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AVCHD Workflow help

New Here ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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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

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LEGEND ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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If it works, why mess with it?

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Adobe Employee ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Simple answer. No.

If you run into performance issues during playback of your AVCHD footage, you have the option to change the playback resolution to accomodate your configuration.

Reg Santo Tomas

Premiere Pro

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Enthusiast ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Be aware that I've found a problem with some AVCHD footage in CS6 that didn't exist in CS5.5, namely that of long / spanned clips.  Shorter (non spanned) clips don't appear to have a problem, and if that's what you are feeding in to CS6 then stay with AVCHD, there is no reason to transcode.   Hopefully Adobe will fix the problem in the first update.

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New Here ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Hey Exactimage,

Students will be shooting long events (e.g. theater productions) and might have a problem with spanning, but for the most part they will be shooting shorter clips.

Micheal

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Community Expert ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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>long / spanned clips

You don't say... are you copying just the clips from media to hard drive, or the entire folder from media to hard drive?

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Enthusiast ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Via the media browser, just like you're supposed to

Also, there is a related bug in Media Encoder.  Drop this (30 min spanned) file on to a sequence in 5.5 and export via media encoder and it takes around 80 mins to export to H264.   Media Encoder CS6 starts off saying about 80 mins, then it goes up, and up, and up, and up and TBH I gave up at 9+ hours and only 30% encoded.

The problem appears to be that it's reparsing the entire file all the time and this can be seen in the Windows resources monitor (where you can see the files than an App has open and how much it's reading).   Hopefully they figure this one out soon because it's causing me major problems.  

Yes, I've submitted a bug report complete with a sample project demonstrating the problem.

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LEGEND ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Curious though that you're the only one I've seen report the issue so far.  It's unlikely you're the only one using spanned AVCHD media in CS6.

So...anyone else seeing this same problem?  Anyone else NOT seeing this problem with that media?

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Enthusiast ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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I'm not the only one.  See other topics that mention problems playing back multiple video tracks and multicam.

It makes sense that multicam is the one place it showed up first because that's where you tend to have the longest clips.

And....it's not just one computer.  We have the same problem on 3 PCs here, and a Mac Pro and another editor off site - same problem - repeatable every time.   That's why I sent Adobe a sample project complete with source media.   They grabbed it late Friday so hopefully some one will have recreated the problem in house by now.

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LEGEND ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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See other topics that mention problems playing back multiple video tracks and multicam.

The only one I recall was about 8 tracks I think.  Fewer tracks worked fine, so I don't know if your issue is the same as that issue.

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Enthusiast ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Well Jim,  I'm happy for you to download the sample project and see if you have the same problem..... it's only 5GB, but I don't want to post a public link here.....

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LEGEND ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Click my name.

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Enthusiast ,
May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012

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Sent.

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LEGEND ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Man, you're right!  Something is definitely wonky with AVCHD in CS6.

I also now understand how Harm was getting 50 MB/s reads when trying to play this stuff.  It's not the media, it's CS6.  Opening the same exact file in CS5 works no problem, and reads at the expected 5 MB/s.

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Enthusiast ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Thank you Sir!   My sanity is restored!

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LEGEND ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Yeah, this one is definitely a show stopper.  CS6 is just completely unusable in this current state.

I'm kind of glad I don't (yet?) work with AVCHD.

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Enthusiast ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Jim Simon wrote:

Yeah, this one is definitely a show stopper.  CS6 is just completely unusable in this current state.

I'm kind of glad I don't (yet?) work with AVCHD.

Yes indeed.  That's why I felt compelled to put that sample project together and send to Adobe.  I can't beleive they missed this in beta testing....

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LEGEND ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Right?

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Enthusiast ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Wow.  Just got an email from Adobe acknowledging the problem and it's been passed to engineering.   Let's hope for some quick progress and a fix sooooooon

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LEGEND ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Well, that's very good news.

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Adobe Employee ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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ExactImage (or Jim since you have the files as well ),

Can you try and delete any XMP and pek files in the actual MTS directory and reimport the clips in CS6 to see if that improves the performance on your end? It seems that it may be some incompatibility with these files when moving from CS5.5 to CS6.

It's still an issue but this may be a quick remedy for you


Reg Santo Tomas

Premiere Pro QE

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Enthusiast ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Reg Santo Tomas wrote:

ExactImage (or Jim since you have the files as well ),

Can you try and delete any XMP and pek files in the actual MTS directory and reimport the clips in CS6 to see if that improves the performance on your end? It seems that it may be some incompatibility with these files when moving from CS5.5 to CS6.

It's still an issue but this may be a quick remedy for you


Reg Santo Tomas

Premiere Pro QE

That would have been awesome if it had worked !    But alas it's made no difference, and if anything, it's made it worse.  Now I can't even play the first few seconds either   I do get audio but the video is stuck on the first frame.

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Adobe Employee ,
May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012

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Hmm...

OK, when I delete the XMP files and create a new project and import the mts file you provided, I am getting smooth playback on both Mac and PC.

Prior to that, I was experiencing the same behavior that you had reported.

EDIT: Scratch that. The playback seems to regress in performance after I start jumping around the clip.

Back to more investigation. Stay tuned.

Reg Santo Tomas

Premiere Pro QE

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Community Beginner ,
May 30, 2012 May 30, 2012

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Hello All

Add me to the list.

In addition to the problems mentioned above, all of which I have with a project in which I have 1 set of MOV files and 2 sets of AVCHD files (3 cameras at a wedding), I am getting a clip that shows green frames whenever and wherever I stop scrubbing on that clip. I think the green frame = media pending but I haven't seen premiere do that before. This clip plays fine in all the media players I have installed, but premiere garbles it. The other clips from the same camera are fine. The clips from the other 2 cameras are fine. And I have tried copying the offending clip 3 times each to a different hard drive and loaded it into my project. Each attempt failed to change anything.

I was going to recode the footage to make it more palatable for premiere, but I am not sure what to use. Anyone have suggestions? And Jim I did try the UT AVI file format you mentioned, the resulting file was twice the size! Is there a way to get it to stay around the same size as the original and keep the quality?

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Enthusiast ,
May 30, 2012 May 30, 2012

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We're currently transcoding AVCHD fotage to either Prores or DNxHD, but you could equally well transcode to a high bitrate MPEG2 or H264 and it still work, as long as it's a single file!

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