tomo2607 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Ive been given the task of purchasing a fairly expensive camcorder for two departments within the school I work for. The two departments are media and drama.The requirements are fairly simple. Drama wish to have a decent digital camera to replace there VHS (suprisingly good) camcorder.There use of the unit would be to record GCSE and Alevel performances for submission. The current VHS unit is suprisingly clear and provides great detail of the performances. However, with exam board requests, it is becoming neccesery to have a digitial format camcorder that can provide similar, if not better, results to allow for easier submission of exam material. The camera that we seem to have settled upon is the --Sony Nex VG10E.-- I know this may not be the perfect unit but both departments seem to have taken a shine to it and its at the lower end of our budget. Also with the ability to change the lenses it gives both deparments the opprtunity to get a little more creative. My problem now lies with editing. The school, like most, has limited computing power. We have Two imacs with I5 processors and 6gb ram. Each Imac has imovie and we are also looking to purchase FCE for them too. We also have a computer suit with 20 machines, each has around 2gb ram and intel duo processors. They have Windows movie maker, Serif Movie plus and sony vegas for editing. As the potential new camera records in AVCHD this means that the PC's will struggle to edit the footage. Also I need to be able to convert the AVCHD to a format that the Imac can edit too. Does anyone know of, or had any experiance with, or a solution to converting AVCHD to a userble footage for limited situations such as this? Currently im using freemake to convert most of the footage we record and ive read that it can also convert AVDHD, but ive not been able to test this yet. I need a converter that is simple to use for GCSE and Alevel students. Id rather they be able to do the whole process from start to finish rather than me being the middle man having to convert footage every day. Any insight would be a great help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willdoweuk Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 My camcorder records to AVCHD and I have always used Adobe media encoder to convert footage, but theres plenty of other programs out there, some of them are free but most cost about £30. Just have a google. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomo2607 Posted May 25, 2011 Author Share Posted May 25, 2011 sorry, I should have said... I have already found a number of converters / encoders that sugest that they can do the job, however im slightly concerned that after spending £000's on a camcorder the converted footage will turn out to be as poor as a regular handycam recording in mp4 format... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willdoweuk Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 The only way to find out is to try a few really. I asked a few people and they mentioned:http://www.avchdconverter.org/&Xvid4PSP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjk513 Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 I am using a Panasonic AVCHD camera right now for the first time. I am importing straight into iMovie and this appears to be working well and editable in iMovie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutwo Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 We use VoltaicHD on our main mac and then distribute on memory sticks as needed, costs £20-odd quid but very quick and can convert to numerous formats. The Youtube option is particularly useful for reducing the filesize with decent quality. It's also a video converter in its own right. Website is at http://www.shedworx.com/voltaichd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Final Cut Express handles AVCHD with no problems, like all of them there's a bit of rendering time, but FCE on your Apples will be fine. I use Premiere myself, and the same thing - AVCHD isn't a problem at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomo2607 Posted May 25, 2011 Author Share Posted May 25, 2011 Thanks for the replies. Ive now been given the "go ahead" by the ones who control the purse strings to purchase FCE 4 for the macs, so this will solve that issue. As for the PC's... If I could pursuade the school to purchase an adobe licence my life would be made much simpler. However they seem prefer the serif (cheaper) alternative. So ill just have to try my luck with freemake for now and possibly purchase something like ADVHC converter if needed later down the line. Again, Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Doesn't the camera actually ship with a version of vegas? That will edit AVCHD? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madorangepanda Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 AVCHD is just h.264 video and AC3 audio in a m2ts container. Loads of programmes can edit and convert this. It is very easy to mux it into another container. Have a look here and see what programme works best for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD#Software Personally I'd go with avidemux or handbrake to mux it into a format that your existing software likes, this doesn't alter the video or audio in anyway, just puts it into a container that you're editing software will like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter F Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 If the camera doesn't ship with Vegas, I can thoroughly recommend purchasing it for the PC's. There are quite a few variations, looking at the box I have in front of me, Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum Version 10 is the one I bought at an extremely reasonable price. I think I paid £60 and that's a full license, not educational. A quick look at Amazon shows it currently selling for an astonishing £27.99 It handles AVCHD seamlessly and puts Adobe Premiere to shame. Cheers, Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munro Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 I'll agree with using FC. Although whether Express is what you should be getting I'm not sure, I seem to remember having some problems with express that weren't present in FCP to do with the import and render of footage from an AVCHD Panasonic Cam. Just my 2p. JM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomo2607 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 I'll agree with using FC. Although whether Express is what you should be getting I'm not sure, I seem to remember having some problems with express that weren't present in FCP to do with the import and render of footage from an AVCHD Panasonic Cam. Just my 2p. JM I thought that too. But the latest version of FCE (4) boasts that it can handle AVCHD formats as well as others such as DV HDV etc int the same project without the need to constantly render when a new format is improted into the project. So this should work well for our needs. As for the bundled software... aparently its supplied with something called "Picture Motion Browser" and thats it.... We do have an older version of Sony vegas at one campus (we are split into two schools over derby) however it does not support AVCHD :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PJG Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 I have just set up a systems like this. I did find that there were some differences between systems. I opted for the software that came with the camera as it could use the camera to rerender the footage reduceing the time needed to a 1/4. We also tried AVS this produces a lower quality dvd but has more featuers how ever it requires the user to have admin rights on the computer (if running windows 7) some thing that many not be available in a school enviroment. If you want any more advice with what we purcased and did in the end then send me a pm. We did invest in a decent rode exteral mic and that made a huge difference as the built in one was not acceptable. Philip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leggy Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 For your PC users I can recommend the Free Video Converter from http://www.koyotesoft.com. In fact they do a few useful free bits of software. Leggy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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