Editing AVCHD with Sony Vegas Pro 10

bejayar wrote on 2/14/2011, 1:32 PM

I’m thinking of purchasing a high-end AVCHD camcorder for holiday and personal use, and also to use as a second camera alongside my Sony A1E to record stage productions.

I edit with Sony Vegas Pro 10 and my computer has an Intel Quad Core Q6700 cpu @ 2.66GHz with 2GB Ram. The graphics card is an Asus X1050 256MB 400MHz ATi Radeon PCI-Express 16X Video Card.

I’m concerned about reports that AVCHD plays back very slowly in edit situations making it sluggish and difficult to edit. I’m particularly concerned of the effect that this would have, particularly as I use Vegas multicam editing for shoots such as this.

Can anyone with experience of this issue please offer advice?

Comments

marks27 wrote on 2/14/2011, 2:26 PM

In my limited experience with it, AVCHD is not an editors format. For anything beyond the occasional, short drop-in clip, I would transcode to something like MXF and edit with that.

marks

srode wrote on 2/14/2011, 3:48 PM

I use a Q6600 overlclocked to 3.33ghz with 8GB of ram and have no problems viewing or editting AVCHD from my Sony SR11 handy cam using 1920x1080. this is with either 32 bit or 64 bit Vegas, and Windows 7 64 bit OS. I think if you are using 32 bit Win7 and you bump your ram up to 4gb you won't have any problems unless you are using multiple FX which will slow your preview down some, or at least reduce the resolution when it auto picks the image in your preview pane. Your ATI card wont help with anything, it would have to be an Nvidia card to see any benefit from CUDA that comes with Vegas 10, but your current card certainly won't hurt anything either.

dibbkd wrote on 2/14/2011, 4:13 PM

I edit 1920x1080 AVCHD from a Sony HDR-CX12 Handycam on an Intel i3 with 4GB RAM, editing isn't bad. So I don't know how an i3 compares to your Quad Core Q6700, but if yours is any faster you should be fine.

Any slower you might have some choppiness. I think an i3 like mine is about the bare minimum you need to have smooth AVCHD editing.

CVM wrote on 2/14/2011, 8:11 PM

I had the same worries before I bought my prized Sony AX-2000 (just two weeks ago!) which shoots AVCHD. I shoot 1080-60i maximum bitrate resolution video, drag and drop directly from the card to the computer, then import into Vegas 10 64-bit the usual way. No issues at all while editing. Smooth as butta when I use the Preview Auto setting on the viewer. I have a Dell 2.67GHz with an i7 core processor, 6 gigs of RAM, and an Invidia graphics card with 1 gig of RAM running Windows 7 Home Premium.

musicvid10 wrote on 2/14/2011, 8:54 PM

bejayar,

Rule #1: YMMV
Rule #2: When in doubt, refer to rule #1.
Rule #3: The simple, but often overlooked step of "Match media properties" in Project Properties helps, always.
Rule #4: Ending preview luxuries such as "Simulate device aspect" and "Scale to fit preview" helps, always.
Rule #5: Ending all unnecessary system processes that impact the CPU helps, always.

As a bit of explanation, the GOP for AVCHD can exceed 300 frames, requiring a huge lookahead and lookbehind for editing, bipredictives taken into account. That results in a huge CPU burden for realtime preview to take place.

The best compression does not equate to the best decoding, in fact it is often exactly the opposite.

bat74 wrote on 2/14/2011, 9:43 PM

Sorry but what is YMMV?

TeetimeNC wrote on 2/15/2011, 4:44 AM

Your mileage may vary.

/jerry

amendegw wrote on 2/15/2011, 4:59 AM

"Your Mileage May Vary" This is an idiom that may be unique to the U.S. When you buy a new car in the U.S. the dealer is required to place a sticker on the car indicating the expected city & highway fuel consumption. The sticker always states the disclaimer, "your mileage may vary".

In popular language it has come mean: Here's what's expected, but you might get a different result. abbreviated YMMV.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/your_mileage_may_vary

...Jerry

VidMus wrote on 2/15/2011, 12:17 PM

"As a bit of explanation, the GOP for AVCHD can exceed 300 frames, requiring a huge lookahead and lookbehind for editing, bipredictives taken into account. That results in a huge CPU burden for realtime preview to take place."

HOG-WASH!!!

I have two cams of AVCHD on my timeline and while playing them with best-full I get full frame rate and a max of 10% of CPU! Average of 7% CPU!

Doesn't seem too huge to me...

Note: Wrong project settings will slow it down to a crawl! Makes a big difference.

Rule #1: Make sure project and other settings are correct!!!!!

warriorking wrote on 2/15/2011, 1:01 PM

Just bump your RAM up to 4Gig or better and you will be fine....

Jumping Rascal wrote on 2/15/2011, 1:44 PM

Since I acquired a new PC a few months ago (core i7 930, 12G ram), I have had no issues at all editing or previewing AVCHD (1920 x 1080 from a sony camcorder) with the 64bit version with Win 7. I agree with the other posters, you may need an upgraded PC or more memory. The price is worth it not to be aggravated by choppy previews or baulky editing. By the way, I don't use any transcoding at all and a few of my projects are definitely overdone with transitions and effects so it is a good test I think. I am careful to match properties with the imported AVCHD files. Given some of the postings over the last year about AVCHD editing, I kept my fingers crossed in my initial AVCHD projects but was surprised that it worked out much better than expected without any previewing or editing problems.

John_Cline wrote on 2/15/2011, 2:02 PM

Years ago, a lot of people were having problems editing plain DV because of lack of computer horsepower. When HDV came out it was the same story. The same holds true now for AVCHD. My workhorse QX6700 Quad-core machine was right on the edge with AVCHD but my new i7-980x six-core machine has no problems whatsoever with AVCHD footage. Multiple tracks, titles, transitions and filters play perfectly with no slowdown at all. Even Gaussian blur, which is probably the most CPU intensive filter. With Vegas, it's always been about CPU horsepower (and enough RAM.)

VidMus wrote on 2/15/2011, 9:47 PM

"Years ago, a lot of people were having problems editing plain DV because of lack of computer horsepower."

Years ago I used a different NLE, will not mention the name and I edited a one hour video.

The machine I used was a custom built system with a 300 MHz Celeron.

It literally took me three full days to render the video with each frame taking 15 seconds to render. Not like now where the frames go by so fast you cannot see the numbers.