CS6 / AVCHD / Spanned Clip Bug / What Cameras And Media Types Are Affected?

[joe_bloe_premiere]

This known bug in CS6 has been well documented regarding the potential symptoms, known issues and transcoding workarounds.

Audio and Video glitches | AVCHD footage

It would also be very helpful for CS6 users to be able to specifically identify the problematic cameras and/or media types in order to make informed decisions when purchasing a camera, or when receiving media files with the intent of editing in Premiere CS6.

If there is a definitive list of specific camera manufacturers / models, and/or media types that are affected by this bug, I have not been able to find it.

Of course this bug has been resolved in the June 17th release of the Creative Cloud Subscription update. It remains to be seen if the fix will be back-ported to CS6.

Thanks.

Cameras confirmed as not exhibiting the bug:

Panasonic GH2

Sony HDR SR-12

Cameras confirmed that do have the bug:

Canon Vixia HF G10

[ZachRosing]

I have problems with Panasonic AG-AC130 and HMC-40 cameras. Both exibit the symptoms and both work perfectly fine in CS5. It's been the case with dozens of different projects.

[joe_bloe_premiere]

Hey, Zach!

Thanks for checking in.

Have you ever tried to directly import the files without

using the Media Browser and link them together manually?

If so, did you experience the same problems as Jason reports?

[ZachRosing]

I experienced gaps in my footage, so...that's not a solution for me.

I don't recall off hand if I had the spanned bug when opening them individually, however, based on when I bought the camera (before CS6), and when I first discovered you were supposed to import those clips through the Media Browser and not individually (rather recently), and when I bought CS6 (a year ago when it came out), and when I went back to CS5 (almost immediately), I'm pretty sure I had similar problems even when importing them individually.

[joe_bloe_premiere]

Thanks.

[wfmc_staffer]

I can confirm that the Cannon Vixia HF M50 is affected.

[joe_bloe_premiere]

wfmc staffer,

Thanks for your contribution!

In the interest of meticulousness...

just confirming that you tested your Canon Vixia HF M50

using the protocol described above in post #120?

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5431966#5431966

[wfmc_staffer]

Yes. Intact folder structure using media browser, spanned media showed up as a single clip as it should. Video clip would stutter and freeze on the timeline.

[joe_bloe_premiere]

wfmc staffer,

Thanks for the confirmation!

[joe_bloe_premiere]

So far, these cameras' media have been identified as

being affected by the known CS6 AVCHD footage bug*

Post 44. Jason Van Patten

- Sony Handycam HDRCX300

- Sony Handycam HDRCX130

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5343789#5343789

Post 50. ZachRosing

- Panasonic AG-AC130

- Panasonic HMC-40

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5344788#5344788

Post 112. ExactImage

- Canon Vixia HF G10

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5406939#5406939

and Post 115. LanceTJ53

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5407035#5407035

Post 128. wfmc staffer

- Canon Vixia HF M50

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5432847#5432847

Also, this suspect camera referenced in Post 13 by Fuzzy Barsik

is in need of controlled testing using the proper protocol:

- Panasonic HMC-150

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5339898#5339898

_______________________________________________________

Proper protocol for testing a particular camera's media:

Create a "spanned clip" continuous roll (duration varies by camera).

Copy the entire contents of the camera's media card

to an internal drive, then import using the Media Browser*.

*Audio and Video glitches | AVCHD footage

http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/audio-video-glitches-avchd.html

*Import assets from file-based sources with Media Browser

http://helpx.adobe.com/content/help/en/premiere-pro/using/importing-assets-tapeless-formats.html#imp...

[Stan Jones]

What cameras are in the "not affected" list, and are there any users who find a problem with them?

[joe_bloe_premiere]

So far in this thread, these cameras has been reported

as not being affected by the CS6 AVCHD footage bug.

Post #23 - Jim Simon

- Panasonic AG-AF100 - IS NOT AFFECTED

- Panasonic AG‑AC130 - IS NOT AFFECTED

- Panasonic AG‑HMC150 - IS NOT AFFECTED

- Panasonic AG-HMC40 - IS NOT AFFECTED

- Panasonic AG-HMC70 - IS NOT AFFECTED

- Panasonic GH-22 - IS NOT AFFECTED

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5340140#5340140

Post #23 - cfg_2451

- Canon Vixia HF100 - IS NOT AFFECTED

- Canon Vixia HF200 - IS NOT AFFECTED

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5340207#5340207

Post #105 - (In reply to) tfi productions 44

- Canon HF S20 - IS NOT AFFECTED

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5376603#5376603

[Guest]

Joe, you included Panasonic AG-HMC40 in both lists...

[blackrosekiller]

Silly question.  What's the best way to measure disk activity while doing this?

Will this do?

http://www.ehow.com/how_8127335_monitor-drive-activity-windows-7.html

[blackrosekiller]

I can confirm that the Sony HXR- NX30U IS NOT COMPATIBLE with CS6 even with the latest CS6 updates. 

I imported an hour of footage in CS6 and the second half of the audio was missing even after the audio was conformed.  I then tried the same spanned clip in CS5.5 and it was perfect.  I have uninstalled the CS6 trial and called it a day. 

I will not be buying Creative Cloud or supporting Adobe in the future if I can help it.

Adobe sucks!

[joe_bloe_premiere]

blackrosekiller,

Thanks for your contribution!

In the interest of meticulousness...

just confirming that you tested your Sony HXRNX30U

using the protocol described above in post #130?

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5439397#5439397

[lghtanddrk]

Yes, that's correct.

[joe_bloe_premiere]

Does "blackrosekiller" = "lghtanddrk"?

Do you have two Adobe ID names?

If so, please reply as "blackrosekiller'.

Thanks.

[lghtanddrk]

Yes, that's weird that lghtanddrk came up in a forum other than my blackrosekiller screenname.  Strange coincidence...  Here I am voicing my opinion about Adobe and my account suddenly was shut down and my email needed to be verified again.  Hmm.

Here's a part of a funny transcript from my recent chat with Adobe.  I contacted them about the CS6 upgrade and then ended by asking about the status of the AVCHD bug.

Glen: Okay. Last question.  I may be buying the CS6 upgrade.  Do I need to have CS5.5 already installed on the computer when I go to install it?  Also, I read somewhere on a  forum that once CS6 is installed that it won't let you uninstall CS5.5.  Is that true?

Ashish_Joshi: Yes, You are right.

Glen: Right regarding having to have CS5.5 or an earlier version already installed or right that it won't let you uninstall CS5.5?

Ashish_Joshi: Right regarding having to have CS5.5 or an earlier version already installed

Ashish_Joshi: This is Right

Glen: Okay.  Is it true though that I can't uninstall CS5.5 once I install CS6 or is that not true?

Glen: I have limited hard drive space so that's why I'm asking.

Ashish_Joshi: In order to Install cs6, you will only need serial number of cs5.5

Glen: Correct but after install CS6 can I safely remove CS5.5 without disrupting CS6?

Ashish_Joshi: Yes

Glen: Great.  Thanks.

Ashish_Joshi: You are welcome

Glen: One final question.  Almost forgot.  CS6 has a bug with AVCHD spanned clips.  The bug is not in CS5.5 and was fixed in the new creative cloud.  Is there a timeframe for a fix for CS6?

Ashish_Joshi: Thank you for contacting Adobe.  We are available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Goodbye!

[LanceTJ53]

Stan Jones wrote:

What cameras are in the "not affected" list, and are there any users who find a problem with them?

Stan:  The NOT AFFECTED list here is unreliable at best, and bogus at worst.   I would not put any confidence into it, if I were you.

This whole thread is based on the extremely flawed premise that AVCHD files from only some camcorders are being affected.

Making such an assumption is invalid for these reasons:

1) The AVCHD format is a highly defined industry standard.   The notion that either Panasonic or Sony, or even Canon, would stray from that format with some camcorders makes no sense at all.

2) Adobe does not provide any documentation at all on how to properly import spanned AVCHD clips in Premiere Pro.   Because of that, most people are totally unaware of the need to use the Media Browser to import such clips.   Consequently, they would never encounter the bug.

3) The list itself does not point out the obvious inconsistencies in it.   For example, Jim Simon claims that a long list of Panasonic camcorders are not affected.  Yet myself and another person have both reported encountering this problem with the Panasonic AG-AC130, one of the camcorders he listed.

And the reports of no problems with some Canon Vixia camcorders are equally suspect in my opinion, as other people ( including myself ) have duplicated the bug with other Canon Vixia models.   Why would some Vixia models have a problem, and not others?

4) Finally, we have seen no statements from anyone at Adobe stating that they are having problems duplicating this bug.  So we have no official confirmation from Adobe that they are seeing this bug only on some AVCHD camcorders.  Without such confirmation from Adobe, this all adds up to nothing more than a bunch of speculation, in my opinion.

The very fact that Adobe claims that the bug has been eliminated in Adobe CC would further indicate to me that Adobe is aware of the nature of this bug.

.

[Stan Jones]

Stan:  The NOT AFFECTED list here is unreliable at best, and bogus at worst.   I would not put any confidence into it, if I were you.

This whole thread is based on the extremely flawed premise that AVCHD files from only some camcorders are being affected.

I agree with much of your main point, which is that some of the assumptions being made may be unwarranted. I ask for Joe to summarize the "not affected" list, because I am looking for cameras that are reported as exhibiting, and not exhibiting, the bug by the same or different users.

1) The AVCHD format is a highly defined industry standard.   The notion that either Panasonic or Sony, or even Canon, would stray from that format with some camcorders makes no sense at all.

Each manufacturer must implement that standard, and they do, in fact, implement differences for the oddest reasons. IF (and I agree with your suggestion that we do not KNOW for sure) the bug is present in some camera workflows and not in others, it may show the difference between the same manufacturer's different models as well as between manufacturers.

An essential step is to define a standard testing protocol and to get users to report. Some reports did not follow the protocol. Some reports are probably not interpreting the results correctly. But we at least have more data, and might be able to differentiate cameras OR, as you suggest, show that the same model camera shows the bug in some workflows and not in others.

The very fact that Adobe claims that the bug has been eliminated in Adobe CC would further indicate to me that Adobe is aware of the nature of this bug.

I thnk it was early in this thread that I asked Adobe to simply tell us what we are trying to understand, since, if there are differences between cameras, or whatever the variable is, they must know that information. I don't recall a response.

[Guest]

2) Adobe does not provide any documentation at all on how to properly import spanned AVCHD clips in Premiere Pro. Because of that, most people are totally unaware of the need to use the Media Browser to import such clips. Consequently, they would never encounter the bug.

See this help section.

3) The list itself does not point out the obvious inconsistencies in it.   For example, Jim Simon claims that a long list of Panasonic camcorders are not affected.  Yet myself and another person have both reported encountering this problem with the Panasonic AG-AC130, one of the camcorders he listed.

And the reports of no problems with some Canon Vixia camcorders are equally suspect in my opinion, as other people ( including myself ) have duplicated the bug with other Canon Vixia models. Why would some Vixia models have a problem, and not others?

Help to ruin all the myths and provide spanned AVCHD sample(s) from tested cameras.

[LanceTJ53]

Fuzzy Barsik wrote:

2) Adobe does not provide any documentation at all on how to properly import spanned AVCHD clips in Premiere Pro. Because of that, most people are totally unaware of the need to use the Media Browser to import such clips. Consequently, they would never encounter the bug.

See this help section.

3) The list itself does not point out the obvious inconsistencies in it.   For example, Jim Simon claims that a long list of Panasonic camcorders are not affected.  Yet myself and another person have both reported encountering this problem with the Panasonic AG-AC130, one of the camcorders he listed.

And the reports of no problems with some Canon Vixia camcorders are equally suspect in my opinion, as other people ( including myself ) have duplicated the bug with other Canon Vixia models. Why would some Vixia models have a problem, and not others?

Help to ruin all the myths and provide spanned AVCHD sample(s) from tested cameras.

Actually, an Engineer from Adobe emailed me some weeks ago asking for samples from my two camcorders.  However, he really gave me no assurance at all in his email that Adobe was working on a possilbe bug fix for PP 6.  I suspected that he probably just wanted the files to help confirm that the bug is fixed in CC.    That suspicion, plus my general anger over this matter, caused me to not get back to him.

Perhaps I am cutting off my nose in order to spite my face.

.

Message was edited by: LanceTJ53

[excited_Genie16B8]

Jim Simon claims that a long list of Panasonic camcorders are not affected.  Yet myself and another person have both reported encountering this problem with the Panasonic AG-AC130, one of the camcorders he listed.

Actually the only one I reported as working fine is the GH2.  Christian reported the others, and he's a pretty knowledgeable guy.

[blackrosekiller]

I just installed CS6 and will be testing a Sony HXR-NX30U with it tomorrow.  I plan to record an hour of video (1080 60i AVCHD) and test the following 2 ways:

1) Import the spanned clip into Premiere Pro using the media browser

2) Use the Sony Content Manager to compile the MTS spanned clips into a single M2TS and import it into the media bin.

I'll then try scrubbing in the media bin and playing and scrubbing in the timeline on both clips for comparison.

Finally, I'm going to export out to a DV AVI Widescreen clip and an H.264 MP4 to see how the media encoder handles the clips and how long it takes.

I have read about all the typical symptoms of the bug.  There's only one thing I am not sure of.  With cameras that experience the bug, can anyone tell me if problems happen right away on every spanned clip or is it intermittant? 

I'll be testing on an ASUS P6T Deluxe mother board, Intel x980 3.33 GHz processor, 12 GB of DDR2 RAM, GEFORCE GTX580 with Adobe's Mercury Playback engine enabled and 2 TB of RAIDed drives.

[excited_Genie16B8]

Keep an eye on your disk activity.  Move the CTI around a bit randomly.  You'll see spikes around 50 MB/s, where it should be only 5 MB/s reads for this media.