Editing 720p 60fps video...

[Brad]

Source format is AVCHD. What's the best software for doing this?

I have Premiere Elements already (came with a camera IIRC). That do the job?
Also is 8GB ram enough for video editing?

Thanks chaps.

Oh, can be Mac or Windows software.

[briareos_kerensky]

8GB are enough, though if you start handling multiple streams, HDD speed will become more of an issue than RAM.

The Mac crowd always raves about Final Cut, while a lot of people will tell you that Sony Vegas is much better than Premiere. I use Premiere and After Effects for various reasons (license costs, interoperability with other programs, compatibility with capture hardware) and they are more than enough for my needs.

I don't know how much limited Premiere Elements is, but if it's the same thing as in Photoshop and its Elements version, it should do the job and probably you'll miss certain tools only if you are used to them.

Anyway, if Premiere Elements behaves like the standard Premiere, and you see your HDD run low on space for no apparent reason, it's because Premiere creates a media cache where it stores "conformed" files, so you'll might want to clear it every once in a while or move it (there's an option in the preferences menu).

[Yakumo]

I use TrakAxPC for all my video editing. It's not free but it's very easy to get in to and quite feature packed.

[Largo]

Just my 10cents.

I would say video editing is only 20% about the software, just pick and use whatever you feel is the easiest or gives you the results you desire. The actual 80% that matters is choosing the correct editing codecs, and ultimately the final re-encoding of the final render.

Now this is generally referred to as 'work flow'. However its also known by its more colloquial term; 'an utter ball ache'.

The problem lies with the technology of the recording camera etc, you see in order to capture and store the amazing quality you can get nowadays, the cameras avchd codec is more of a 'final render' one. It compresses the footage to the extreme, in order to record such quality on the fly. As such avchd native is generally quite poor to edit. Simply because you will be pushing your machine to decompress and recompress on the fly as you run thro the footage and ram preview etc. etc.
For the most part, its much easier to covert the avchd footage into a friendly editing format, then re encode it later for a final wham bam max quality mam.

What 'the mac crowd' covet as BK mentions, is actually the Final Cut Pro codecs that you can only obtain with the software, widely regarded as some of the best for video editing. In fact if you search google for advice on avchd editing I'll prob bet many helpful videos will show people just converting it straight to apple prores.

Anyway, in my experience the whole process is a complete pain in the arse, its often much easier to find some do-it-for you software that will handle the conversions and keep the quality 'just so' Such as Cineform (open your wallet).

So my advice is pretty much non non-existent ... all in all this post was pretty pointless really.

Post some more of your project details FSW and I'll see what i can turn up
Or just edit in avchd, but at least you all read my post and maybe learnt something new....my work here is done.....TO THE IRRELEVANCE MOBILE

[Brad]

Lol! Thanks for the info guys :-)

The project is simply documenting our snowboarding trip. However, video inout formats could be quite a mix:

1080p at 30fps from a Lumix GF3
1080p at 24p from a GH1
720p at 60fps from a GH1
1080p at 60fps from a Panasonic FZ200
720p at 120fps from a FZ200

All AVCHD.

Will the mish-mash of formats be an issue?

The final output I'd like to be in 2 formats: 1080 at 24fps if possible (for maybe burning onto a blu) and 720p at 60fps so that the action stuff looks smooth.

The 120fps input is for slow motion stuff so I guess I can run that through something to make it 60fps at half speed before feeding it into Premiere?

How does that sound? Am I setting myself up for trouble?

[Dogg Thang]

Given that only one of your five sources is 24fps, it would seem wrong to aim for that as an output. You may have some difficulties with the different sources but mostly because a lot of editing software doesn't handle changing frame rate all that well. However, most of your sources are multiples of the 30fps so if you use that or 60fps as your standard, the only footage that may come out looking a bit weird is the stuff at 24fps. That's because it has to extend frames to fill the 30fps. Most do this with frame blending but I have found things can look a bit stuttery when motion gets fast.

If it were me, looking at what you've got, I'd be aiming to edit it at 1080p, 60fps. That's if you really want that 60fps. The thing is, working at that high a res and frame rate will be tough on your system. Not unworkable, just probably a little slow. But once you've got it, you can output whatever you want from it.

With the slo-mo stuff, I don't know what's in Premiere Elements but you should be able to manage all that within your editing package. So take it in as normal and adjust it within the package. But then I don't think I have ever worked with so many different frame rates like that before so I wouldn't know the best ways to work with them.

[Brad]

Right, so if I avoid the 24p capture altogether and stick to multiples of 30?

Also this FZ200 my friend has might be outputting PAL stuff e.g. 25, 50 and 100 fps. I guess that'll be a problem too?

[Dogg Thang]

You needn't avoid them altogether. Just be aware that the conversion could be noticeable and not ideal. Some shots will be better than others though so I'd say best aim for a standard that works for the majority of your footage and then just try the rest if you find a shot you really want and see how it looks. Might be fine.