Does Adobe Premiere Elements 4 support AVCHD?

What could they possibly have been thinking?

Premiere Elements does not, but you do get support from the latest versions of: Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio, VideoStudio, and Nero all support AVCHD to varying degrees. Sony and Pinnacle seem to do the best job though - as both of them are capable of doing cuts editing without re-encodes.

can you explain what that means? sorry, i'm new to video editing. was hoping that adobe PE would have supported avchd, but since it doesn't, i'm thinking about getting ulead vs 11 plus.

anybody have any idea why avchd support would not be included? i mean, why wouldn't adobe just hold off on a new release until it figured out how to incorporate support into PE?

I have a complete lack of understanding why Adobe would not have waited to implement AVCHD support. It's not like it's a new format they weren't aware of.

As for sync2play's comment, he means basically, that, if you want to produce an AVCHD output file, Vegas (I think only the full Vegas, though, not Movie Studio, anyone confirm?) and Pinnacle software only needs to re-compress the modified frames. So, if you have a 15 minute video with a couple of transitions, the software only has to decode/re-encode the transitions and a few frames immediately around the transition. The rest of the frames are not reencoded. This preserves the video quality in those sections, as well as saves a ton of processing time.

Of course, if you're applying any effects to the clip, like adjusting brightness/contrast, or stabilization, then everything has to be re-encoded anyway. But depending on what you're doing, it can be very important.

sync2play, please let me know if I have it wrong.

I have been reading about the new Panasonic HDC-SD5. We leave in three weeks for a long trip including two months in Antarctica including 38 days around the Far Side of Antarctica. I would love to purchase this camera based on the glowing reports. But am I going to be able to edit the video I take with this camera???? I am concerned both about software as well as my PC which has an Intel Corel 2 Duo CPU T7100 (1800 Mhz) Processor with Vista.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Only if you have a Sony cam!!! Vegas (Even the Full Vegas 8!) only supports AVCHD on Sony Cams!!! Vegas will not work with Panasonics/Canons others, Cams...

Another brilliant marketing idea... Not a surprise from Sony, though.

What are my other options?

Should I consider another HD Camera such as Canon?

Should I forget HD completely? Again, any recommendations as I will play my videos on a 73" Mitsubishi HDTV?

You're taking a trip to a very unique place, possibly the trip of a lifetime. I don't think you want to mess with SD here. I would definitely go HD, personally, but I'm generally an early adopter.

You should consider recording format, probably first. I'm not sure what your accomodations will be like, but I expect you will be shooting in a lot of cold places. This may lend itself to a memory card based camera. Given the elements, you may have trouble with HD based cameras and/or tape based cameras. Not sure, though. Also, I would expect condensation could potentially be a problem. Bring a camera into the warmth from the cold, and it may get soaked.

Also, I'm expecting you will be shooting a lot of outside type shots, in antarctica, in a time of year (I think) where the sun never sets (just spins around and around)... Low light is probably less of a concern for you.

You may want to look at the Sony CX7, or stick with the Panasonic SD card camera. The Canon's are great too, but I'd be worried about a DVD, HD, or Tape mechanism, personally.

Note, I don't have ANY HD camera, but will be buying one shortly. (Still have not made up my mind...)

Good luck, and enjoy your exciting trip.

Thanks,

You gave me a lot of good information.

Normally we will are on the icebreaker making landings of two to four hours. I will also be taking lots of pictures from the ship where I go in and out of the bridge. We will be bumping along the Antarctic Circle in December, so you are right about 24 hours of daylight. Temperatures are at about freezing, and I often stick the cameras in my coat when not taking pictures. The air is fairly dry so I did not find condensation a problem. On my prior trips, I never found the cold a problem with my digital cameras.

Since posting, I was looking at the Canon HV20 and wondering if I would be better off with it. We will have a week crossing to Perth at the end of the trip, so I would like a camera where I can use that time to edit my pictures. In the past I have my pictures and web site completely edited on my return, and I would love to come home with a completely edited video.

I have a high definition TV connected directly to a desktop computer, so I am wondering if I can edit in hi-def and play directly from my computer's hard drive to the TV which is hooked up as a second monitor?

Is there any update on this? We're almost a year later...how can there be no AVCHD support yet?

--Mav

Adobe just announced Premiere Elements 7, with AVCHD support, this past week.

See http://www.dpreview.com/news/0808/08...elements_7.asp

Finally...

"Support" may mean a lot of things. The key is whether it does smart rendering or whether it needs to convert to another format to edit. Otherwise, it does not mean much.

That's not what smart rendering is... Smart rendering is being able to render out without converting un-edited footage. You could still be able to edit AVCHD without conversion, and only convert on render.

Arguably, that's the more important part, as not everybody needs an AVCHD output file, but we all need AVCHD input support.

Of course, I know what smart rendering means. For Adobe to get its product up to date as compared with its competitor, smart rendering is essential. This is one of the absolute must have feature for my software selection.

Smart rendering is important to avoid generation loss. Any conversion into a different format will render some sort of loss.

Yes, yes, smart rendering is important, but to go so far as to say that "it does not mean much" to add support for reading/editing AVCHD files without smart rendering? I wouldn't agree with that, for several reasons:

1) Not being able to read in AVCHD files into an editor is *huge* -- it means you need to spend the time and effort to convert to another format, with another program, before doing any editing. Now you will be able to read them in directly -- that means *a lot*.

2) Not everybody is rendering AVCHD output files all the time, a lot of us are creating online videos and DVDs for family and friends that will be not be in the same resolution/quality anyway, so smart rendering plays no part there

3) If you do any kind of color correction, sharpening, brightening, or anything, really, to make your video look better, smart rendering is out the door again.

I absolutely think smart rendering is important and very useful when you're just cutting together some clips and want to quickly render them out with the same quality. If that's what you do with your video clips the majority of the time, then I can understand that you consider it a must have. But it has to be considered of a lesser importance than being able to read the AVCHD files at all for most users.

I understand what you are saying, but you have missed my point. The reason for my comment is that there are already competing software package out there with similar features / capabilities as well as smart rendering & native AVCHD editing support. So if Premiere Elements does not have smart rendering or native AVCHD editing, then there are better options out there; unless you are a dedicated Adobe user or you have no intention of creating HD media now or in the future (would be strange for someone who decided on a HD camcorder).


Sure, but I would have ditched the program if I have a choice.


Even if you do so some of the time, you would appreciate the time saved and quality preserved.


Remember that we are talking about the Elements users here, who are usually not power users.

I don't think that anyone but a user taking screen grabs would see any quality difference in re-rendered AVCHD files. I certainly can't. It's like opening a JPG in Photoshop, fixing something and re-saving. Yeah, the image degrades a bit, but only if you zoom it real close and start comparing pixels. It takes a dozen or more re-conversions to see visible artifacts in moving video.

I can't dispute that time saved is nice. Is it really something you would base your video editing software choice on, though, to save time some of the time? As a novice, I'd take some of the new features Elements has over something clunky like a PowerDirector, and take the occasional hit in rendering (it's not like I have to sit and watch it render). As a more advanced user, Vegas Pro is far ahead in features than any of the smart-renderers, so that's a pretty clear choice.

I'd be really happy to see smart rendering in both, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't go with something else because they don't have it yet. I would never choose Elements, on the other hand, if it didn't read AVCHD files.


New Elements even has a drag & drop chroma key support... Sharpening and such are just a click away in there!

Can someone summarize which editing packages do smart rendering?

Got Elements Premiere 7 last weekend...don't know if it does "smart rendering" (as described above), but I'm guessing it does not since as far as AVCHD support goes, it will only export to AVCHD (which, as noted above, is of limited relevance to most of us) in "Full HD 1080i". Not sure why it won't/doesn't export to AVCHD in 1080p, but hopefully that's something they can fix with a software update.

So, as I understand it, if I run full 1920x1080p AVCHD material through Premiere Elements 7, it will export it at no higher than 1920x1080i AVCHD. That's not "smart rendering" as I understand it, correct? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.

--Mav

1920x1080p isn't necessarily higher than 1920x1080i, since 1920x1080p that consumer cameras do is either 24 or 30p, and 1920x1080i is 60i. If it can write out 1920x1080/60i, then that's good for a lot of people (most people record in 60i as it produces smoother video than 24/30p in common shooting environments)... Smart rendering just means that it is not re-encoding data that is already in the same format. The best way to check whether is does smart-render is to take a 10-minute 1920x1080i clip, insert it into the timeline, and render out 1920x1080i. If it takes a couple of minutes, then you have a winner... if it takes 30+, then you're out of luck.

Actually, the original AVCHD specs does not have 1080/60p; only 1080/60i. It does have 1080/24p however.

well, I can't get it to export in ANY variant of 1080p (24/30/60) in any format (not just AVCHD). It looks like the "best" it will allow me to do is export to a blueray in H.264 1920x1080i NTSC Dolby (which I believe is 29.97). No 1080p option under any of the export options.

So, it doesn't look like there's 1080/24p support, 1080/30p support, or 1080/60p support...WTF?! I like Adobe products and all and I realize this isn't Premiere Pro, but it's also not freeware. It should be keeping pace with the capabilities of the consumer camcorders in the marketplace right now and it's not...first, they're a generation (at least) behind on AVCHD support and now they want to interlace the progressive content you spent all that money on a decent camera to get. Grrrrrr....

/Rant

--Mav

I am not buying adobe products anymore. I had purchased Adobe Premier elements 1 in 2004 (bundle with Photoshop)... foolishly expecting it to work with my Windows 2000 Setup. I had already installed PS elements, so I was stuck with the software.

In February, not knowing anything about camcorders... I bought the Photoshop6/premier4 elements bundle. I just bought an Alpha SLR, and was planning on buying a camcorder soon. I just expected it to work with the current set of HD camcorders. Now that I have my SR11, I know that I was a fool again.

I should have done my research... but isnt elements supposed to be for Newbies? Adobe has let me down twice now, and now Its time for me to move on. Not supporting Windows 2000 in 2004, that was total BS. Not supporting the current crop of camcorders with your new(at the time) software is also BS. Not patching the software either = CRAP. Bye Bye Adobe.