It is now the age of AVCHD. While we are facing AVCHD format every day and every where, there grows the need to edit it. Just like what happened to MPEG2 10 years ago.

Like the editors for MPEG2, there is also the problem of GOP-accurate or frame accurate. A GOP of MPEG2 may have 15~30 frames each, but a AVCHD GOP could be seconds in duration. So, simply cut on the GOP boundary may lead to a miss of several seconds, that would be not acceptable for many users.

WYSIWYG, also spelled as What You See Is What You Get, has long been a standard demand for modern softwares. We will surely take this as a normal requirement. Hard to imagine, when a user defined a cut point on the time line, but the output is 3 seconds away from that point.

Because of the longer GOP it has, AVCHD will ask for more accurate editing tools. That is why the frame accuracy will be necessary to the industry.

And your point of this post is......???

I hate to break it to you but people (including myself) are happily editing avchd right now.

Most if not all nle's that do full renders (recompress renders and not smart renders) do them in an uncompressed state. In other words when an edit is made the editor expands that part of the video, does the edit, then recompresses the video.... so the idea of "more accurate" editing tools is a non issue. What the longer gop does do, is chew up more horsepower in the uncompressing/recompressing stages of editing.... or even playing it back for that matter.

Now the avchd encoders are a different ball game. They DO require more refinement... but then on the other hand mpeg2 has been around for quite sometime and they're still to this day refining and improving the encoders. It of course won't be any different for avchd.

I will also add that I'm still not sure whether avchd is actually here to stay...... or just a passing fad. This kind of technology in this day and age tends more often than not to be..... "here today and gone tomorrow".

I'm gonna buy a AVCHD Camcorder, I've already bought a SONY MPEG2/SD DV Cam 3 years ago.

But it seems there is no suitable tools to edit the AVCHD captured by the current popular AVCHD Camcorders. Some applications claimed they do, but I did not see any one good enough. Will there be such a condition, that after another 3 years, I will need to buy another DV for another format, even though I did not already take good advantage of the old AVCHD one? "not sure whether avchd is actually here to stay", yeah, that is the problem.

By the way, I do not have those super computers which process video data in un-compressed format. I only have my lovely laptop.

A lot of misconceptions here...DV IS NOT MPEG-2, so do not confuse it...DV is MJPEG...

secondly, AVCHD is here to stay,it is the most efficient compression method to date, used in SD and HD broadcasting, blu-ray, everything...just as mpeg-2 can be made to edit accurately without loss due to every GOP containing only I frames (Sony IMX) making it virtually MJPEG like DV, so can mpeg-4 based AVCHD..with cheaper and larger flash memory cards or SSD, AVCHD could grow to a truly losslesly-editable format...it is however not likely due to enormous bitrates a single I-frame per GOP in FulHD res would produce ...SD was easy to do, this is much tougher...stil what I meant is that mpeg-2 and mpeg-4 are not the poor mans codec as everyone seems to percieve them...

Sony Vegas can edit AVCHD AFAIK...I 'm still puzzled at why the AVC decoding power of current mainstream gfx cards is not fuly employed to speed up editng...

I mean Digital Video Camcorder by 'DV Cam', not DV25 or DV50.

secondly, AVCHD is here to stay,it is the most efficient compression method to date, used in SD and HD broadcasting,
Well.... that remains to be seen. While it is true that the consumer industry is licking up avchd by storm... the pro industry is not. There are too many unsettled issues so far. Things like 2 different types of avchd being used, Sony's unwillingness to push any further than a consumer-brand format... etc.

Unlike the days of yesteryear where there was only really one accepted format for delivery (mpeg2), today you have VC1, avc, mpeg2, and a few others. We're also seeing some of the newer cams (the sanyo for example) that has decided to not to involve themselves in avchd at all.

So..... who knows though.... time will tell I guess.

AVCHD is just a disc structure that may vary, the video stream itself it of the very same type between sonys, panasonics, samsugs or canons of this world...in professional use, neither HDV nor DV is good enough for postproduction although some try to make it look that way...h.264 as a standard has support for movie production (as in 2K, 4K)...

of course Sony are reluctant to push it beyond consumer because they have their own HDCAM SX professional systems to push in which they invested so much......but for prosumer, i believe AVCHD WILL replace DV, DVCam, HDV...

as you may have noticed VC1 is on it's way out as well as mpeg-2...

I may sound like some fan-boy of h.264 but IT IS a quantum leap over previous compression formats, however it is very hardware demanding due to the complex compression algorithms it employs and requires a complex encoder/decoder...

As it is, AVCHD doesn't provide the right bandwidth for pro usage. You simply can't master with 16-24Mbps H.264 for TV or movies. So, I'll have to agree with bigbarney on that one.

But is some H.264 format going to be used for pro masters in the near future at the pro level? I'm pretty sure it will at some point.

I do think H.264/M2TS is here to stay for a while at the consumer market though. We might see revisions of the AVCHD format to include higher bitrate to support decent 1080p60, but there's pretty much nothing coming up the R&D pipeline to replace H.264 for camcorders, blurays, broadcasting transport, on-demand streaming and other end-user consumer applications.

mthbyte -> FYI, VC-1 and H.264 are pretty much head to head in terms of compression technologies. Whether VC-1 is losing ground or not, I don't know... but I wouldn't say that H.264 is quantum leaps over VC-1 (and trust me on this, I'm in the software encoding business).

Eric, MS stopped pushing VC-1 in IPTV, Digital Cable, and broadcast, once the SMPTE process established and exposed the external IP. Even most Mediaroom deployments are using the H.264/AVC codec.

And yet VC-1 is used in almost all SmoothStreaming/Silverlight applications, on Zune/XBox Marketplace, and on a slew of bluray authoring.

But that doesn't change the fact that VC-1 as a technology is comparable to H.264, unlike what mytbyte wrote.

I'm not saying H.264 isn't winning... only time will tell us that. :)

He said it is on its way out, and I have seen that happen since the latter part of the SMPTE standardisation process of VC-1. BTW, are you sure it is VC-1 and not MS' WMP technology? I.e. the open standards codec, or MS'own implementation, that didn't stop at the standardized level.

BTW, DIRAC is currently undergoing standardization at SMPTE as VC-2, see bottom of page: http://www.smpte.org/events/smpte_annual_tech/schedule/06wedspm1/.

And H.264 does offer datarates for professional production/mastering. In commercial off-the-shelf applications there's Pansonics AVC-Intra codec and camera's at 100 Mbit/s. Topping the performance of 100 Mbit/s DVCPRO.

As it is, AVCHD doesn't provide the right bandwidth for pro usage. You simply can't master with 16-24Mbps H.264 for TV or movies. So, I'll have to agree with bigbarney on that one.


Really, how do you figure:

h.264 max spec:

Level 5.1

Hi422P, Hi444PP (kbit/s) 960000

Examples for high resolution@frame rate(max stored frames)

1920×1080@120.5 (16)
4096×2048@30.0 (5)
4096×2304@26.7 (5)

That's 4K film frames and 960 mbps...no sane person would use 24 mbps for professional work...the problem of AVCHD is that it is a great delivery compression scheme, but since it relies heavily on long GOPs, it is rather unsuitable for editing...at very high bitrates (100 mbps+) it is good enough for aquisition, provided it is immediately converted to uncompressed or at least 2:1 compression formats...additionally, AVC-intra standard is being developed just for editing so the whole post-production can be done natively in AVC without the need for transcoding...

VC-1 is not comparable IMHO and per fact:

VC-1 max spec:

Level 4

max bitrate135 Mbit/s

max resolution 1920 x 1080 / 60 (1080p)
2048 x 1536 / 24

As I said, AVCHD != H.264. Of course, H.264 can beat VC-1 in its specs, it's been revised multiple times since the last VC-1 update.

And yes, AVCHD uses H.264, but limits its usage at max bandwidth = 24Mbps, L4.1 and 1080p
http://www.avchd-info.org/format/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

So I stand by my comment that AVCHD, as it's currently defined, cannot be used for pro usage.

Yes, true, I was so focused on potentials of h.264 in image aquisition that I used it synonymously with AVCHD, actually meaning AVC...as per thread title, native editing with AVCHD is not possible with current spec and bitrates...but neither is HDV...

So I stand by my comment that AVCHD, as it's currently defined, cannot be used for pro usage.

Why? You just pick up an AVCHD camcorder, press record - say something newsworthy for the local TV station, air that footage, and you have completed the impossible. :-) All these rules I keep reading on here about what you can and can't do in the professional world, are complete nonsense!

My notion of "Pro" here is major television networks and major movie producers, which uses $100k+ camcorders and have expectations on the formats of the outputs (standardized YUV422 or 444, high 100Mbps encoding, XLR audio, exchangeable lenses, real manual focus + pulling support, etc). I'm not talking about Wedding videographers or indie/amateur/youtube filmmakers when I said "pro".

Sorry Chevypower, no disrespect, but the concept that the "pro" world (as per my definition above) would be happy with the current consumer level AVCHD offerings is laughable. I would like to suggest you go visit your local TV studio and see what their equipment and needs are. We have pro studios where I work, and I can assure you that while they would be able to handle AVCHD files, it sure wouldn't be their first choice to work with.

Again, I'm not dissing H.264 in any way. I'm just saying that before AVCHD (as it is now) is taken seriously by the "pro" crowd, it's going to need to get rev'ed up to support things like 422/444, high audio quality, 50Mbps+ bandwidth, 1080p60, etc.

Again, I'm not dissing H.264 in any way. I'm just saying that before AVCHD (as it is now) is taken seriously by the "pro" crowd, it's going to need to get rev'ed up to support things like 422/444, high audio quality, 50Mbps+ bandwidth, 1080p60, etc.

Agree completely.
H.264 is a really great codec. The avchd standard however (all three of them... which is the other laughable part of the avchd "standard") holds it back something awful.

Well, if they can do news-gathering with HDV they most certainly can with 24mbps AVCHD...a good lens and chip with clean picture will do more good than a couple of mbps more...

real professional HD work definitely SHOULD NOT include neither DV nor HDV nor AVCHD...it should include HDCAM, DVCPROHD and the likes...

real professional HD work definitely SHOULD NOT include neither DV nor HDV nor AVCHD...it should include HDCAM, DVCPROHD and the likes...

Well, HD work can't be done with DV anyway since it's devoted to SD work. And HDV... well it's still very much the work horse in the semi pro cam world. The serious pro cams like the EX for example are in fact using the mpeg2 codec. The difference between hdv and avchd though is that the hdv standard was set more or less by the limit of the equipment (the limit of tape to be more specific).... while the limits of avchd were set by...... a panel of people

The fact is that avchd was specifically designed for the consumer industry. A format standard that easily transfers itself off the cam onto disk (or stick) in an "as is" kind of fashion.... which is not something that is normally done in the pro industry.

The pro industry requires a codec that is fast, easy, and least lossy on the time line.... and avchd is none of these things.

So I guess we will never see a prosumer AVCHD camera from Canon? I love the Canon XH-A1S, and the only thing holding me back is the tape......as I have no qualms with HDV. I have been using my HG21 for the past year and love the AVCHD format, as well as the convenience of just pushing record. The lack of user controls is what's lame though for me, and is why I want to move to a prosumer camera. I am still a big fan of tape, hell I still record audio to DTRS tape on my Tascam DA38 8-track recorders. But when I'm out and about filming it is really nice not having to worry about having enough tape, or some dumb ass using my camera, rewinding and fastforwarding breaking the time code.
For what it's worth, I have no problems editing my AVCHD video. I transfer the files to Apple Pro Res and edit in Final Cut Pro. I don't understand why people cry so much about editing it.

Will Canon try to push avchd into the pro arena? Who knows... it's possible I guess, but I suspect they're playing a bit of a waiting game to see how the semi pro industry accepts the Panasonic line of semi pro avchd cams (and from my understanding... that has not been an overwhelming success)

You can't get the hardware mixed up with the format. "Pushing the record button" and not worrying about tape has little to do with the actual format but rather the hardware. You can do the same with HDV.... or even DV for that matter (record to HDD or flash) As stated above, the Sony EX cams record mpeg2 base to a card.

I don't think anybody is actually "crying" over avchd editing.... anybody who is serious about it anyway... get the proper equipment and you can edit anything... but there are a few extra steps required, such as converting prior to editing... and these things can certainly be done. But they take time.... which is money in the pro industry

I'd say we're still mixing things up (me first at times :D)...AVCHD is consumer-oriented subset of AVC codec, not a cvodec unto itself - AVC is absolutely capable of professional use, see Panasonic's P2 system which uses the AVCIntra standard...it's the SAME codec as AVCHD, only another, much higher profile/level...editing natively and frame-accurately is taken care of by using Intra frames only...bitrates are 50 and 100 mbps, depending on profile...

even AVCHD needn't be converted for editing, Sony Vegas and Canopus Edius 5 can edit AVCHD directly, no need for conversion...(I think Edius creates an .mp4 file automatically out of AVCHD, the same container type that, say, Samsung HD camcorders use instead of AVCHD...

but the truth is, Panasonic and Sony have their own professional systems they want people to use, so a shoulder mounted prosumer camera that would shoot in AVCHD is not likely from those two...not sure about Canon though - might happen just in spite of Sony/panny...since Canon doesn't do other video equipment aside from cameras, it needn't protect a potential pro production system

even AVCHD needn't be converted for editing, Sony Vegas and Canopus Edius 5 can edit AVCHD...

Yes.. and I have both (as well as Adobe CS4) The editing is MUCH slower than say for example mxf files from the Sony EX cams... mpeg2 base which can be edited fast and easily. You also minimize losses with mpeg2 base when going to SD dvd or blu ray. Both standards readily accept mpeg2. When going to SD dvd with avchd there is a complete conversion involved.

Again... (from what I understand anyway)... the panasonic avchd cams are not going over to well..... and what is actually "capable" of professional use is what the pro arena accepts at the end of the day.

I beg to differ about advantages of mpeg-2 as it comes to DVD mastering...there are none IMHO since you need to transcode and scale, say, 25mbps HD mpeg-2 to 8mbps DVD SD mpeg-2 because both higher bitrate and res won't work on DVD :D

yes AVCHD is tough to edit since algorithm is complex and more stress is on CPU than harddisk, let's not discuss multiple video tracks etc...the strategy would be to edit in say, Canopus lossless (fast array provided), and use AVCHD just as means to aquire video footage...

I beg to differ about advantages of mpeg-2 as it comes to DVD mastering...there are none IMHO since you need to transcode and scale, say, 25mbps HD mpeg-2 to 8mbps DVD SD mpeg-2 because both higher bitrate and res won't work on DVD. You can drop bitrates without reencoding. As for resolutions it takes about half the time to encode from HD resses to sd resses with mpeg2 to mpeg2...as it does from H.264 to mpeg2.

For what it's worth, I have no problems editing my AVCHD video. I transfer the files to Apple Pro Res and edit in Final Cut Pro. I don't understand why people cry so much about editing it.

You don't understand, because you don't edit AVCHD!

Hey one could edit the stuff on a Pentium 1 or 2 or 3, if one converts it first.

If by not needing to reencode you refer to using original mpeg-2 I-frames and just drop the bitrate between them - that is true...there is however a great potential with current gfx cards to accelerate AVCHD handling/transcoding, but no one seem to intend to use it...ATI has issued its separate AVIVO converter (free) which dramatically improves on transcoding speeds especially concerning h.264...

Barney, Panasonic has both 24 Mbit/s AVCHD cams in its prosomer line-up, as higher-end AVC-Intra models, That are backwards compatible with DVCPro HD 100/50, where the AVC Intra codec provides better quality than the older DVC codec, at the same bitrate.

Edius 5 Pro does allow for direct, native, editing of AVCHD files, but the cheaper version that comes free with the new Panasonic AVCHD prosumer cameras does not, it uses a convertor, instead.

Why one would re-quantize in projects like these that do not have deliverylimits, is beyond me. One can, but one shouldn't.

Edius 5 Pro does allow for direct, native, editing of AVCHD files, but the cheaper version that comes free with the new Panasonic AVCHD prosumer cameras does not, it uses a convertor, instead.


It looks I need to spend more time trying the Edius 5 Pro. I only need basic FX and transactions between cutted clips. I do not want the editor to re-encode the whole time line when it renders out the final result. It should re-encode only the area around the cut points, then copy out the middle part without re-encoding. This can be done to MPEG2, I surely hope the AVCHD also have this kind of convinient equiment. That will be fast, save much of my time.

If Edius 5 Pro does support this "direct, native, editing", it might be my choice.

FWIW, Prosumer != Pro

I'm pretty sure we'll see more AVCHD prosumer's camcorders available in the next few years, as there will be a niche of prosumers that will want the form factor as well as the features of a prosumer camera, like multiple XLR inputs, full manual settings, switchable lenses, pull focus, etc. Those units will probably be useful for on-site light pro crews too. But none of those are going to replace the "pro" studio-style equipment that's being used for TV broadcasting/movie shooting/etc, which AVCHD simply isn't suited for.

As for the H.264 not being suited for pro editing, I really don't think that's an issue. Pro editing usually involves converting the format into a standardized lossless "mezzanine" format, so whether the source is DVCPRO, MPEG2 or H.264 based, it really doesn't matter to the pro editors.

Edius 5 Pro, Adobe CS4, Sony Vegas Pro 9, all support native editing of AVCHD, with 'smart rendering'. Perhaps others have embraced the format by now, but all the Apple stuff offer convertion to internal codecs, as a design choice.

A hefty workstation is generally required for native editing.

Eric, native format DI is used in professional productions, where a quicker turn-around with associated budget savings are required. That includes some of the productions you would label 'Pro'. The same was true for DI on HDCAM, instead of 2K. Indeed the format would not be AVCHD. Not as the primary acquisition format.

High-end pro productions have been using AVCHD camcorders, simply because folks will use anything that works, and these will work in tight corners, and are priced as disposables.

On the other hand many 'films' that aired on TV, and even made their way into theater have been shot on HDV camcorders, over the years.

Edius 5 Pro, Adobe CS4, Sony Vegas Pro 9, all support native editing of AVCHD, with 'smart rendering'.

Slight correction there... Adobe (at least cs4 anyway) does not as of yet have smart rendering for native avchd. VP9 does have SR for for avchd (new to this version) but is still a little buggy

Could you expand, as Adobe, and other users claim it does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPBILit71Wg

Could you expand, as Adobe, and other users claim it does.


I have CS4 and if there is a "smart render" then call me stupid because I've never been able to get it to work. The avchd output quality on full renders BTW... is not that great either. (Vegas...which I also have is much better.)

There is a third party plugin from Main Concept (the MPEG Pro HD encoder) which is SUPPOSED to add avchd smart render (at a pretty steep price) but then if you go to their web site you see this:


* Smart rendering is not available under current Premiere Pro CS4 releases, because of a defect in its plug-in API. Future updates of Premiere Pro CS4 and MPEG Pro HD 4 will solve this.

http://www.mainconcept.com/site/prosumer-products-4/mpeg-pro-hd-4-22464/information-22492.html

Now my CS4 is up to date (I don't have the above pro encoder) and there is no smart render.... or at least I can't get one to work.

As for "others" claiming it does smart render... I'm not sure where you're getting that. When I punch;
"premiere pro CS4 smart render avchd"
into google search I don't get very much that's too specific... other than a few claiming "no smart render in CS4"

I have been reading up, it appears 'native support', does not include smart rendering, had to digg into its forum to see that apparently it doesn't do smart rendering. A real let down, considering Adobe's standing, and its stance of being late to offering avchd support, to do it right from the start, with native support, instead of transcoding to an intermediate coded.

So, looking for a trial to the latest Edius?

As Corel (Ulead), Cyberlink Powerdirector 8 Ultra, (and Pinnacle, and Magix?) do smart rendering, but are limited NLEs.

Otherwise it will have to be an intermediate codec to destress the laptop.

As Corel (Ulead), Cyberlink Powerdirector 8 Ultra, (and Pinnacle, and Magix?) do smart rendering, but are limited NLEs.


Pinnacle does not smart render..... I don't believe magix does either.

I've also played with Edius a little.Granted I didn't get into it that seriously (I dislike the program) but I didn't notice any smart render abilities either.... could be wrong on that though.

Perhaps smart render is transparent i.e always at work unbeknownst to us...I also didn't have time to dwell on Edius' AVCHD capability (since I use DV and Canopus lossless exclusively and am rather busy)...how can you tell if it uses smart render?

Perhaps smart render is transparent i.e always at work unbeknownst to us..

You can tell pretty much instantly when something is getting smart rendered. You don't need an indicator to show it.

Looks like 'segment encoding' is only supported for MPEG2 and HDV, not AVCHD:-(!

You can tell pretty much instantly when something is getting smart rendered. You don't need an indicator to show it.

you mean: it renders blazingly fast :D

P.S. yes, Edius Neo 2 specs explicitly claim just mpeg-2 and HDV smart rendering capability...

Not just Neo, also 5.12 the latest release of the full Edius version. Neo 2 does import and edits AVCHD files without the need to convert to an intermediate codec, (page 8: ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/papers/Edius_Neo2_whitepaper.pdf). Panasonic updated its offer and is now including Neo 2 instead of 1 with its AVCCAM camera's.

you mean: it renders blazingly fast :D

Yes.
"smart rendering" isn't actually rendering but rather the ability of an encoder to recognize parts of a time line that need to be actually re-written at the frame level (ie: the introduction of an effect or transition) and parts of a time line that can be simply copied..... AND... be able to shift back and forth between a copier (so to speak) and an actual encoder when it sees those different parts.

Obviously copying/pasting something is a heck of a lot faster than actual encoding

I just tried editing AVCHD in Edius 5, it's pretty much unusable...direct support is there for loading AVCHD directly, but god it's such a waiting game...takes away all creativity

@bigbarney: i was referring to the fact that smart rendering option may require to be explicitly activated with some softwares as per discussion above...it would be really stupid to re-encode everything because of a 3 sec fade-in and all of them are smart in this regard...I primarily wanted to discuss the possibility of smart rendering to help in cutting AVCHD - if you made a cut on a frame inside the GOP, this frame becomes a new I-frame but only what was between this frame and previous and next I-frames gets rendered/reencoded, not the entire clip on the timeline...I mean if they can do it with mpeg-2 why not AVCHD??? And I'm really puzzled with them not emloying gfx card acceleration - perhaps for troubleshooting reasons: there are so many gfx cards with h.264 decoding and drivers out there that Canopus cannot guarantee it would work with every gfx card...but I absolutely would urge them to use the power of ATI Stream technology and their encoder because it really would give great results at playback (timeline) and smart rendering (areas around cuts would be rendered in an instant)...probably this is in the works as ATI encoder is being perfected as we go, it's not there yet with robustness...

I tried Edius a while back too and I walked away feeling that it wasn't very pretty either.

Vegas is well on its way to do being able to simply render the cut or transformed areas only and smart rendering the rest. They've got it down to about 150 frames fully rendering after the cut/ transition. I suspect that as time goes on and encoders get better then this number will even get better.

As for gpu acceleration.... it's not all that it's cracked up to be. I have Adobe CS4 and it has hardware accelerated time line behavior. Sure, it plays a bit better and you can load up the time line a bit more with effects and such and avoid stumbling...... but you hit a certain point where even the gpu acceleration starts falling behind and you're right back into the jerky playback. The only thing I've seen work 100% of the time is the use of Vegas's dynamic ram playback.... which works much the same way as After Effects playback. Areas of the time line that require full frame rate playback are loaded into ram and played back from there instead of directly off the time line.... but this takes rather huge swaths of memory. A 64 bit system is therefore best since it is much less memory restricted than a 32 bit one.

right...first we needed to RAID our disks, now we'll have to RAID out CPUs :D

The latest update of Edius does have a GFX rendering feature, but have not read up on what this would entail.

I think they refer to 3D acceleration for 3D transitions (GPU acceleration)...well if they can do it for transitions, they can do it for AVCHD real-time decode...I witnessed the power of ATI Stream: it encodes to AVCHD in faster-than-real-time on a C2D 2.4, and plays it back with no more than 2% CPU usage...it's power is currently wasted...or a conspiracy is taking place...:D I believe it's more that it's not ready for prime-time yet, it's stil a sort of a hidden feature in Catalyst...

Both NVidia and ATI mid to high-end GPUs have the potential to encode much faster than the current CPU-only options. The problem is most editors and encoders aren't taking full advantages of the possible GPU acceleration.

There are pretty much 3 levels of GPU acceleration in a video editing pipeline:
1. Decoding + Deinterlacing (referred to as DXVA2 acceleration): This one is now often offered in players, encoders and editors and can help with the editing experience.
2. Layering, Effects/Transistions (both 2D and 3D): This one is starting to be available in some editors, which usually gives them the edge in the editing experience (if implemented properly of course). I think we're going to see editors improving their offerings on this point over the next few years to a point where the editing experience won't be a big issue anymore. While the traditional way to do this is via D3D or OpenGL, this type of optimization was made much simpler to add now that the NVidia CUDA and ATI Stream SDK are available and will become more mainstream in the future.
3. Encoding: This one is rarely offered right now. Only a handful of plugins/encoders are using it, and most of them aren't directly available for the consumer (they're hardware assisted encoding server solutions worth a lot of money). Note that NVidia CUDA and ATI Steam are also enabling this functionality.

On #3, there are a few notable exceptions, like this one from Elemental Technologies as a plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro, which enables HD encoding in real-time or better (with the right hardware, they say up to 11x faster than traditional CPU-only encoding):
http://www.elementaltechnologies.com/products/accelerator

IMHO, there are plenty of optimizations using our GPUs that the software editing solutions can tap over the next few years to make our HD editing experience much better. The ones enabling those optimizations will certainly gain market share a lot faster than the others. And if you count the performance gains from multi-cores (6-cores/chip later this year, 8-cores/chip early next year) and faster GPUs in the next year or so, you'll see dramatic performance increase on HD video editing in the next year or two. Of course, that also means that you can forget about using the current PC you own (and certainly forget about editing HD on your laptop like I saw some trying to do on this forum).

That being said, it's clear that smart encoding on the scenes that are not edited is much preferable since not only it will always beat re-encoding performance-wise, but it also preserves the original quality without introducing more compression artifacts.

Since I will limit my budget on the new Camcorder below $1000, I think it is not necessary to buy a editing software more than $100. I tested several softwares, all of them below $100.

I want a easy to use software, cut AVCHD video, having some basic video effects like wipe and transactions around cut points, supporting 'smart rendering', which means only re-encode the area around the cut points, middle part remains untouched, this will reserve original video quality while gaining highest rendering speed. The result movie will be copied back to Camcorder, replace original files, saving disk space.

CyberLink PowerDirector $100
A light weight video editor, can do most work I need. Support 'Smart Rendering', (Trial version only supports MPEG2, while commercial version supports AVCHD); has some effects and transactions. Seems okay to me. The only shortcoming is, it is a bit overpriced.

Womble Magic Wizard $49
Support 'Smart Rendering' MPEG2, not AVCHD; has some effects and transactions. Actually I like this program, sadly, it does not suppor AVCHD.

VideoReDo TVSuite $79
Support 'Smart Rendering' MPEG2, claimed to support AVCHD in several months. has no video effects. but more expensive than Womble Magic Wizard, why?

Smart Cutter for DV and DVB $40
Support 'Smart Rendering' on MPEG2 and AVCHD; has no effects and transactions. Only a video cutter. has a portable version, easy to install.

TsSniper free
Claimed to cut AVCHD, but I can not make it work while defining cut points, confused.

It seems PowerDirector could be my only choice, but it is a little expensive. perhaps I will buy it for my new Camcorder. should test it more.

On #3, there are a few notable exceptions, like this one from Elemental Technologies as a plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro, which enables HD encoding in real-time or better (with the right hardware, they say up to 11x faster than traditional CPU-only encoding):
http://www.elementaltechnologies.com/products/accelerator


There seems to be no such plugins for ATI Stream (don't expect it for Premiere though since Adobe has a deal with NVidia) but would expect it from others...but no...as ATI is usually more associated with video than NVidia which is more associated with games, I am really puzzled that ATI didn't recognize the opportunity to make this technology available to editing softwares and take the lead in video-editing solutions...

I wouldn't be surprised that Elemental is working on that right now. You have to take into account that Cuda was available way before Stream... so developers had a little more time to come out with accelerations for NVidia then they did for ATI.

It's also worth noting that Elemental's solution requires a NVidia Quadra board, which is their business/CAD (+ more expensive) line of product, so nobody with a 9000 or 200 line card would be able to take advantage of this plugin (shame, cause I would own it already otherwise :) ).