Using AVCHD Video Clips

[decaf4me]

I have 90 AVCHD clips to edit and decide which ones will go into a Producer video, along with some still photos.

1. Is AVCHD a good format for vid clips going into a show or should I convert these clips to MOV first? (I read somewhere that MOV is not as compressed, has higher bit rate & better motion & color on computer.) Can anyone recommend a good converter for this (hopefully a converter which has a batch process to do all at once)?

2. I am using a PC. Ideas on best software to use to trim the MOV files before using in Proshow? (I have Movie Maker, but since Movie Maker doesn't recognize MOV files, I guess I would have to do an additional conversion to AVI?)

I could not find this info within the Photodex help guide.

~Tina

[tdew]

Tina, I've used AVCHD files in ProShow in the past. At one time, ProShow was the only program I had that would recognize the format.
They were coming from a Panasonic Camera. Can't tell you much more, but try it and see how you like it.

[Astra]

Tina,
to your point 2:
you do not need to trim the video files outside - Producer have capability (and pretty good & accurate one) to do it INSIDE of the program.

How-to:
1. insert the video
2. pick the first Tab "Layer setting"
3. on right/bottom - pick the button "Trim"
4. you will get new a window -
......on top is a "roll" of the movie - there will be your "trimming" done - between two "flag-like" vertical lines
...... on bottom there are 3 windows: Left: "Preview"- where you will se your mouse movement, middle one - shows the beginning of video (even the trimmed one) & last one is "End" of clip.
....... ("Zoom" will stretch the video to see the frames of video in more precise detail).
5. Trim the video, hit "OK".

Advantage: this "trimming" is not destroying your video - you can always adjust it as necessary.

Several other useful features:
a. change the speed of video - slower or faster
b. Volume of a video can be muted (volume = 0)

For your info - just was working in 11 minutes long show - with 12 inserted videos (all "MP4" format) & more then 30 photographs (all "JPG") - show takes longer to render, but worked well..... However, I did not work with AVCHD files .....

Hope it was helpful.
Alex/Astra

[decaf4me]

Thanks for your reply.I often use the clipping feature within Proshow, but I am concerned about the time it takes to render so many video clips and all of them will be trimmed, so why make Proshow work so hard. I have lots more vids than 12. I tried an AVHD video and the playback was not smooth in Proshow, so I am looking for an easy way to convert to MOV.

[gpsmikey]

It is not clear from your statement just how the "playback was not smooth" - the only true test is to try a short show for example and actually render it to the final format then see how that plays. Often times, what is not smooth in a preview (especially a format that requires a lot of crunching) will be smooth when actually rendered to the final format. That said, almost all of the video formats are quite compressed - any time you convert from one format to another (especially if it involves a frame rate change), you can get a significant loss in quality. There are some lossless intermediate formats, but they are generally quite big and not supported in Proshow (or lots of other apps too). Many video editors (Sony for example) give you the option of setting the "project properties" to the same as the first clip you drop on the timeline just because it makes so much difference if you are changing frame rates etc. (Actually, Sony Vegas is now Magix Vegas - they sold all their video stuff to Magix).