[Tom Ballister]

I can say that I gave up. In the course of discussions with Adobe support trying to resolve my own problems (no AVCHD files don’t play),
the guy told me they had replaced a lot of their proprietary driver code with OpenGL. My observation: in the effort to “standardize” Premiere sacrificed performance.

What I can also say is that I have found an extremely fast turn around for watching raw AVCHD footage. I do football games, and typically wind up with about 45-50 minutes of footage. My Panasonic AG-HSC1U came with a cute little battery powered 40Gb drive for copying its SDHC media onto.
1) At end of game I pop SDHC chip out of camera and into HD and press “Copy”. By the time I’m done packing up I’ve got a back up copy. Time: 5 Min.
2) I get home and connect the HD to my computer, and do a copy to its HD. Time: 3 Min.
3) I run Nero8, and generate an AVCHD-DVD. (I.e, the same files that would go onto a Blu-Ray, but on a standard $.43 DVD-R (and without cost of the Blu-Ray burner). Time: 6 Min.

E.g., in less than 15 minutes I’m sitting in front of my
50″ screen and Blu-Ray plater watching the game at 1080i !!

I do not need Premiere for this. When I need to edit, as in putting together highlight tapes, I convert the AVCHD clips and use Media Composer; it actually works.

[Tom Ballister]

Well, I tried to make it clear that there was no AVCHD footage involved in my comparison(s); sorry that didn’t come through.

I did my testing with just (a) the Universal Counting Leader (right-click the Project Window -> New Item -> Universal Counting Leader), and (b) a piece of HDV (.mpeg) footage captured under PPro 2.0 from an older Sony MiniDV (1440×1080) camera. Again, no AVCHD involved.

You are right though, a common workflow I see socialized for AVCHD on Media Composer is to use the Panasonic AVCHD to P2 DVCPRO HD Transcoder software (by Main Concept), and that does take time, and the files do get large. (https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm )

However, I recently came across a program called the “AVS Video Convertor 6” that can convert AVCHD to MPEG-2 (.m2t) files. I’ve just started playing, but conversion seems pretty quick and the footage looks just fine.

[Tom Ballister]

I had same problem, I did not resolve it, but what I learned in the process may be interesting for anyone trying to make a decision about what to do next…

I had Premier 2.0 and wanted to upgrade to do AVCHD editing, but was quickly disappointed by the playback problems. Not only did video clips taken on my Panasonic AG-HSC1UP camera not play, but I could not even start a blank project and drop a Universal Counting Leader into a project and have it play.

Adobe support pushed 2 theories, 1) a codec conflict, and 2) a poor performance graphic card (I’m using an nVidia Quadro FX 3000).

They talked me into removing all possibly conflicting applications in an attempt to resolve the codec conflict theory. I also downloaded Codec Sniper and the Sherlock Codec Detective to verify what codecs were installed, their source, and to clobber some left over after un-installs. Still no good.

Then I uninstalled CS4 and re-installed; still no good.

After that I opened about a dozen new Projects and with different presets and just added the Universal Counting Leader to see if it would play. Basically, nothing that was high def would behave well. [I’ll publish the results of that test series if anyone asks].

So then I made some CPU performance measurements for PPro 2.0 vs CS4, for an identical HDV clip used in a previous 2.0 project. I just opened a new (blank) project, added the media, pushed play, and then via Task Manager watched CPU Performance.

For 2.0, both CPUs (3.0GHz) ran between 45% and 75%, an average of about 60%. For CS4 both CPUs maxed out at 100%. That’s for an identical clip.

Then I reloaded Avid Media Composer, and for a similar configuration with video playing back only in the single (little) timeline monitor, its CPU load was slightly lower than 2.0, at about 55%. But the cool thing was that even with a second monitor activated in Full Screen mode, CPU load only went to about 65%!!

Avid Media Composer is just as picky about the hardware requirements is as CS4, but clearly this particular CPU + Graphics hardware combination is capable of successfully playing back HD video under one application, but not by the other. Both apps indicate they require OpenGL 2.0, which the latest FX 3000 driver supports, but clearly CS4’s interface to the hardware is less efficient than Media Composer’s.

While tinkering I discovered another disappointment. I used to be able (under 2.0) to just Export -> Frame and be able to quickly grab frames of interest. Under CS4 attempting to Export kicks off the separate Adobe Encore process (10 – 15 seconds), and then you need to drill through a handful of options, (another 10 – 15 seconds). Grossly less efficient from a work flow perspective than 2.0.

I’m a long time Premier user (over 10 years), and have long been a fan. But CS4 is clearly a step backwards in terms of performance, and productivity – at least for the things i do. The final recommendation their support offered was “upgrade your graphics card”; but I don’t feel so motivated to spend my money to compensate for CS4’s inadequacies.

My resolution: I’ve returned the Serial Number to Adobe, cancelled my purchase, and am moving over to Media Composer. It works now, albeit using the time consuming AVCHD Transcoder (from Panasonic), but Avid will succumb to the proliferation of AVCHD, and I’ll be upgrading when they do.