I remembered this yesterday.
As discussed in other threads, some movie formats (like AVCHD) are too demanding on your computer and or not recognised by your software, so hard to edit.
One way around this is hardware encoding.
What you need for this is a camera or recorder that records in a format you can edit (Mini DV for me) and the right connections.
My two still cameras record huge files, one in AVI (the Pentax) the other in Quick Time (Panasonic).
By connecting them to my Canon camcorder (it has video in...) I then have the same file on my tape as recorded directly by the Canon.
So with a DSLR for example , you may want to find a camcorder/recorder that takes component or firewire and see how it works for you.


Franco

I was told that AVCHD video in .MOV was going to be hard to edit, so I needed to transcode into .AVI format. It turned out that .MOV was not a problem. However, all of my converters and editors are taking the 1920x1080@30 and giving me less resolution for output.

I have no camcorder.

What is this "tape" thing, anyway?

---B.G.---

AVCHD was jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic. It is basically mpeg-4 video with Dolby AC-3 or linear PCM encoding.
It should not be hard to find either a video format convertor or a video editor for this format.

Cheers

Finding the video editor is not the problem. The problem is that Sony Vegas HD Platinum takes the 1920x1080@30 resolution and gives me much less for rendered output.

--B.G.--

Do you have your settings correct? I have Sony Vegas Platinum 9 and have no problems with this. You have to go to properties and set everything correctly. Make sure to set the correct template and then set the deinterlacing and field order to none. You also have to tinker with the rendering settings when creating the edited movie.`

Read these following pages for instructions on settings with Vegas.

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/12/19/sony-vegas-hints-and-tips/

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/11/09/exporting-with-vegas-for-vimeo-hd/

Edited by michaeltn2 on 08/27/2010 07:08:36 MDT.

Yes, it is the rendering settings where things get clobbered. I try to get 1920x1080@30 for the finished product (same as what I shot). Depending on the output format, I get 1440x1080 or smaller, or else all black, or else some impaired 1920x1080 (terrible compression).

I guess it is pretty obvious, but the larger the output file size is, the more video information it carries. So when I see an output file that is small, it is always junk. The huge output files are closer to the desired version.

--B.G.--

you can set the bit rate, the size etc.

Use the tutorials I linked to.

If you are burning blu-ray it has a function that both renders and burns with a choice of settings.

Also important: You must do a color correction Studio RGB to Computer RGB if you are using on the computer, for DVD you would convert back to studio RGB.

Edited by michaeltn2 on 08/27/2010 14:11:20 MDT.

Franco, you may be converting your footage to standard definition by doing that. Also, the max resolution you can get on Mini DV tape is HDV 1440x1080.

Edited by michaeltn2 on 08/27/2010 14:14:34 MDT.

Yes, I attempted to follow the tutorials, but they don't produce output like what was intended.

When I try to get maximum res output, the rendering function is taking almost one minute per second of input footage. That is OK by me as long as it gets the intended results, which it does not. When I do manage to get the maximum res in output, so many frames are dropped that it is choppy.

I don't understand about Studio RGB to Computer RGB. This would seem to be a subtle color shifting, and that is less important than getting the right output res.

I'm trying to take the raw .MOV file from the camera on memory card, then transfer that to the hard disk, then get it with Vegas. The final output that I get could be .WMV or .AVI or .MOV or whatever, if the res would be correct.

--B.G.--

My initial post was not directed at Bob but prompted by his predicament...
A mate of mine shot a video on AVCHD with his Sanyo camcorder , then had a lot of problems trying to edit that so he could upload it to his own website, at a "YouTube" trpe compression.
The problem, both with PC and Mac was simply that it takes a huge amount of processing power to handle that type of MPEG4 file.
So hardware "rendering" could help the many that go out with a still camera or most new camcorder that use MPEG4 and the like formats but don't want to spend a huge ammount of money to upgrade their PC.
And yes, if you use the RCA "composite" cables you are working on SD not HD. However that is more than good enogh for the Net (not for Bob's intended use...)
Franco

This is a quad-core 2.5Ghz desktop with 5GB of RAM. The OS is on one hard disk. The video input file is on another, and the video output is on another one yet. So, I don't think I've figured out the problem or the solution.

--B.G.--

it has to be something with the project settings or the rendering settings, my computer is only a core duo with 3gb of ram