Newbie finally chasing dream

[robint]

A few things: a big consideration also is how much time you want to spend editing and how good of a diver you are. Video is 10% shooting, 90% editing. That said, the skill of the videographer determines how much there is to work with in editing. I have seen some videos done with very expensive rigs which I thought were terrible as the videographer had no idea what he was doing, awful transitions, moved around too fast, clips too long and boring, zoomed in an out constantly, etc. Some people think that buying the top of the line equipment makes great video. It doesn't! So skill with what rig you buy is VERY important.

I have a very inexpensive system and think I do okay with it and all its limitations. I started with a lower end system due to price constraints and also I wasn't sure I would even like video. I didn't want too many buttons to play with at first either. I think I made the right choice for me. I have vastly improved with it over the 2.5 years I have had it, too. The first year I posted lots of videos and asked for criticism, re-edited, posted again... on and on. I learned sooooo much here on Scubaboard by doing videos and asking for comments afterwards. You can't expect to buy a fancy rig and make art the first time out. Learning how to shoot and learning how to edit are big things to consider when you buy.

When you do decide on a rig and start shooting, be sure to post here and ask for comments. You will get lots of great information and learn things about the rig much faster.

robin

 

[bottomfeeder22]

Absolutely, will do Robin! I can't wait to start posting and get my work critiqued here to make me better.

Ok slight change in portable video editing equipment - I know Macs are supposed to be great for video, graphics, etc.... but jeez, they're almost twice the price of similarly equipped PCs! For example:

Gateway - Laptop with Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology - P-7811FX

$1249 Gateway (admittedly, that is an OUTSTANDING deal)

Apple® - MacBook® Pro with 15.4" Display - MB133LL/A

$1999 Macbook Pro, with smaller screen, half the RAM, and inferior video card(embedded, of course)


Am I missing something? I've heard that Macs are more efficient, and would love to give them a go, but I can't support less hardware at a higher price. If they were closer in price, perhaps I could justify.

Please advise on good PC video editing software for the SR12's AVCHD format, or why I should go with a Mac. Thank you!

 

[diversteve]

Premiere Pro CS4:

Edit files from the latest tapeless formats natively, including RED, P2, XDCAM, XDCAM EX and XDCAM HD, and AVCHD, without transcoding or rewrapping.

Adobe Premiere Elements 7:

Adobe Premiere Elements supported import/export formats include:ASF (import only), AVI, AVCHD (import only), SWF (import), Blu-ray Disc (export only), DV, DVD, Dolby® Digital Stereo, H.264, HDV, JPEG, PNG (import only)....

Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9:

Sony AVCHD import and edit support

Sony Vegas Pro 8:

These tools let you edit and process DV, AVCHD, HDV, SD/HD-SDI, and all XDCAM™ formats in real time,

All have serious hardware requirements since AVCHD requires a lot more horsepower to import/edit than HDV. Most are spec'ing at least a dual core, preferably a quad core processor with 2-4GB of system memory.

How are you planning to make Blu-Ray DVD's with that laptop? Or are you? You're also likely to need some external storage, HDV captures around 13GB per hour more or less.

 

[PeCaRi]

Hi

I have pretty much the same problem as you.

I had the opportunity to work with AVCHD. I have a macbook pro with 4 GB Ram. (Imovie / Premiere) And it wasn't enough! the transmission took hours and the editing was just a pain! Processing was slow.

After that I tried to edit on the mac pro (quad core, 12 gb RAM). It worked better, but still on a upper level. the grafic card is not processing this format.

the new octo core mac pro has no problem with that. In general: AVCHD is nothing for laptops. it took me approx. half a day to transfer 30 min. on my laptop.

(sorry for my bad english, hope you understand what I want to say)

 

[robint]

I cannot imagine editing video on a laptop.
I have a Dell desktop computer dedicated to photo/video editing and that is it. It isn't even hooked up to the internet in order to keep it fast. I spend hours editing video at that computer, I do mean hours! Video files are HUGE and need lots of memory and other programs running in the background will slow it down. Downloading and creating files takes hours also, so while that computer is doing those things, I am on this computer on the internet or some other thing. They are right next to each other. My husband does still photo now, so he edits his photos on there when I am not doing video. Keeping the one computer separate for just editing has been fantastic and I am so glad we decided to buy it for that purpose.

That is one of the reasons I went with the less expensive camcorder and housing as my first rig. I had a new computer as part of my budget. I did lots of research on the subject and everyone told me about the editing issues and the fact that it takes hours and hours. It was the best solution offered to me and I am glad we decided to go that way.

 

[bottomfeeder22]

I can't thank you guys and gals enough! I was close to getting the meanest laptop I could, thinking it would be enough to edit, but now I see that building a bad a$$ 16 gazillion core monster PC will be the only way..... no problem, gets me excited every time I "have" to build a new computer for something, hehehe! Yea, my geekiness is showing. How does this sound:

1. I get a sweet laptop anyway (for other reasons in my life), will I be able to just view raw video after a long day's diving w/out issue? I would think that would be ok.
2. I build a monster PC for back at the house where I'll edit the heck out of it (I do only work half the year, after all).