2. AVCHD and HDV are both so-called “long GOP (Group of pictures)” formats so they are both difficult to edit unless you transcode them to an I-frame format such as Cineform .avi files using Cineform’s “Neo HDV” product.

3. AVCHD — transcoded to Cineform .avi format as an intermediate — is not any more difficult to edit than HDV. AVCHD is only more difficult it you are attempting to edit it “as is” (natively) in a given non-linear video editor timeline. If you want to edit AVCHD natively, you’ll need the fastest computer available.

4. Cineform’s “Neo HDV” product converts both HDV and AVCHD to Cineform’s .avi format, but for the AVCHD conversion to work, you must install an AVCHD decoder that works in Microsoft Windows Media Player. I did some experiments and I found an inexpensive CyberLink decoder called “HD264″ that you can buy for less than $40 U.S. and it is designed to put the AVCHD decoder into Windows Media Player. It works on my system; it allows “Neo HDV” from Cineform to do the AVCHD-to-Cineform .avi transcodes using Cineform’s included “HDLink” software utility. It is my observation that the Cineform codec transcodes do preserve quality far better than I would have guessed had I not tried the product.

5. I have both Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 and Corel (formerly Ulead) VideoStudio 11 Plus and Corel (formerly Ulead) MediaStudio Pro 8. The Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 does *not* support the Cineform .avi files at this time (bad news). However, both Corel programs *do* support the Cineform .avi files. I can edit the AVCHD material now as easily as DV .avi files on a Gateway laptop with just a 2.4Ghz Athlon 64 processor. Scrubbing is easy; previewing is a breeze. I suspect the Cineform .avi files might also work in the Magix Movie Edit Pro 12 software, but I haven’t tested that one, yet.

6. “AVC-Intra” is Panasonic’s I-frame, “pro” H.264 format. We might see this appear in prosumer camcorders soon. It is not a “long GOP” format. So it should be quite easy to edit and the image quality should be tops. However, it consumes more storage space.

Regards,

Jerry Jones

Regarding encode/decode, again, remember what I wrote. This is a format that will rule in 3 years from now, not today. By then, CPUs will be faster. It was really slow when DV camcorders came to the market for example, but computers became faster and now editing DV is a piece of cake. As for the camcorders themselves, they have no trouble encoding h.264 as long as they have hardware support. Battery life is unchanged.

As for video editing, you are right. It is NOT the right format to do editing. But, because the lack of DV tapes adds in the user convenience and lower camcorder prices, it will force NLEs to find ways to work with it better. Engineers will have to find ways to “understand” h.264 better and add better editing support for it. It’s going to be a bitch, but eventually it will happen.

BTW, Canon announced *just a few hours ago* a new camcorder, and it’s AVCHD, not HDV. I am telling you, this is where the market is going.

1 - They save storage space. While an advantage, a small one since storage space is very cheap compared to everything else.

2 - They save bandwidth. This is the real advantage, since bandwidth is expensive. But I’m talking about internet bandwidth, and that doesn’t come into play when we talk about camcorders.

On the other hand, it has important disadvantages:

1 - It’s a lossy format (and on your own tests, a bad quality one). Why would you want HDV encoded into a lossy, poor quality format???

2 - It’s very expensive to encode/decode. And CPU cycles are rather expensive. A camcorder that encodes h264 in real time will need a powerful chip and it will use a lot of energy (energy might be cheap for a PC, but very expensive for a portable device).

3 - It’s a pain for video editing. And isn’t this the whole point of having a camcorder? Why choose the worst possible format for editing?

Unless I’m missing something, it sounds like a bad idea to me. They should come up with something better. Trading storage space for quality and ease of use (for editing especially) is worth IMHO.

As for used camcorders, I personally wouldn’t buy a used one when you can get a new one for $230, but that’s just me.

And concerning future formats, while I do agree that it’s propably better to wait a little until the technology matures, I do think that the times where there is “The One True Format” are over, everyone is doing different stuff, and no matter what you chose, you will be incompatible with someting else. Choose a workflow that works for you, and stick with it.

Cheers
-Richard