Panasonic AF-101

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Guy,
Thanks for sharing your insights on this.
I have that camera in mind and I want to know as much as I can.
Our “tennis” has been very useful for me.
I hope I can try all this by my self soon.
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Guy Mcloughlin]

Hi Rafael,

Thanks, our “tennis” match has been fun. I also plan on buying an AF-100 this summer, but right now I am slowly building up my micro 4/3 lens collection using a Panasonic GH-2 DSLR body. The GH-2 shoots very nice video, but it’s not a professional camera like the AF-100.

Over the past 2 years I’ve been shooting corporate videos mostly with a Panasonic HMC-150 camera, which is how I became familiar with the AVCCAM video CODEC. I want to add the AF-100 to shoot more sophisticated corporate work and for a few fictional short films I’ve written.

The Sony F3 is also a very interesting camera, but it’s way out of my price range. ( $15,000 is my budget for everything right now, and outfitting a Sony F3 would mean moving up to a $30,000 budget for a complete basic set-up. Too much for me. )

Thanks for your insights.

Good luck with your shoots.

– Guy

[Bob Amato]

Guy McLoughlin: I agree that there are many bad implementations of the AVCHD CODEC that can produce horrible results, but the Panasonic AVCCAM implementation is a very good CODEC.

Do you mean that cameras like Panasonic SD600 and SD700 have horrible codec`s?

[Guy Mcloughlin]

I haven’t evaluated the CODEC used by the SD600 or SD700 cameras, but I know that many people have had bad experiences with consumer cameras where the AVCHD CODEC is not properly implemented.

The Panasonic AVCCAM cameras have the best AVCHD encoding hardware of any consumer/prosumer camera. The AVCHD video from these cameras is almost identical to higher bit-rate I-frame based CODECs. The image quality is outstanding.

The thing to keep in mind is that AVCHD is a long-GOP CODEC, so it’s designed for image acquisition and not for editing. Some NLEs have no problem with it, but many do, so depending on your NLE you may have to transcode to an I-frame based CODEC to properly edit your AVCHD footage.

[Bob Amato]

Guy McLoughlin: Some NLEs have no problem with it, but many do, so depending on your NLE you may have to transcode to an I-frame based CODEC to properly edit your AVCHD footage.

How do you do that?

[Guy Mcloughlin]

If you are working on a Mac and own Final Cut Pro you can convert to one of the Apple ProRes CODECs.

I use is the Cineform NEO SCENE software to transcode video to the Cineform 10-bit CODEC. NEO SCENE is available for both Mac and Windows, and video files stored in the Cineform 10-bit CODEC format can be edited on BOTH Mac and Windows editors. The cheapest place to buy Cineform NEO SCENE is from the https://www.videoguys.com website, which sells both the Mac and Windows version for about $100 US.

You can also go to the Cineform website and download a free trial, so you can test out the software before you buy it.

Since I edit with Sony Vegas Pro 9 / 10, I have no problem working with AVCHD files, as Vegas opens up the native AVCHD video files within a 32-bit color-space which allows me to edit them, and then save the finished work in the Cineform 10-bit CODEC format.

On the Mac side of things, Adobe Premiere CS5 also has no problems working with native AVCHD video files, so you can by-pass the whole transcode step if you work with Premiere CS5.