The Official Panasonic HDC-HS/SD/TM700 Owners thread - Page 39

Since you already have raw footage, you can author an AVCHD disc and an AVCHD card, and try it in different players, in particular in your own player (you did not name the make and model).

Bud B ,
GO AND WORK FOR PANY..PLEASE SELL YOURSELF TO THEM NOT HERE !!!
..PEOPLE R TALKIN'BOUT ISSUES HERE AND HOW TO RESOLVE THESE.

REGARDING TM700 (READ MY FIRST POST) :
I PERSONALLY MET WITH ONE JAPANESE PANASONIC ENGINEER IN LONDON. I ASKED HIM ABOUT THE 700s SERIES CODEC AND THE EDIT/PLAYBACK. HE CONFIRMED WHAT I (WE) KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING : PANASONIC HAS 2 AVCHDs , ONE PROFESSIONAL, AND THIS NEW 50P/60P AT NON STABLE 28Mbps (SOMETIMES CHANGE EVEN IN THE SAME SHOOT, IT CAN GO HIGH AND IT CAN GO LOW..YES AS YOU HEAR). ONLY INSIDE THE CAMCORDER,THE 700s SERIES PROGRESSIVE FILES WILL PLAY CORRECTLY COS ONLY THE CAMCORDER HAS THE MECHANISM TO DEAL WITH THIS CODEC INSIDE THE AVCHD (THE CONTAINER). SO WHEN YOU TAKE THE FILE OUT FROM THE CAM AND TRY TO PLAY IT BACK OR EDIT ON A PC/MAC (.MTS,CONVERTED OR REWRAPED) YOU WILL ALWAYS GET ISSUES (A PART OF THE VIDEO FILE DATA IS ON THE CAM HARDWARE). IT'S LIKE EXECUTING A SOFTWARE THAT NEEDS A DONGLE TO WORK..OR LIKE MAKING A COPY OF A GENUINE VINDOWS XP AND WHEN YOU TRY TO INSTALL IT WON'T BOOT AT YOUR COMPUTER START, COS THE GENUINE COPY HAS HIDDEN FILES THAT YOU CANNOT SEE OR DETECT (OR COPY?..MMM..I THINK WE NEED KINDA ALCOHOL FOR THE TM700).

IT WOULD BE VERY INTERESTING IF THE PANY MAKES A DISK UTILITY WITH THIS CODEC SO WE CAN USED WITH OUR NON LINEAR PROGRAMS.

700 SERIES NEED FIRMWARE UPDATES INDEED. SO SEND ALL THE WAY YOU CAN YOUR INQUIRIES TO PANY. IF WE ARE A LOT CLAIMING SURE THEY ARE GONNA HEAR US AND DO SOMETHING.

PLEASE DON'T COME TO ME WITH BS LIKE..CP/GPU POWER OR..DISACTIVE YOUR ANTI-VIRUS AND OTHER TASKS ON YOUR COMPUTER. .OR SEND ME A .MTS FILE AND I'M GONNA SHOW THAT I CAN EDIT IN EDIUS,SONY VEGAS..BLA BLA..

I'M A TECHNICIAN HARDWARE/SOFTWARE. AND I GOT VERY HORSE POWER PC/MAC.
THERE'S NO SOFTWARE AND NO CONFIGURATION HARDWARE/SOFTWARE THAT CAN DEAL WITH 700s FILES SO FAR.

AND NO....IT'S NOT A POWER ISSUE..IT'S A CODEC ISSUE.
IT'S NOT SUPPORTED..SIMPLE LIKE THAT.

IF SOMEONE WANT .MTS FILE JUST GO TO THE NET (VIMEO ETC) AND CHOOSE FILES WITH MOVEMENTS LIKE CARS,TRAINS ETC.,NOT FILES WITH ALMOST NO MOTION THAT APPEARS LIKE STILLs..YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN DON'T YOU ?


IF YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO SEE THE IMPERFECTION PLAYBACK/EDIT ON YOUR SYSTEM,THAN SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH YOUR SIGHT.

IF YOU ARE AWARE OF THIS AND YOU ARE HAPPY WITH IT..THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM AND ENJOY..BUT DON'T POST LIES OR DEFEND LIES.

IF YOU DO KNOW ALL OF THIS AND CAME HERE TO TALK BS..YOU ARE JUST S.T.U.P.I.D.

IF THEY PAY YOU FOR THAT...I CAN UNDERSTAND IT..BUT YOU KNOW WE GUESS YOUR INTENTIONS.

IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR PURCHASE AND THESE ISSUES (LIKE FAN NOISE,MENU CONFIG SETUP ETC.)..PLEASE REPORT AND DON'T STOP TILL THEY HEAR YA.

Stop shouting. Stop spreading FUD. Do your homework. You do not know what you are talking about. You are ignorant and unwilling to learn. If you are a software/hardware technician, then I am King of England. It seems that the closest you ever come to a computer is when you mop the floor in the IT room.

S-T-O-P Y-E-L-L-I-N-G !

After only 2 posts, you've managed to irritate us and spread such a load of crap, as Ungermann wrote so well.

Sara you are obviously seriously confused, misinformed, or incapable of rational understanding. The most logical conclusion, based on the evidence of your posts is one of two outcomes:
1. You are a troll just vying for attention, or
2. You are trying to spread FUD about this camera for some purpose.

I have had the TM700K for more than 6 months, and with the right combination of hardware and software it is both easy to edit, output, and play, full resolution 1080P at 60P frames per second. If you would like to understand what hardware and software it takes I would be happy to provide my many tested configurations.

Roland.

Message to Sara Smith:

If you don't like your Panasonic HDC-TM700, and are frustrated with its non-standard 60p AVCHD file format, just get rid of it and replace it with a Canon or a Sony and stop bitchin' about it here, please. People are willing to help you on this forum/thread, but you've got to open your mind to other possibilities and suggestions, than just being frustrated and angry at Panasonic.

There are lots of TM700 owners here that have no problems editing 60p video from this camcorder on their computer, and viewing the results on it or some BD players, or even PS3. So yes, those Panasonic 60p files are not AVCHD compliant yet, but they're using the same slightly tweaked codec (to accommodate the higher frame rate and higher average bit rates), and there are ways to work with them.

This innovative 1080 @60p format is only beginning (it's not even a year old). In the future, it COULD eventually become a new official specification of AVCHD, and let's hope Apple computers won't have such a hard time with it by then.

sincerely,
Alain.

You think so? Judging by the newest Panasonic SDX1, which implements iFrame, it will take Apple another five years or so to be able to edit 1080p60 natively.

I'm a novice with a new TM700, looking for assistance in getting results for a particular type of shooting. I shoot lots of videos showing phones and apps on those phones. When the screens change, especially when going from dark to light, it takes a few seconds for the camcorder to readjust. It's not just the TM700, but my previous Canon.

Any suggestions on settings or lighting that might improve my clips?

Use manual exposure.

I've edited my last post to reflect more closely what I intended to say.

I got it, don't worry. I am simply not sure that Apple is capable to support anything better than 960x540p30 natively anytime in this century.

I remember that when the HDC-SD1 came out, it was proclaimed as Apple-friendly, and many Apple owners bought into this. 4 years passed, and it seems that 1080i60 (I am not even talking about 1080p60) still cannot be natively edited in iMovie. Really, I don't care. I use Vegas on Windows, and it works with 1080p60 just fine.

Yeah, I'm new to the world of Mac and I'm still an optimistic fool. Sometimes I miss the good old days of my Commodore Amiga 2000 with its Video Toaster.

Are you using Windows on a Mac, or a PC?

I am considering pulling the trigger on this camera if I can find the answers to my questions.

What issues remain, are current, true, or false...

A. Does the camera really have a FAN Noise issue?
B. Is it really impossible to edit the video? If it is possible then how?
C. What camera is comparable to this model?
D. How is the still shot quality?

Thanks for your help.

A. Does the camera really have a FAN Noise issue? True, but only when using onboard mics and in very quiet environments
B. Is it really impossible to edit the video? If it is possible then how? Yes. with a PC and software like Vegas. On the Mac with FC using Clipwrap prior to importing files
C. What camera is comparable to this model? Canon Vixia HF200 and Sony HDR-CX500 come to mind
D. How is the still shot quality? Up to 2 mega pixels excellent, higher than that poor.

My personal opinion on it.

A. The fan noise is real and present, it is clearly audible in silent conditions, and no choice of options can eliminate it in these conditions. Additionally what makes this particular problem worse is the input audio circuits for external mics are quite poor, and it doesn't matter how much you spend on an external mic, it will result in worse S/N levels than the internal mic - because the built in audio circuits for the external mic-in line are horrible.

I'm extremely picky about audio (I posted an EXTENSIVE thread and set of tests) on the built in mic, fan noise, external mics, audio circuit etc.

However, having said all of the above, in normal (i.e. non silent) conditions you won't hear the fan at all, even in "quiet" conditions you won't hear it. I have shot ~20 hours of video so far, only in clips amounting to less than 2% of these is the fan noise audible, and in these cases with Adobe Soundbooth it is very easy to clean up and remove. The contrary is true with external mics, the test cases I did with mics costing $100, $200, and even $300, the S/N hiss and humm introduced was far worse, and even more annoying, it was variable and thus nearly impossible to remove even in Soundbooth. Further, the built in Mic's wind noise reduction feature is good, in fact better than all 3 of the external mic's foam/fur muff's I tried. Additionally, I finally ended up spending $15 to buy a fur stick on muff from www.thewindcutter.com that tapes itself onto the camera's mic and has vastly improved (eliminated) the remaining wind noise. I am quite pleased with the audio now.

B. It is not impossible, but is is very hardware demanding. Each software package is different at editing, I tested ~8 different software editing solutions, at the time I tested (~5 months ago) the ONLY one that was stable and also capable of 60P output was Premiere CS5. Other's may have now released 60P options, or improved their bugs since then. However, using CS5, NeoScene, and very high end hardware I can now edit the 60P files extremely fluidly, scrub the timeline as if it was Mini-DV footage, and play everything very smoothly. The hardware I have though is extreme. I would like to believe lesser equipment should be sufficient, but I can only provide two data points on this, the hardware I have that now works, and the hardware I first tried that wasn't sufficient.

Works:
Hardware: Intel Core i7-980X overclocked to 4.3Ghz, 12GB RAM at 1900Mhz, NVidia GTX 470, RAID-0 SSD's. Software: Win7-64, CS5, NeoScene.

Didn't work:
Hardware: Intel Q9550 overclocked to 3.6Ghz, 8GB RAM, NVidia GTX 275, RAID-0 HDD's. Software Win7-64, CS4.

If you have zero patience or tollerance for anything but perfection, NeoScene is great. It's $100, it coverts the MTS files into AVI files - this takes up enormous amounts of disk space (2GB/min) but makes the files vastly easier to edit, and CS4/5 entirely reliable with whatever transitions, effects, etc you throw at it.

I'm sure other's can provide other editing alternatives, undoubtedly cheaper less demanding ones too! My requirements were framed around being able to play and scrub the timeline with perfectly smooth 60P playback even with transitions and filters applied, and also to have exacting audio editing capabilities - very few tools seem to meet all my requirements.

C. I don't think there's any comparible camera, nothing is this small at this level of optical quality. There is a significant difference between 30P and 60P, motion is liquid smooth, if you execute the work flow correctly and get the playback working correctly the difference between Blu-Ray quality output, and this output is shocking, blu-ray looks blocky, colorless, and jumpy compared to when you get 60P really working.

D. Still shot quality: This depends upon your perspective. Comparing it with a Nikon DSLR with lenses that cost more than the TM700K it's horrible. But your perspective may be different than mine. For stills I use my DSLR, for video, my TM700K (at least until Nikon properly executes 1080P/60P).

Roland.

For sure keeping the audio on manual in quite places might be ideal. For people who are really serious about audio, there's always the Zoom H1 for around $100.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1254233

The camera has a fan and it makes noise. It is at the -45 db level and can not be heard in nearly any normal circumstance. If you amplify the the audio from a very quiet environemnt, you can hear the fan. Otherwise at normal sound pressure levels with any other ambient sound it can not be heard.

Vegas Movie Studio 10 does quite fine with the 1080/60p files. I have successfully created some spectacular video to my eye with it from my TM700 files. I have yet to see a "smart" render option on any software to date for 1080/60p files though. This would be a huge time saver to not have to render every frame as is currently required.

There are none at any price IMHO. The combination of physical size, weight, video sharpness, image stabilization, color and smooth motion capture is unparralleled. While other cams may imporove on one or even a few of these, that improvement always comes at a significant penalty in other areas.

Very similar to any current interpolated CMOS still cam. Soft image quality that is adequate for web work only. For print work it is not sufficient.

I use mine for backcountry wildlife video. As I said there's nothing that even comes close IMHO.

Cheers,
Pete

Hi all,
I agree with what everyone has said about the fan.
I have had my Camcorder for awhile now and I have shot hours and hours of video.
The quietest video that I have shot so far is Fall Colors, Snow and Deer from my car and I have yet to hear the fan...I even listen for it.

Have a Great Day,
Bud B

Hi,

Newbie question:

I just purchased HDC-TM700. It states that it records in 1080/60p resolution. However, reading manual and talking to clueless tech support folks at Panasonic couple of times, I am not sure how good would it be to record at this resolution if you can't burn blu-ray disk or transfer video at this resolution to PC.

In manual, at various places in sections called "Copying/Dubbing", it states that it will downgrade video taped in 1080/60p resolution to lower "HA" resolution (I suppose it's AVCHD - 1080i). The Panasonic tech support said the same. I am puzzled...was I ripped off?

Goal: I would like to download 1080/60p resolution video from TM700 on my MediaCenter PC (Win 7 64-bit) and play at that resolution on my 1080p Hi-Def TV using something like PowerDVD software or burn Blu-Ray disk(Verbatim 25Gb) using Blu-Ray burner (LG) and play it on Blu-Ray player (LG BD590).

Questions:

1. Is it possible to download video on PC from DSC-TM700 taped in 1080/60p resolution and retain the same resolution (without downgrading to AVCHD or 1080i resolution)? How can I do it?

2. What software works with 1080/60p resolution video? Will this video work for editing on PC (no fancy stuff here, just join all the 1080/60p clips and create one long movie), specifically, will SONY Vegas Pro 10 be able to download 1080/60p video directly from camcorder and able to edit/burn on Blu-ray at the same resolution?

Reading some of the threads, it seems some of these things might be possible, however, if someone who knows could answer these 2 questions specifically,

I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!
jiism

"1. Is it possible to download video on PC from DSC-TM700 taped in 1080/60p resolution and retain the same resolution (without downgrading to AVCHD or 1080i resolution)? How can I do it?" -- This is a tapeless file-based camcorder. Files are files, they do not change their content magically when you copy them from one storage to another. You can use any file manager you like, even command line.

"2. What software works with 1080/60p resolution video? Will this video work for editing on PC (no fancy stuff here, just join all the 1080/60p clips and create one long movie), specifically, will SONY Vegas Pro 10 be able to download 1080/60p video directly from camcorder and able to edit/burn on Blu-ray at the same resolution?" -- Sony Vegas Pro 10 works with these clips perfectly well. For creating AVCHD discs see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKEP70GGjjA 1080p60 AVCHD discs will not work on every Blu-ray player.

No you were not. It's just that the Operating Instructions manual isn't very well written in some places.

It should have stated that when copying files from internal memory to an SD card in the camcorder, you have the option of either making an exact duplicate, or convert that 1080p footage to 1080i (with a choice between HA, HG, HX, or HE quality level) without the need for an external computer.

If you choose to copy only, without conversion, it will result in a completely identical digital 1080p file in all its glory, the same as when copying onto a computer via USB for editing.

A file is a file, you can copy from the camera over USB to a computer, or pull the memory card out (presuming you wrote to the memory card rather than the built in memory) and use a card reader to read the files.

Playback on a Win-64 PC is "easy" once you have the right combination of knowledge, hardware, and software.

The Panasonic software that came with your camera will playback your 1080P60 files on any PC assuming your PC has a fast enough CPU. The software uses CPU (rather than GPU) decoding, so it is entirely limited based on the speed of your PC. I know that a Core2Quad at 3.6Ghz is more than enough, a Core2Duo at 3.33Ghz is not enough. Obviously the threshold lies somewhere between, as you didn't state what your PC is, but only said Win7-64, I'll assume you have a Core i3, Core i5, or Core i7. Certainly any Core i7 is enough. Core i5's in the Quad core variety might be enough, Core i3 I would guess wouldn't be fast enough.

An alternative playback solution is to use the native Windows Media Player, or Windows Media Center - both of these are GPU (graphics processing unit) based playback tools in that if WMP or WMC detects you have a GPU (anything other than built in integrated graphics) it will insist on using the GPU. Unfortunately, even if you have a really fast video card it won't work unless you have an nVidia VP4 based card. For example, my GTX 275 is only a VP2 card and doesn't work. My GTX 470 is a VP4 (as are many cheaper versions too) and it works beautifully. You can check on VP4 by going to wikipedia.org and searching for "nVidia PureVideo".

A third alternative that I have found to be VERY successful at playing both the Panasonic files, plus other rather difficult formats, is the K-Lite Codec pack, get the "Full" version (it's free) it comes with Media Player Classic (don't confuse this with WMP or WMC mentioned above). Please note, as you're using the 64-bit version of windows you need to download both the 32-bit K-Lite pack v6.6 and the upgrade pack 6.6.1, and the 64-bit version 4.1 and install them in that sequence. Then you'll be able to play the files, again using CPU decode (assuming you don't select GPU decode in the settings - fortunately this tool gives you the choice between GPU and CPU).

Editing is a whole different matter, the Panasonic software can apparently do simple cuts and joins (I haven't personally tried it). Vegas has a good reputation. I use Adobe Premiere CS5, and it works well, this enables perhaps one of the best editing options out there, with tremendous editing flexiblity and the best audio suite I've seen. Having a CUDA enabled card i.e. the GTX 470 is a tremendous benefit to editing in Premiere.

If your end goal however is only Blu-Ray disks, you might as well save yourself a ton of hassle and just shoot in 1080i HA mode, vastly easier to edit, vastly easier to playback. However, you'll be missing out on the amazing quality of 1080P which I think is well worth the extra work, even if playback is limited to the PC (and apparently some game consoles too).

Roland.

Hey guys, I wanted to know how can i get the most realistic colours out of my camcorder? I Plan to do colour correction on the footage but your ment to actually lower the settings to minimal colours and then higher it in post production otherwise its harder to colour correct. How could i lower the colours so i could colour correct better, also i am recording my brothers band playing live and would it be best to put the audio levels on manual?

Thanks for your help.

I had the TM700 pretty much shortly after it came out and have been using HD Writer AE to copy the 1080/60P videos over to my Win7 i7 PC. Since all of the M2TS clips play fine using MPC I have been deleting the miscellaneous accompanying files (cont, tmb, pmpd, etc) and just keep the M2TS files. As it turns out I want to use HD Writer AE to convert to AVCHD (for a friend who has only a MAC) but it doesn't recognize M2TS without the accompanying files.

I've tried re-registering the folders but to no avail. I'm wondering if there is a way for HD Writer AE program to recognize the M2TS files?

TIA

Haven't gone through this whole thread yet (working on that now) and don't know if this has been mentioned yet.
I posted about this on camcorderinfo and I think it bears repeating here (if it hasn't already been discussed):

I have discovered something!

I've discovered that the VERY inexpensive Sony BDP-S270 can play the 1080p/60fps raw video from this camera when placed on a USB stick.
Player displays "1080/60p" while playing.

After the discovery, I tested three file extensions (.mts, .m2ts, .mkv) and they all worked!
The .mts file (00000.mts) was dragged right of the SD card straight out of the camera (which the Sony detected as "M2TS").
The .m2ts file (20100821_212439.m2ts) was imported off of the internal flash drive with HD Writer (no conversion). The Sony detected this as "M2TS" as well.
The .mkv file (20100821_215351.mkv) is actually an .m2ts file with the extension changed. This was detected as "MKV". Then I BURNED THE FILES TO DISC and
YES! The future is here! Everything played flawlessly! Some screenshots here (notice the video bitrate at the bottom left):




Tried this same experiment on my Oppo BDP-83 and it will not recognize .mts or .m2ts as file extensions.
Oppo only "sees" .mkv. Alas, the .mkv was too much for the Oppo it would "stutter-play" the file.
Too annoying to watch for more than a few seconds.

But that is all moot because now we have this Sony BDP-S270.
This player is 100 bucks (give or take) at freaking Wal-mart!
This is the lower end of the Sony spectrum so I would expect that the higher end models (BDP-S370, etc.) can play these files as well.

YAY!

I only changed file extensions for experimentation purposes.
If you copy an .mts file right off the SD card straight out of the camera, the Sony BDP-S270 will detect it as "M2TS".
This works on USB flash drive and on standard single-layer DVD5 (4.37gb). I have not tried with DVD9 or BR Disc.
I used Nero to burn .mts files as DATA using "DVD-ROM (UDF)" as compilation type.
I am still completely amazed about the fact that the Sony can handle these files

My sincere apologies if this has already been discovered/discussed.

Brilliant piece of work, Quidsane.

Perhaps you'd like to test if the Sony BDP-S270 will also play this non-compliant 1920x1080/60p AVCHD created by Ungermann.

http://chidragon.thedessie.com/60p.iso
http://uploading.com/files/6a7db5fm/60p.iso/

Many thanks and best regards.

The blur in the above photos is from my stupid Canon PowerShot A590IS being used in "Auto" mode, haha. The blur is NOT in the HD files themselves.
(the camera isn't stupid-- that would be ME for leaving it in Auto mode)

@mariner888

Yeah, well, I would love to... but it was a Christmas present for my mother. I shipped it several states away this morning!
I opened it up and downloaded new firmware, blah, blah, blah, so that it would be pretty much "plug and play" for her.
That's when I decided to run these .mts files up its flagpole and see who saluted!
Imagine my surprise!
I am definitely picking up another one ASAP.
In the meantime, I will DL that file for future testing.
Maybe I'll try it on the Oppo...

Watching 1920x1080/60p video from a blu-ray player, can't think of a lovelier present.

---------------------------
Quisdane, thanks for report
Just one question What happens when you put the non compliant data dvd you produced in the sony player ? does it just straight start playing or is it more complicated ?