Can FCP 4.5 handle AVCHD files & Camera recommends

Hi,
I'm editing a music video and directing at a distance - I'm in LA and the artist lives out in the Florida boonies and is going to shoot B roll of swamp critters and culture. I have some footage in SD, some in 720p shot with a friend's cheap still camera. I have to recommend a camera for him but from what I hear, all the new HD consumer cams shoot in AVCHD and my version of FCP (4.5) doesn't handle AVCHD files very well without messy (?) workarounds. Since the music vid most likely will only be seen on the Web, should I just recommend an SD camera or are there any inexpensive ($300 or less) fully auto HD cameras that shoot in .mov or AVI or some other easily ingested format?

G4 DP 1.25Ghz/1.75Gb RAM/10.4.11

Thanks for your help,

Dean

FCP 4.5 HD only supports one HD format and that is DVCPRO HD. If you wish to work with HD media, your only choice is to convert it all to DVCPRO HD or else update Final Cut Studio. I would recommend finding an old copy of FCS 2 on eBay and installing that. You'll get lots of extra applications and many additional codecs, including ProRes.

hybridd@aol.com Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since the music vid most likely will
> only be seen on the Web, should I just recommend
> an SD camera or are there any inexpensive ($300 or
> less) fully auto HD cameras that shoot in .mov or
> AVI or some other easily ingested format?

AVI is not easily ingested into Final Cut Pro, and .mov is just a container. You would still need the relevant codec installed on your system.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

Thanks - I know that's an option. This is an extremely lo budget gig and I'm just curious if there are workarounds or other ways to approach the project using 4.5.

Whatever workaround you choose, you'll still have to end up with DVCPro HD. I can't remember whether FCP4.5 even does all the flavours of DVCPro HD -- you'll have to look at whether you need to go 1080 or 720, 24p or 60i.

The options I can think of are:

1. Find a Final Cut Pro system that has FCP6 or FCP7 on it, plus the AVCHD plugin. Use Log and Transfer to convert the footage to DVCPro HD if possible. If not, convert to ProRes and then use Compressor to convert to DVCPro HD.

2. Use Voltaic to convert the MTS files to DVCPro HD. I'll add here, however, that I've gotten extremely poor results with this method. Footage from a Canon AVCHD camera comes out looking soft and jagged, and motion is horrible, almost strobey. (Handheld footage from the same camera, converted later using FCP7 and the AVCHD plugin, did not have this issue) Plus, Voltaic on a Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 took about one hour to convert every 90 seconds of footage. A more powerful computer would probably have performed better, but if you're still running FCP4.5, my guess is that your computer isn't too far off from the G5 specs above.

3. From what I've read, ClipWrap should also be able to convert the MTS files. I haven't used it myself.


www.derekmok.com

Those are the options i've heard about but you've pretty much convinced me to go with FCS2 - I found a "new in box" for $150 on ebay though that sounds awfully cheap. Thanks again,

D

...and I think FCS2 will run on my DP 1.25G G4 running 10.4.11/1.75 G RAM

D

But I just read that FCP 6 with the 6.0.1 updater will allow me to transfer AVCHD footage but only on Intel based mahines. And I have a Power PC. I have a new MacBook Pro I could install FCS 2 on and ingest the AVCHD footage and downres it to something i can use in FCP 4.5 (DVCPRO HD)...sounds like a lot of work. Maybe just get him to buy an SD camera and shoot SD...