Capture problem with new Sony HDR-SR10

[Ann Bens]

Your camera has a hard disk which means the footage is avchd and not hdv.
This also means that you cannot capture your footage instead you have to copy the footage from your hard disk (camera comes with software to do so) to your pc and then import it into Premiere.
Unfortunalely CS3 does not support avchd. CS4 does but you will need a Quad Core to get the job done.

[Phil Lochner]

I have a HDR-SR11 and had to come up with a bit of a workflow to get the footage from my camera to a format that I could edit with CS3.

First step is getting the footage off your camera and onto your computer. Connect the camera to the computer via USB, use the camera menus to enable the USB connect, and you should be able to browse it using Explorer (I assume you’re on Windows). There will be several folders in there – dig into them and find your STREAM folder, which should have .MTS files in there. Copy those MTS files to your computer – each time you record a scene, it generates a MTS file.

You can purchase Cineform NeoScene to convert AVCHD files to .AVI files for $129. This creates AVI files using the Cineform HD Intermediate Codec.

If you want to do it another way, here’s a general description of what I did when I didn’t have the Cineform NeoScene. Find and install these programs:

VirtualDub 1.9.0
AVISynth 2.57
AVCHD_CONVERT v6 at https://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p1814962/avchd_convert_v9.zip
Lagarith Lossless Video Codec

You’ll have alot of files that may not have a “Setup.exe” installer, so save yourself a headache and unzip those files into individual directories.

Move your MTS files in the AVCHD_Convert folder.
Run the appropriate batch file in the AVCHD Convert folder, depending on your footage and desired output resolution. The batch file will scan it’s folder for MTS folders and process them.
Your system will grind away and convert those MTS files. The batch file will generate (among other things) a bunch of .avc files.
Open up VirtualDub and load those .avc files. You should be able to preview the footage. Note that there is a 45 frame “Fade in”, so scrub your footage to see the results.
In VirtualDub, go up to the Video Menu and select Compression. Change it from Uncompressed to Lagarith.
From the File Menu, choose Save as AVI, and let it generate your AVI file using the Lagarith Lossless Codec.

There are other lossless codecs you can install other than Lagarith. Why bother with Lagarith? Because using “uncompressed” with generate MASSIVE AVI files that will bring your system to a crawl when you try to edit them. You will probably have similar problems with Lagarith AVIs but it won’t be as bad as Uncompressed. Ideally, using Neo Scene and the Cineform codec is the way to go.