Posted by Frank on 12/08/06 23:50

On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:24:55 GMT, in 'rec.video.production',
in article <I Made the jump..>,
Kill Bill <killbill@goblowme.com> wrote:

Have no time to spare right now, so just a few interspersed
comments...

>Greetings everyone,
>
>I made the jump into Tapeless. Went out and bought a new Sony HD ACVHD
>hard drive camcorder. It's for personal use only and is replacing my old
>MiniDV camcorder that broke this year. Been searching for a HD camera
>for personal use, and I'm pretty shocked at the current state of the
>camera industry.

Your HDR-SR1 may be okay, but still you might want to check to see if
it suffers from the documented audio problem. Here's a couple of
links.

Stereo and Surround Sound Reproduction Issues With High Definition
Recordings
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?news_id=158

Recorded Sound Issue for High Definition "Handycam" Camcorder:
HDR-UX1/UX1E and HDR-SR1/SR1E
http://www.css.ap.sony.com/consumer/announcement/HDRSR1_UX1.aspx

>I totally understand that this is cutting edge, and normally I don't
>like the bleeding edge, but my personal work flow is simple. I tape
>functions, weddings, personal things, kids, work, or whatever suits me..
>I fill up the tapes, take them out and throw them into a big draw, put
>in the new tape and keep going.. I don't even bother to write anything
>on the tape even. A few years latter, I gather the tapes up, figure out
>whats on the tape, capture them, put them into FCP, edit, make DVD's
>back the edited material up on DVCAM, erase and dump the tapes, and move
>on. It's pretty simple.
>
>I'm guessing that a few of you here have been looking into this, and I'm
>also guessing that this WILL be the future of cameras.

File-based recording. Tape-less workflows. IT-style processes. Random
access to data.

>Since ACVHD was developed by multiple camera companies,

Panasonic and Sony. Mostly Panasonic.

The video is an application of MPEG-4 Part 10 H.264 AVC and the audio
is Dolby Digital AC-3, so it's a new codec, but is built upon existing
technologies.

>we'll probably see lots more of these coming into the market.

I think that we'll see AVCHD camcorders from other manufacturers as
time goes on.

>With more cameras, and more support for AVCHD, I'm hoping more tools
>will be developed in the near future. And perhaps even editing systems
>with work directly with these files.

There couldn't be *less* support for the format than there is right
now. :)

>I have a bunch of notes that I'd like to post, in case anyone else was
>looking into buying one of these.
>
>1) First off.. The images are stunning! One could have never dreamed
>of these images from such a super small under 14 hundred dollar camera.
>It really knocks your socks off.
>
>2) No Firewire. Camera is accessed via USB 2.0 only. Works just like a
>digital still camera. Clips are files on a remote HD.
>
>3) Both Mac and PC can access these files, but the book says you
>shouldn't use a computer to access the HD files directly.

Supposedly, this can cause corruption. Use the bundled software to
avoid potential problems.

>4) A suite of software with what looks like about 20 programs needs to
>be installed on your PC.. PC only! No mac support what so ever.

I'm not certain that Sony will be issuing a Mac OS X compatible
version of this software. I suspect that Mac users will have to wait
for Apple to add support into its own editing products - iMovie, Final
Cut Express, and Final Cut Pro.

>5) The Sony suite of software is pretty intuitive and pretty easy to
>learn. The software lets you transfer the files, convert the files to
>MP2, burn a DVD, or burn a AVCHD disc. Nothing exist past that.
>
>6) If you create a regular DVD, it will transcode to a MP2, thus you
>basically loose all your HD.
>
>7) You can create a AVCHD disc from a regular DVD, but this format of
>DVD will not play in a regular DVD. Nor will it even mount on a Mac! I
>think that the AVCHD DVD is set for BlueRay players only. If you put the
>DVD that you created into the PC, it launches the suite software AVCHD
>and will play it emulating a type of HDDVD player.

These "AVCHD format" DVDs should play correctly in the Sony BDP-S1 BD
(Blu-ray Disc) player, but don't know about other BD players such as
the Samsung BD-P1000.

>8) It makes files called, "20061207123443.m2ts" corresponding to the
>esact date. They look like ".m2t streaming".

The .m2ts wrapper is an MPEG-2 Transport Stream, similar to the .m2t
MPEG-2 Transport Stream used in HDV.

>I have been
>unsuccessfully opening and playing these files with VLC or Quicktime on
>my Mac.
>
>9) I have also been unsuccessful in converting them with ffmpegX to any
>other format such as .mov or .mp4.

A number of people have asked that ffmpeg support this new format.

>10) The software also lets you move .mt2s files back onto the camera.

That's the safe way to do it.

>11) The interface of the camera is simple and easy to use.. touch screen.
>
>12) The camera has a Composite, Component, and HDMI out plugs! If no
>tools exist for editing these files on the Mac, the HDMI might be my savior.

The Blackmagic Design Intensity card is finally shipping. Requires a
free 1 lane PCIe slot in a Windows XP machine running Premiere Pro 2
or a Mac Pro running Mac OS X and Final Cut Pro 5. Check the
hardware/software requirements carefully before buying, however. On a
Windows machine, you may even need to change some ROM BIOS settings.

Blackmagic Design Intensity
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

>14) The camera will actual take a 4MP photo with Flash, while filming at
>the same time!
>
>15) The clips are playable, and deletable via the on screen menus. No
>re-winding of the tapes is very nice here.
>
>16) No time codes that I can see anymore. There's a running time of how
> long the clip is.. but I don't see any more drop frame style time codes.

You may have to live without time code, and HDMI doesn't support it,
either.

>17) No other utilities for converting these files from .mt2s to anything
>else yet.. I'm slightly disappointed here because I wish there was more.
>
>18) Several settings exist for video. AVCHD 5M,7M,9M,and 15M. And SD
>3M,6M, and 9M. 30Gig will hold 8 hours of video in AVCHD 7M Standard
>Quality. I'm happy with this, as I don't have to carry around 7 tapes on
>vacation with me.
>
>19) My goal is to just save all the mts2 files for later archiving them
>on DVD data disc for later editing once the tools exist on the market.
>In reality right now theres not really a HD format to go to anyways.
>
>
>
>More to come later..
>
>-Bill

--
Frank, Independent Consultant, New York, NY
[Please remove 'nojunkmail.' from address to reply via e-mail.]
Read Frank's thoughts on HDV at http://www.humanvalues.net/hdv/

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