[Kent Hamson]

I edit a lot of AVCHD and I still experience some slow down. I am using a dual socket Quad Core XEON (8x 2.1Ghz CPU cores). Playback of a single track does fine but playback in multi-cam editing mode is still only about 15-20 fps and it does stutter occasionally. I think the stutter is more of an external hard drive bottle neck rather than the processor.

Kent

[Kent Hamson]

XDCamEX
XDCamHD (same thing?)
HDV (mpeg2)
AVCHD (mpg4)
DVCProHD
and
Whatever codec JVC uses

TheXDCamEX, XDCamHD and JVC codec are all the same.

As for the quality having shot and edited all of these formats, plus a few others. Rating from best to worst:

AVC-Intra (Mp4 w/no LongGOP used in Panasonic HPX300/HPX370)
DVCProHD
XDCamEX
AVCHD
HDV

AVC-Intra and DVCProHD record 422 color at 100mbps
XDCamEX is an Mpeg2 at 35Mbps
AVCHD mpeg4 at ~21Mbps
HDV mpeg2 at 25Mbps

an mpeg4 will get double the quality of an mpeg2 in half the bit rate. Essentially a 13Mbps AVCHD is equivalent to an HDV 25Mbps except it will not have blocking issues in fast movements on screen.
A ~21Mbps AVCHD would be about like a 45Mbps Mpeg2.

All the technical data aside it really doesn’t make a lot of difference what the capture codec is. They all produce wonderful video files if lighting is good.

The most important thing in a camera is the needs of the shooter and the workflow for post production. Find a camera you can hold and use comfortably and suites your shooting needs.

If using FCP AVCHD may not be the best choice since you would have to wait for the computer to convert all the video to Apple ProRes. The DVCProHD and EXCam imports into FCP with ease.

I use Sony Vegas for editing and can’t import the mp4 files from the JVC GY-HM700. All my AVCHD footage and DVCProHD (with the DVFilm raylight plugin) is import and edit.

Premiere CS5 is supposed to be able to bring all of them in natively, if you believe Adobe that is.

[Kent Hamson]

Thank you for posting the SLC v. MLC whitepaper. I really found that interesting.

It also plays into the new E Series P2 Cards. The A Series P2 Cards use SLC Flash chips and the E Series use MLC Flash chips.

The white paper discusses that SLC chips are an industrial grade chip while the MLC are “Consumer” chips.

Panasonic states that the A Series cards are good for 30,000+ cycles of use. That is if they are recorded to capacity once per day it would last for over 80 years!

The E Series cards they state are guaranteed for 5 years of full capacity every day which is 1825 recording cycles. If not used to full capacity or not used every day they can last much longer.

All of the memory chips in the P2 and SxS cards will eventually fail. Panasonic just chooses to tell their customers on the front end what they can expect as a life expectancy. You have to give them props for that.

https://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/faq/P2_E-Series_Cards_faq.pdf