Editing AVCHD with Edius 5.12

[Tony Grant]

I have just taken delivery of my new Camera the Sony HXR-NX5E
Wow it is all I hoped for BUT. I thought I could work in real-time with AVCHD on my Edius Edit 5.12 but this not the case.

Yesterday (Saturday) an Email to Edius (BELGIUM) telling them I was an unhappy bunny

Hi Johan,

I now have my new Sony HXR-NX5E and started to work with AVCHD. No problems in downloading into Edius but I find that I am not working
in realtime any more and thats even without using any filters or effects, I have to convert using AVCH2HQ, That seems to be a shame I thought this might be my computer, so also tried on the new computer of Jan but with the same results. I note from the "Sony" Workflow manual for Edius,that working with AVCHD in the timeline requires a fast PC. I thought that is what we have, I can understand perhaps that mine is slower as I have had it for a couple of years but I am surprised that it is the same on Jan's as his is brand new one. Edius are making much of working with AVCHD in real time. And I do not think I have heard anyone saying "yes but"!!

Holdan are pushing AVCCAM with Panasonic also full HD 1920x1080 . I also read in the new leaflet from Holdan

(EDIUS) WORKS WITH MANY DIFFERENT NATIVE FORMATS, INCLUDING DV, HDV, ACVCHD

Plus other phrases like EDIT any mix of SD and HD video content together in real time.

Please send me good news

Tony

To day Sunday I got the answer to my problems a copy of which I am posting for all to read. As the information could help others.

It is great to know that there are some companies that still look after there clients.

Tony


Hi Tony,

The next version of Edius FULL will have the BOOSTER-pack for AVCHD on board. This BOOSTER pack is delivered with the Edius NEO2 Booster version that is bundled with the Panasonic cameras currently. It is not Edius FULL that you get with the Panasonic cameras, as the Edius Full does not have the BOOSTER functionality yet.

For the FULL version of Edius they needed to rewrite the 3-PIP software etc and serval other functions that are only available in Edius Full, so that's why is why the Edius NEO2 Booster version has native AVCHD editing already and Edius FULL doesn't.

Most if not all current AVCHD users convert into CanopusHQ now. It is actually by far the best way to work as this format allows you to work in full quality on relatively slow(er) computers. You just drag your AVCHD files onto the AVCHD2HQ icon and you are ready to edit. (Configuring the folders etc is a one time event. Right mouse button click on the AVCHD2HQ icon.)

Keep in mind that AVCHD is an extremely compressed format. The amount of real-time that you can do on an AVCHD stream is and will be very dependent on your computer.

So direct AVCHD editing is coming for Edius FULL. But keep all of the above in mind. Currently you will have to convert to CanopusHQ.

Please see the attached AVCHD-Converter v3-10-manual_e.pdf for the specifics.

Best Regards,

Johan

[Geoff Addis]

Tony, I know that many users of E5.12 are presently editing AVCHD after converting it to the CanopusHQ format, a conversion process that seems to be faster than real time - hence a workflow that, timewise, is not too far removed from working by ingesting HDV via Firewire. Edius 5.5 is expected to be released within a couple of weeks and from what you have said it is good news that they have reworked the 3d PiP functionality. Also, E5.5 will work under Windows 7.

Geoff

[tom hardwick]

It's strange isn't it that their cut-down version of Edius - Neo - should work with native AVCHD files when its big brother can't (as yet). But it can't be far behind and anyway, Canopus HQ is much admired (though needs a ton of HDD space for the decoded files).

tom.

[col lamb]

Tony

I am using Neo 2 booster and so I edit native AVCHD footage without encoding the files to another format.

To successful edit NATIVE AVCHD video files you will need a very well specified PC. Quad core 3GHz, 4Gb RAM, fast hard disk (video only), a graphics card where the GPU will process the video stream and a 64bit operating system such as Windows 7. If you do not have this then your timeline is more than likely going to stutter. Finished and outputted movies will play back OK.

[col lamb]

Edius 5.5 has been released as free to registered users and this includes native AVCHD editing and the same (or similar) rendering engine as Neo Booster

Col Lamb