Importing AVCHD vie Log & Transfer

I am trying to import AVCHD footage using log&transfer

The footage is copied from the memory card to a folder on my HD.

Right now I am seeing this kind of structure



Which folder am I supposed to drag to the media bin / select as source?? FCP doesn't seem to recognize anything on that folder? I don't need the actual camera to do this... right?


FCP 6.0.5

Got it to work. It just took REALLY long time for FCP to recognize the folder.

Which leads to question 2:

Is it possible to export the finished edit back to the camera (Sony HDR) and use the camera as HD media player? How does that work? I suppose copying a finished QT to the memory card isn't going to work

Not with FCP, no there is no export or output back to an AVCHD camera.

Apparently our friends on the PC land have found a way to "push" something back to the camera. Unfortunately, 2 GB max filesize and no hope trying the same stunt with Mac

why?

AVCHD is designed acquisition format not a mastering or archival format...

If you want a low file size HD movie export an H.264 for a laptop, iphone or other media player.



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Why wouldn't it be an archival format Ben? High quality video, inexpensive almost unbreakable media...makes sense to make it so. I would rather have a draw full of FLASH cards than tapes.

I attended an Adobe CS4 Production Premium demo a few months ago. Dave Helmly of Adobe whipped out his FLASH HD camera, launched Premiere Pro and edited from / saved to the FLASH card via a reader. Camera recognized the edit. I hope FCP7 (FCS3) handles this technology as easily.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I guess if there is a market for yet another delivery CODEC then they will make it possible on a camera or two.

However you could record any format to SSD cards as long as you can access them! If you want to use them as backup then you can already.

So back to my question...

Why?

AVCHD is only MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 with Dolby AC3 encoded audio - compression compression compression!

If the cameras become players then it would make sense but otherwise why bother?



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Ben,

I am helping my friend who is an amateur videographer. It would make a world of difference for him to show his projects; professionally edited and in their full HD glory. This Sony camera he's using is just amazing: Pocket size and with HDMI out. Picture quality isn't that bad either for $400.

Memory cards are expensive when compared to HD space. It would make a lot of sense for my friend to archive his edited stuff on HD and -when the grand premiere arises- upload his masterpiece to memory card and use his camera as High Def media player. Unfortunately I now need to tell him the bad news: not going to happen without expensive HD/BlueRay burner /player combo or a laptop with HDMI out and enough power to actually play 1080 through

Well it is just a matter of encoding so it might be worth having a look for a solution. Its not difficult to get a card reader.

Its worth remembering that your entry level laptop PC (few hundred dollars) or MacMini or MacBook or iMac with DVI (or Mini Display connector to DVI for the new Macs) to HDMI and an audio connector to the sound system will work!

I compressed a 138GB 1080p25 file to a VERY watchable 762MB file using H.264 (actually x264 encoder available free) with AAC audio and it plays VERY well on an HD projector or my 38" Plasma.

If you wanted higher quality you could still run a higher bandwidth version of a crappy old internal HDD or a cheap bus powered 2.5" portable HDD.

In fact that particular file will play back from CD and DVD-ROM and progressive download over the Net!

So get a DVI to HDMI cable for $15 and use a Mac or a PC with Quicktime!

Seriously guys there is SOOOOOOO much tech out there that will do exactly what you need without waiting for a hardware manufacturer to make another expensive toy to do the same things.

But yes the option for recording back to camera might be useful.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Everyone is airing EVERYTHING these days and compression algorithms have gotten so much better (especially for the internet). IMHO, it won't be long until the standard is a compressed format. I see H264 compressions all the time that to the naked eye could not be distinguished from Uncompressed 10 Bit.

I'm just saying, my friend... change is inevitable.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Raise your hand if you're surprised that I'm going to step in here to point out that HDCAM is, itself, a compressed format. Quite heavily, too.

For that matter, so's Digital Betacam.

Uncompressed video was a rare thing in SD days, and practically unheard of for HD. It's not a question of compressed-versus-uncompressed any more. It's a question of well-compressed-versus-poorly-compressed.

Yeah well I don't rate HDCAM highly either! Expensive, visually noisy and not great for CC compared to even DVCproHD.

But looking at water or high detail fast moving images on the digital terrestrial and the cable broadcast in the UK shows just how bad the situation is even with high quality footage. This is exacerbated when HDV is used.

AVCHD and HDCAM-EX will fair better but there are serious issues with colours and graphics with delivering masters as 4:2:0 MPEG Long GOP or H.264.

Don't get me wrong I understand the state of the industry all too well and live at pretty much every level of it - however I am still an image snob and demand that anyone providing YouTube quality video for broadcast cease and desist immediately or I shall be forced to take over the world from my Castle in the UK and perps will be put in the stocks and be pelted to death with old Digital-8 tapes...



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But looking at water or high detail fast moving images on the digital terrestrial and the cable broadcast in the UK

I don't know about UK HD, but in the states, terrestrial HD is 19 megabit MPEG-2. Yes, you can clearly see compression artifacts in places where compression artifacts are likely to appear. That's not a function of the source format (which is almost always HDCAM or SR for terrestrially broadcast material) but rather the ATSC broadcast specification itself.

That said, I'm with you: The problem of HD has always been delivery, and that problem has never been solved adequately for perfectionists like you and me. When you can get better-looking material from iTunes than you can over terrestrial, satellite or cable, some part of the system is fundamentally broken.

Yeah we get the same issues - but you try throwing something that already has compressed colour AND compression artifacts through the mill and you will see even more artifacting as the previous artifacts are treated as picture detail rather than being a by-product of the process!

We should all move to Japan where I believe they have a much higher bandwidth for HDTV than the US or UK. At least our great edits and funky GFX won't get mangled into Macro-block mash!

Seriously... Sometimes its like watching Rubrik's cubes vs Checkers in a Tetris tournament for screen real-estate!



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Quote

however I am still an image snob and demand that anyone providing YouTube quality video for broadcast cease and desist immediately

Nobody is a bigger image snob that I - so there I just finished QC'ing one of the games I am working on (Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10 - Xbox 360) and after seeing my videos in game, I was pretty impressed. Our proprietary VP6 compression squashes an Uncompressed 10.22 GB 720p file down to 44.5 MB (01;08;48 trt / same PAR / frame rate WITH embedded Alpha Channel) and it's super clean with bright colors!

I have seen the future...and hopefully Uncompressed footage is not in mine.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I remember when the NFL first started broadcasting games in HD last century, they went through a transitionary period where they had to be all "Okay, that graphics segment looks great uncompressed, but falls apart when it's broadcast. Rework it to make it more broadcast-friendly."

It's really the same thing as some of the limits placed on analog SD. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from delivering an SD master that uses the whole luma gamut from superblack to superwhite and that has 30 or 40 dB of dynamic range on the soundtrack. But it wouldn't be broadcast-legal. Similarly, a lot of stuff you can produce in uncompressed HD wouldn't be "broadcast-legal" with current cable, terrestrial and satellite transmission technologies.

Of course, as long as the broadcasters' primary focus is cramming as many channels into their pipe as they can fit, us creative types will always be at cross-purposes with them.

Bit OT here: compression on tape

In the very old days the Panasonic D5s could be modified with SCSI interfaces to work uncompressed and also 4:4:4:4 and also up to 4k. The also could be used a backup device for data, a long tape was able to store 1 TB, which was unbelievable those days.
That was also possible with the Ampex machines.
The trick was to make a "VTR RAID 0".

Andreas

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We are transfering from SDHC cards to AVCD Pro Res 422 to FCP using Log & Transfer and some of our footage has digital artifacts on it, throughout the clip. The Digital artifacts are bitmap weird coloring in stripes, bit pieces, different colors, shades. very strange. I can send photos.
Others are fine. Why is this happening? Is it a compression issues?

However the clip on the card (played back on the camera) does not have any weird artifacts, it plays just fine. So it must be a log and transfer issue.

What should we do? How do we prevent this.

It has happened on each of our 5 SDHC cards randomly, so we know it is not a "bad" card.

Angelika

Can you post screen grabs or stills of these so we can see?

Question: when you play back on camera are you viewing it connected to a TV or HD TV?



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