New Workflow AVCHD for FCP7

[Ryan Thompson]

Because of filesize. Thats the whole reason to use AVCHD. There is a HUGE jump in filesize to pro res, for no improvement in quality. That was the point of the original post, and this entire thread.

Other editing systems support it natively, and are generally on much less powerful machines than your average modern day apple machine.

Baffles me too, any random kid with Vegas on a laptop can edit it natively, but my 8-core apple powerhouse has to convert it to filesizes that are out of the question?

It sucks. Ironic thing is the ad on the page right now is for the AG-HMR10. We just bought three of those to handle our live stream archiving in a manageable HD filesize, but to actually edit the footage we have to convert the 32GB SD card (3 hours) to over 300 GB in pro res?

[Eric Gehringer]

Filesize for AVCHD has to do with storage space during capturing, not during editing.

It’s not the best to edit with because of it’s long GOPs. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it roughly 15 reference frames for every REAL image (I-frame)? so essentially, you only get one real frame of footage every half second. These reference frames take rendering, whereas ProRes uses real images for every single frame. Hence the large file size and the no-hassle editing in Final Cut.

Some may see this as an advantage, while others see it as a disadvantage. Depends on your situation.

Good Luck,

Eric Allen Films

[Ed Kaufholz]

Hello, All
Sorry if this is beating a dead horse, or the answer is available elsewhere but…

I cannot import HD AVCHD video from my Sony HDR-SR11 into FCP 7. It does not show up in my log and transfer window. I’m stymied.

Thanks for your help…

[Gary Rush]

This link should help
https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/whats-new.html

[Al Bergstein]

Matt, I’ve worked for over a year in AVCHD off Panasonic HMC150, and I use both Vegas and FCP 7 at different times. I did a 16 minute video all in AVCHD transcoded into ProRes. The fastest way (I think) to do what you want, and stay with FCP is to simply L&T without any editing on the way in, like what I do when I batch the AVCHD into AVI when I want to work in Vegas on W7.

Now, I do use Vegas and raw AVCHD if I have a fast and dirty job, under 10 minutes of simple documentary like takes, and no FX of any consequence, BUT, it is not a great editing codec, and reallly bogs down if I throw in raw MOV files from my Canon 7D, which I usually also transcode in batch to AVI.

BUT when working with others, and needing FCP, I will always transcode to Prores, and have found that unless I need to *really* log, that I just drag and drop the whole days shoot in and convert, and go get dinner.

So if you insist on wanting to work in AVCHD native, which neither I nor anyone else on this board considers a good idea, especially for longer professional work with lots of fx, then just work on getting the transcode down.

FWIW, I find that I can transcode much faster with Neoscene to AVI than in FCP to Prores. Maybe it’s my machines, but my Mac is a a dual 2.8 Ghz quad core, 10 GBs RAM, and my measly W7 64 bit with 8 GBs RAM does seem to much more quickly batch transcode the footage. Which is another reason I end up on Vegas more than FCP. But what I’ve found is that FCP plays the footage smoother than Vegas. You give up something either way you go. Vegas needs to get their video preview act together, while FCP forces a slower transcode but then previews fine. Pay me now, or pay me later, but there are no perfect choices, though I’ve not yet tried Premiere on W7, which may hold an answer, but likely just a different set of choices.

Arguing about Apple’s choices on this board is a waste of time. I don’t bother cause it will only bring down the fanboys to flame you…

Best of luck.

Alf

[Craig Incardone]

I have just shot with the Panasonic 3D cam AVCHD format. I do
not have the cam, rented it, but put the files onto a drive. how
do I unwrap the files from the folder to get them into my FCP on
my Mac. I have a Quad core i7. Any help would be great!

Thanks!!!!

[Brett Sherman]

I guess the one point I would disagree with people on this post is that there is something technically difficult about Apple being able to implement AVCHD direct editing. First, FCP has been editing Long GOP for about 4 years now with HDV and XDCAM EX, so they’ve got that figured out. Secondly, FCP is unable to use the multiple processors efficiently. If they would write a true multi-core program decompressing the MP4 codec would not be difficult. Apple’s been a little slow on development since FCP 6. Let’s hope FCP 8 is a big jump. Avid now has the lead on technology, even though I don’t particularly care for their file management structure and am not about to switch back again.

[Gary Rush]

I wished in FCP we could edit natively. I use Panasonic AGC-HMC 150 & i have to transcode my footage with FCP 7’s pro res lite codec. Friends of mine who use Adobe Premiere Pro edit with the native file directly from the sdhc cards. What is Apple waiting on?

[Gary Rush]

https://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/prModelDetail?storeId=11301&catalogId=13251&itemId=619501&modelNo=Content02222011052844034&surfModel=Content02222011052844034

[Aivaras Seduika]

This is something that’s been driving me nuts with final cut as well.
Panasonic have announced a plugin which allows native AVCHD editing in fcp 7 to be released in the summer time (not sure about 6).
You can also re-wrap the files into a mov container which fcp is happy with ingesting natively – check ClipWrap (https://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap). Although editing performance is not so good.
This strengthens the question about whether Apple can even be bothered anymore, like if a re-wrap is all that’s needed to allow native avchd editing, not a ground up re-write of the software, then why the hell have they not addressed this with a patch?!…
I’m a fan of the ProRes workflow (i love I-frames) but it just seems unecessary, when you can chuck a card in, dump the clips in Premiere and get editing straight away, with multi core and cuda, you get stuff done in half the time, which is what really counts.
rant over