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Avid and AVCHD Workflow
Hello!
I’m totally stuck here–I’m assisting on a documentary that has a lot of mixed media problems.
So the main project is conducted on MC7.4, 1080p 29.97. I’m trying to figure out what to do with media from SD cards, taken from a AF100 camera, with a format of 1080i 60 (though when I AMA link in Avid, the format comes up as 1080i 29.97–is this normal?). The problem is that even in playback with the original footage, my straight lines are appearing jagged and flickering. I’ve tried transcoding, both in the main project and in a 60i project, with the same results. Even importing the regular way yields the same results. Am I missing something? Is that just the way AVCHD footage is going to play?
All help would be much appreciated!
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6 Replies
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[Marissa Gouverne] “media from SD cards, taken from a AF100 camera, with a format of 1080i 60 (though when I AMA link in Avid, the format comes up as 1080i 29.97–is this normal?).”
Yes. 1080i60 runs at 29.97fps. The “i” means INTERLACED, and when you see that, the number that follows is FIELDS per second, not FRAMES per second. 1080i60 is 29.97. 1080i 29.97 is also 29.97. Confusing? yes. Should they stop calling it 1080i60? Yes. The last number should ALWAYS be frames per second. Just confusing.
Not sure why they appear jagged. They shouldn’t in the project. Are you running Avid software only? No IO box to a client monitor?
Shane
Little Frog Post
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Thanks for the reply and the quick tutorial!
It IS odd, isn’t it? No, it’s just Avid software playing on a Mac OS 10.9.5 laptop. Could it be that the laptop just doesn’t have great specs to playback properly? The processor is 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7, Graphics are Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB, Memory 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3 if any of that helps!
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That’s plenty fast and powerful to play back transcoded AVCHD. But the source monitors in the Avid are never where you judge quality. Always need an IO device and client monitor for that.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Hmmm….but 1080i footage in a 1080p project…I’ll have to see what that looks like.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I’m no expert, but a lot of my work is a mixture of 1080i material from HDV cameras and 1080P AVCHD from DSLRs. What seems to work best for me is to make the project 1080i and then convert the finished video to 1080P, usually in Squeeze.
The 1080p material works with AMA, and the HDV fast imports. Not the same as what you are probably dealing with, but changing the project settings to 1080i might be worth a try.
Roger
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The flickering itself seems to have been just a display issue, like you suggested, because I exported same as source and ran it through VLC, which showed none of the flickering I saw. The jagged edges are an issue though.
I might’ve found a workaround, which is to open the raw media in quicktime and then use QT to export as 1080p. I both imported and AMA linked/transcoded with that file, and boom! No more jagged straight lines.
Just as an experienced opinion, though, do you think quicktime is a reliable converter? Not sure how much trust I should put in it…
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