcode. 

You are clearly not the person/people for whom those suggestions were meant. You don't have to pay attention to posts that don't apply to your exact situation or cause -needs differ between users.

The intent of the suggestion(s) I offered was to alert some of the folks who need to keep moving/working that AVCHD is not the best codec to edit/work with. Some people simply do not know that just because a format can be used to edit, does not make it the best solution.

I'm working to be helpful, and I'll continue to do so here.

[jrobba3]

When you are subscribed to the forum (I get an email notification everytime someone posts) in order to find out when a solution to this issue has been made, it is highly annoying getting at least one post per day saying transcoding is a work around.  I think you can assume that anyone in this forum is transcoding as a workaround or is not using premiere until a solution surfaces. 

[excited_Genie16B8]

I get an email notification everytime someone posts

You can always undo that if you find it annoying.  This thread won't necessarily be the first place Adobe announces a new update anyway.

[jrobba3]

All I'm saying is that I think it goes without saying that you can transcode as a work around.  It's been said 20-30 times in this forum, and to continue to offer that as a solution is for one not the longterm solution, or the point of this forum, and it is not new information, as again it's been said on several occasions in this forum.  You're not contributing new information to the conversation, by expressing that ProRes works in premiere cs6.

[Allynn Wilkinson]

What I'm saying is that transcoding AVCHD is *not* a workaround.  It's best practice.  You should not be editing 8-bit long-GOP.  Bad idea.  There are lots of formats PR can handle that you should not edit in:  wmv, VOB, mpeg, etc., etc.  It would be nice if Pr could handle AVCHD (like it claims it can).  There are lots and lots of situations where "best practices" hangs you up and I, for one, will edit multicam spanned AVCHD natively as soon as I possible can. 

BUT transcoding 8-bit long GOP to 10 bit i-frame will give you the highest quality and best performance.  Sometimes you don't need that but editing AVCHD natively is a convienience and a time saver.  Not best practice.

[jrobba3]

First, my comment was not directed toward you, it was a reply to Jim.  Secondly, it is a workaround as far as this forum is concerned.  Theis forum is not called "Premiere codec best practices", it is "AVCHD workflow help."

[Harm_Millaard]

BUT transcoding 8-bit long GOP to 10 bit i-frame will give you the highest quality and best performance.

Sounds a bit like a glass of orange juice that by some magic way gets uncompressed and gives you the best oranges in the world.

Where does the color info from a 420 signal get the additional info to really make it a 422 signal, apart from adding zeroes? What has been lost in compression can never be regained.

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Very true and it took me a bit to get my head around that too.  It's not that you're gaining something that isn't there, it's that you have more to work with when you start manipulating.

If you're not compositing or color correcting or keying then, yeah, no difference (except that your processor will thank you).  But if you *are* manipulating color in any way then working in 422 gives you four times as many crayons in your box.  Don't even try to mask a green screen in 8-bit.  You'll never get close but take the same footage and convert it to 10-bit and you have four times the level of subtlety. 

Here is link to Larry Jordan's article on video bit-depth:

http://http://www.larryjordan.biz/an-analogy-for-video-bit-depth/

There are also related articles at the bottom that really address bit-depth and its importance to color manipulation.

[Blind Monk]

Allynn Wilkinson wrote:

Very true and it took me a bit to get my head around that too.  It's not that you're gaining something that isn't there, it's that you have more to work with when you start manipulating.

Thanks for posting the link -a positive addition to the topic of AVCHD Worflow Help.

The same idea is true in the pro audio world (where I stumble from). Though you didn't necc. capture high bitrates, the tools you work with afterwards often times will perform better if given the room.

[josephs51576386]

Premiere Pro doesn't work like you're thinking it does, and in this since it's not like other NLE's. Converting to 4:2:2 produces no benifit for grading purposes when using Premiere pro. I suggest watching this video it explains everything but if you don't wanna watch the video I'll post the info here, Premiere Pro converts all your footage to 32-bit floating point, 4:4:4 color space, so transcoding 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 for the sake max CC potential for CC and other things doesn't benefit you at all in Premiere.

Premiere Pro doesn't require footage to be transcoded in order to perform max potential for color correction purposes.  So the issue of transcoding for "heavy color correction" isn't necessary with Premiere Pro. It allows you to work in 32-bit color space even with 8-bit footage.  I suggest watching this video, I think it will answer your question. Skip to 5:45 in the video.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-jason-levine/staying-nativ e-or-going-intermediate-trans...

Obviously though if your content is real 4:2:2 that is still better than starting with 4:2:0 however their is no benefit when making 4:2:0 into 4:2:2 since it adds no extra information and Premiere makes 4:2:0 into 4:4:4 on the fly anyways.

[RjL190365]

Very true. But if one were to export video to an other format only to put that exported video back into Premiere or another NLE for further tweaking, it would be best to export as RGB and not 4:2:2. That way, one would avoid the potential image quality degradation caused by multiple color space conversions. For instance, someone is trying to edit a 4:2:0 video in Premiere and will be exporting into an intermediate format for further tweaks. If he were to export as 4:2:0 or YV12, the new exported video would have suffered through two additional color conversions - one to convert 4:4:4 RGB to 4:2:0 YV12 on export, and another conversion back to 4:4:4 RGB when that new file is imported back into Premiere. This would cause degradation to both image quality and color fidelity.