SONY SR-11 Camera - AVCHD wont play in VMSP8d

ohmaya wrote on 6/28/2008, 11:51 PM
I just purchased Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8 and the SONY SR-11 AVCHD camera, based on the spreadsheet on the SONY website that states that VMSP8 will "read" AVCHD, not write. I just wanted to be able to film in AVCHD on the SR-11 and then import and edit the files in VMSP8.
I upgraded to version 8d, BTW...and I still cant play or preview any of the mts files in VMSP8d. They are jumpy, choppy and basically useless. I flew to CA to film a client and was so excited that I was able to film in HD for the first time. After returning home, I am freaking out that everything I filmed, I cannot edit or even view on my PC.

Is this real, that you can "read" (import and edit) AVCHD in VMSP8d? It says everywhere that I should be able to do what I want, but it wont work. I have a P4 3.2 ghz w/ 2 GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 6200 video card.

PLEASE HELP - will I ever be able to use this AVCHD video I shot in VMSP8d or do I have to figure out how to tell my client he flew me to CA on his dime and I have no usable video?

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 6/29/2008, 12:04 AM
> I upgraded to version 8d, BTW...and I still cant play or preview any of the mts files in VMSP8d. They are jumpy, choppy and basically useless.

Be careful what you are writing. You first say that you can't play or preview, and then you say that it does play/previews, but it's slow. So your problem is slowness, not compatibility.

> I have a P4 3.2 ghz

This PC is VERY SLOW for AVCHD. I have a P4 at 3 Ghz (one of the later models so it's one of the fastest P4 models ever released) and I get only 4-5 fps. This means that you probably get about 6-7 fps. And this is *normal* for AVCHD for a PC like ours.

AVCHD requires a **very fast** PC. The fastest you can get your hands on. This is a well known problem with AVCHD and you should have done a better research beforehand. ANY editor that edits natively MTS files will be as slow, it's not a Vegas problem (except Apple Mac editors, as they transcribe during import instead of editing natively).

Now, how to get around the problem. There are two ways:
1. You simply buy a real fast machine. Forget about buying Christmas presents to your wife this year.
2. You load your clips one by one on Vegas, and you export in Cineform (a codec found after hitting "custom" under the AVI filetype). You must be very careful how you export with Cineform, e.g. the frame rate, field order, aspect ratio and resolution must match the original MTS file (the information you need is written in the status bar of the project media bin). After a few hours of transcoding everything to Cineform AVI, you will be able to edit these Cineform files much faster (possibly at around 70% of their original speed, still not full speed because your PC is slow and these files are probably are full 1920x1080 files instead of 1440x1080).

Alternatively, sell the camera and buy an HDV one, e.g. the Canon HV20 HD camera. Tape-based HDV cameras use mpeg2 instead of AVCHD's mpeg4, and so it flies on machines like yours and mine. That's why I am staying with HDV too.

More info on HDV vs AVCHD: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/09/30/hdv-vs-avchd/
ohmaya wrote on 6/29/2008, 12:21 AM
sorry for the miscommunication - the file opens but it is choppy.

I did my due diligence. I researched the SONY site, read the product specs and even called SONY beforehand and they assured me it would work. They NEVER metioned any PC requirements at all for AVCHD playback.

I am so in trouble.

I returned the camera this evening - good riddance...that doesn't help me with the fact that I have unusable video and will have a very unhappy client.

O my gosh - first I bought Acid Pro and it wouldn't work with My Steinberg audio interface because it wouldn't recognize the ASIO drivers. One of the engineers had to write a driver for me before I could use the program. Now I buy VMSP8 and a AVCHD Handycam after assurances from SONY sales and their own website data that it would be fine and this happens - you say I should have done better research but I checked it out for two weeks online and on the phone. How much due dilligence should a consumer be expected to do, especially when speaking to live presales support before purchasing???!!! Why didn't the sales person ask me what kind of machine I would be using to edit the video and verify the specs before I laid out $1500 for the camera and software and waste a client's money??

The one thing I did get from my research that had I paid attention would have saved me time and money was that SONY is a very proprietary and troublesome company to deal with and this bears it out.

How can you introduce a format that none of the other NLE's can edit and even your own apps need a super machine to edit? Shame...

Eugenia wrote on 6/29/2008, 12:33 AM
As I said, if you need an HD camera format that will work on your PC specs, buy an HDV based one. And the BEST HDV cameras are the Canon HV20 and HV30. Go for the HV20, for about $700. You can view samples here: http://vimeo.com/eugenia/videos (my HV20 videos). In fact, the quality of the HV20/30, is better than the best AVCHD consumer camera right now out there (not for the next generation, but for now, the mpeg2 HDV is still a better format).

So not all is lost. You can still transcode your MTS files to Cineform AVI and edit them, and buy the HV20 for future work.

>Why didn't the sales person ask me what

Because many people who buy consumer cameras don't edit. They just use new tapes, SD cards, whatever. So there was no reason for this person to ask you this question. We, over here, who edit, are the "geek bunch". Mom and dad don't edit. Besides, the sales person sells cameras, not software.

>SONY is a very proprietary and troublesome
>company to deal with and this bears it out.

All big companies are like that. AVCHD is a format introduced by both Sony and Panasonic, not Sony alone. And then Canon and JVC followed them. ALL the new cameras in HD are AVCHD. So eventually, you will have to buy a new PC anyway.

You should NOT be unhappy about this, because when the first miniDV cameras came to be, around 1999, no one had a fast PC/Mac to edit them either! So it's the same thing with any new format. You just need to wait for PC technology to catch up!

The next generation cameras in 4-5 years will be 3k or 4k (which is 4+ times the playback size of a 1080p HD file), and so you will need a WAAAY faster PC to edit these files than you need today for AVCHD.

>How can you introduce a format that none of the other NLE's can
>edit and even your own apps need a super machine to edit?

Because someone has to start somewhere first. If camera manufacturers don't introduce better formats (AVCHD is better than HDV when used in its full 24 Mbps bitrate), then technology doesn't move ahead. All recent versions of NLEs (except Premiere CS3) support AVCHD. But all edit slowly, unless you have a fast PC (or a Mac that transcodes during importing). That's all normal.
ohmaya wrote on 6/29/2008, 6:17 AM
ok

:(

I acknowledge the march of time and that progress must happen. I guess I never had it happen at my expense
:)

What spec should I be considering when looking at a new PC? Is it the processor or the RAM or the video card that will make/break? Or all three?

What should be the minimum specs I should consider - my future business plan will lean more and more heavily on video so I want to make sure I set up for success
ohmaya wrote on 6/29/2008, 6:36 AM
Does the same issue exist with the playback of mp4 files? For the most part, your video about Monterrey played smoothly in the Vimeo page, but went a little bonkers at full screen. It chopped and broke up just like the AVCHD.

Is it my machine or do I just need a codec to playback mp4 in full screen?
Eugenia wrote on 6/29/2008, 10:58 AM
If Quicktime can't playback my videos in full speed (don't use Vegas to playback these MP4 videos), then yeah, your PC just can't handle it. It's borderline on mine too.

Now, regarding a PC. Just get any modern, fast PC, with at least 2 GBs of RAM. And if you are going for an HDV camera, you need to buy the Firewire PCI card addon as well.
ohmaya wrote on 7/8/2008, 12:50 AM
OK - returned the SONY camera a nd got a JVC Everio that records in full HD. I recorded some 30 second clips and drageged them, in their native format (.tod) right into VeagsMSP8d. They play perfectly and render out perfectly in both mpg2 and wmv format.

If your answer above was that the reason I cant play AVCHD in my PC because my PC is not powerful enough to play HD, then why does the JVC video, recorded at full 1900X1080 resolution play fine and the SONY AVCHD stutters and breaks up? I have tried 6 programs - TMPGEnc, Nero Vision 5, AVCCore, etc - that claim to convert the AVC HD video to mpg2, to no avail.
What is so difficult about using the AVCHD format? What does the video filmed in AVCHD have in its stream that the FHD (full HD) and SP HD (high definition) filmed on the JVC cam doesn't that the same NLE, Vegas Platinum can decode one and not the other? I cant believe that Sony's own NLE cant even play video filmed on a SONY camera!!!

Keep seeing people posting questions about wanting to verufy that Vegas MSP can import AVCHD, and everybody keeps saying it does, so why does it play Full HD, SP HD and not AVCHD?

Have been doing audio for years - this video stuff is killing me!
Eugenia wrote on 7/8/2008, 3:47 PM
I don't think that this JVC format is mpeg4. It might be mpeg2, which is why you are able to play it.

AVCHD is AVC which is the MOST CPU hungry format out there.
ggrussell wrote on 7/8/2008, 9:08 PM
"so why does it play Full HD, SP HD and not AVCHD?'

Don't confuse quality settings on the JVC with the type of 'codec' it uses. Checking the JVC website, their hidef camcorders are using MPEG 2 transport streams (similar to HDV I think)

Full HD : 1920 X 1080i VBR@ 26.6Mbps avg
SD HD: 1440X1080i VBR@ 19Mbps avg
LP HD: 1440x1080i VBR @ 11Mbps avg

Also supports 1440X1080i CBR@ 27Mbps
All the above use MPEG audio

AVCHD uses MPEG 4 encoding which is totally different and as pointed out above needs more CPU power to encode/decode than MPEG 2.
ohmaya wrote on 7/11/2008, 10:17 AM
OK - camera number 3...


:)


Got a Sanyo Xacti HD1010 - it shoots in 1080p 30 fps and 60fps and 720p 30fps and 60 fps. Ouput file format is mp4.

I shot 4 test videos at each of these resolutions. Open VMSP and go to Explorer. I try to preview all 4 videos and none play smoothly.
I have researched the specs for HD playback and according to Microsoft, for XP SP2 the 720p requires a minimum of P4 processor at min.2.4 Ghz with <1 GB RAM and 64MB video card. I have 3.2 GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 128MB video card.

What is UP that I can get smooth playback in VegasMSP? As a final test to see if it is my PC or Vegas, I even installed the Haali splitter and ffdshow and tested playback of the 720p 30fps in Windows Media Player 11. It plays PERFECT. But it wont playback at all in Vegas MSP. So is it my PC or VMSP? If it plays in Windows Media Player but not in Vegas, am I wrong to suspect that Vegas is the problem?
Eugenia wrote on 7/11/2008, 1:50 PM
ohmaya, you really start to anger me. We explain to you the problem here, and you STILL go and buy the WRONG cameras. The Xacti and Samsung and Aiptek cameras are all shooting in an MP4 h.264 version that is SLOWER than your first AVCHD camera that you first complained about. That format doesn't play 100% smoothly in its 1080/30p incarnation not even with the fastest PC on the planet. More info here: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/06/17/i-hate-samsung/

And when Microsoft says that you need a 2.4GHz PC for 720p, it says that for WMV formats, not for MP4 or MTS. WMV, just like mpeg2 that we discussed, is easier to decode than AVC (which is the most complex version of MPEG4 that AVCHD and these xacti/samsung/aiptek HD cameras use).

So, stop buying cameras that don't work with your machine or require proxy files to get edited smoothly (proxy tutorial: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/12/12/proxy-editing-with-sony-vegas/ ). Keep your mpeg2-based JVC, or if you want better quality, you go with the Canon HV20 or HV30 (HDV is mpeg2, tapes). There is no "small" kind of HD camera like the Xacti/Aiptek/Kodak camera that edits fast. Except maybe the digicams that shoot in MJPEG instead, like the Panasonic TZ5. All the rest modern HD small cams, shoot in formats that all PC editors have trouble with editing in real time.

And I explained above why a video can playback perfectly on a media player but not edited fast: because preview during editing is not playback. It takes 1000 other things into account, things that are taxing on the CPU. So don't expect the same kind of performance during editing from ANY editor.
ohmaya wrote on 7/11/2008, 7:49 PM
"...ohmaya, you really start to anger me."

Eugenia -
Just because you know everything about everything does not give you the right to tell a newbie that they are starting to anger you. How dare you!
Forums like this are for people to learn, not for you to show the world how brilliant you are. If you cant help others without voicing anger or trying to demean them, then take your arrogant butt somewhere else and let someone with patience and kindness help the newbies.

You have to know that people who buy something other than the full Vegas are beginners. If people post a question, then they obviously need help, not a lecture from a forum bully like you. I have read your other posts and there is a pattern of this type of response.There is nothing worse than an "expert" who forgets that they were once a beginner.

I will NOT post to this forum again if this is the way I will be treated when I follow my natural learning curve.
Shame on you and shame on the moderators who allow a know-it-all like you to terrorize a beginner who is asking legitimate questions.
I am a generous and gentle long time contributor to the Acid forums. I have a high level of knowledge in audio and have always been patient and kind when trying to help the new members over there.

Don't bother flaming either because I will not come back to read your response. Spend more time being creative and maybe it will put you back in touch w ith being kind.



Eugenia wrote on 7/12/2008, 12:51 AM
Good for you. If you are coming here *just* to tell us how slow Vegas is, while the blame is all on you for not doing some research before shelling hundreds of dollars on new cameras, well then, I am glad you are leaving.

You have unrealistic expectations. I took the time and spent ALMOST AN HOUR replying to YOUR comments so far -- something than no one else did or anyone will ever do in any forum. And I explained EVERYTHING to you. And what do I get as a thanks? I get you, buying yet another camera that doesn't work with your slow PC, and despite all the explanation you got, you still put the blame on Vegas. Well sir, I do hope you stop using Vegas.

What exactly you wanted me to do? Tell you how much I appreciate your feedback? I don't. Duplicate my reply above? You just don't seem to get it no matter after all this explanation laid out just for you.

I repeatedly told you that if you want good speed with YOUR kind of PC, you get an HDV mpeg2 camera (or that mpeg2 JVC you got), not AVCHD or MP4. And what did you do? You bought an MP4 one, which is even slower than AVCHD, and you come BACK HERE and you tell us how slow it is!

Sorry, but this DOES anger me, and I think I have a good reason to be angered. I feel that I spent an hour replying to you for an explanation that went all down the drain! I could have used that hour and do something else you know. But no. I have to read your reply as how offended you are. And you think that I am not offended?
ggrussell wrote on 7/12/2008, 7:22 AM
Eugenia - What's wrong? Forget your medication this morning? You don't need to be responding to posts here at all. I , too, find most your posts very condescending and this one just proofs it. You jump to conclusions like in another post you assumed the user had a pirated version. Because of you and people like you, I even hate coming here when I do need help with Vegas. Fortunately, there are a few genuinely nice people on here.

You may have a great deal of experience and knowledge of using Vegas, but you have no social skills whatsoever.

If you don't have the patience to help out less knowledgeable users, then don't waste your time writing and our time reading your drivel. If I was a moderator here, I would have deleted your account a long time ago.
Eugenia wrote on 7/12/2008, 7:56 AM
So you are telling me that I should have infinite patience with people who continue doing the same mistakes even when you tell them not to. Sorry, but I am not made out of metal, and this guy had it coming.

And you reply this angry post just for a single sentence I wrote. The one that I said that I was getting angered. Well, it was the freaking truth! And you forgot ALL the other sentences which I was SUPER-helpful. Here I was, writing and explaning, and there HE was, coming back with the exact same faulty arguments. What do you have me do? Sit down and take it just because he is "inexperienced"? He lost that right to call himself a newbie when the facts were laid out for him (for the specific topic).

But you are right. I should not be coming here. I have better things to do. Au revoir.