AVCHD and iMovie with Panasonic SD5 - Bugs and Observations

Hi,

I know I posted some of this information in another thread but thought I would also break it out into a separate thread to make it easier to find and I also added some more info.

I went out and bought the Panasonic SD5 last night. I have only had a few minutes to do some tests and have provided some of my findings. Now I know that it is not on the officially supported list of cameras for iMovie08 but I am hoping it will make that list very soon since it is not much different than the SD1 version, which is supported.

The SD1 was only able to take video in 1440x1080 mode, and the new SD5 is full HD since it can capture video at the full 1920x1080. I took some footage in the full 1920x1080 mode and some in the 1440x1080 mode. As I mentioned the SD1 model only did 1440x1080 and iMovie would then make that 1920x1080 during import (more on this later since how Apple does this presents a problem).

Now to get the clips off the SDHC card. I have not tried connecting the actual camera to my Mac Book Pro (thought I would try something else first), but did connect the USB card reader that came with the 4GB SDHC card I bought. When I ran iMovie 08 it recognized that card as a camera and went to the import screen. This made me happy since I now know I do not have to connect the camera every time I want to import. I was able to import my video from the SDHC card using the card reader with no problems.

I also burned the contents of the 4GB card to a DVD and when I had that DVD in my drive iMovie recognized it as a camera and was able to import from the DVD. I thought this was great since I can now backup my raw AVCHD clips on DVD and import the clips I want when I need them. This is much cheaper than having to have multiple SD cards;-)

Now to the quirks that I noticed. For all the full 1920x1080 mode clips it imported them as 2560x1980. I assume this is because all the AVCHD cameras that are supported are 1440x1080. To make that video the full 1920x1080 Apple is just increasing the width dimension by 33.333% which is the percentage the width dimension needs to be increased to make it the true 1920 dimension for HD. When I imported the 1440x1080 mode clips they seemed to be stored as 1920x1080 doing the same 33.333% increase. I assume Apple coded iMovie to add 33.333% to anything that is being imported as 1920x1080 instead of looking at the dimensions the video was captured at. This is annoying and I hope that Apple fixes this soon. I did all my edits with the 2560x1080 clips. When I shared using export to Quicktime I made sure I just changed the size to 1920x1080. The exported movie looked fine again (not stretched). Does anyone know if I am losing quality doing this?

I do like the higher res and random access capability of the AVCHD camera vs a tape one. But I have to get use to that importing the clips takes longer than the time length of the clips. Whereas with tape the import is 1:1 with the length of the clips. So I guess it is a trade off of convenience of picking the clips you want vs a faster import on tape. One thing I did notice is that I cannot import a portion of a clip. I have to import an entire clip. Is this the case for the SD1 model? I thought I could scrub and selectively import video from parts of a clip. Any information on this would be appreciated?

You better have a lot of HD space for imported HD clips. These clips get very large when they are imported. A 20 sec clip was approx. 200MB when imported. I will have to play with this to see if there is anything I can do with it. During the import it converts the AVCHD format to Apple's AIC format. Does anyone know if my quality is being maintained in this conversion?

I hope that apple puts out an update that will fix the 2560 problem. I assume they will at some point. It is annoying to have that.

Sorry for the rambling but I thought this info may be useful and was hoping to get some clarification on some of my questions.

15" MBP, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Sep 14, 2007 9:22 AM

104 replies

Sep 20, 2007 7:36 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Winston....thanks for your quick reply.

My son did the test, and I am sure that he picked the highest "quality"....here were his notes: "127 mins on 1440N (Normal quality), 196 mins 1440 (Extended), 85 mins on 1920." I will have my camera later today to do some tests too.

On your observations...yes, I intend on using iM08 to edit (yes, I am a long time iMHD user, and know the limitations that iM08 now has!), and you said I should use 960x540. On the SD5, you only have either 1440 or 1920 choices.

Anyone else out there that is now using the SD5....what is YOUR take on whether or not to use 1440 or 1920. Obviously, we got this camera to have the full Monty of 1920, but with the squish problem for now, we may have to use 1440, but apparently, the SD5's 1440 is of lessor quality than the SD1?

And if we DO go with 1920.....are we going to have to REIMPORT all our 1920 footage when Apple fixes the drivers, or will this technique of exporting to QT and reimporting do the trick without losing quality?

Always something when on the bleeding edge....of course, I need to tape my daughter's wedding Oct 13, so have to figure out what I need to do pretty soon! Who knows, maybe Apple will have the correct driver out by then, and all this is moot....but I am not holding my breath.

thanks,
Bruce

Sep 20, 2007 10:14 AM in response to Robert Paterson

Robert,

I have the SD5. Here is how to get iMovie 08 to see your clips. Hook the USB cable from the camera to your Mac. Open iMovie. Turn the camera to recover mode. On the LCD view screen a menu will pop up. Select the option to connect to PC. iMovie should now see your clips.

Hope this helps.

Bill

Sep 20, 2007 10:17 AM in response to billalexander

Robert,

Oops, that should have said "record" mode, not recover. Sorry for any confusion

Sep 20, 2007 1:35 PM in response to Winston Churchill

It is possible to output 1440x880 or even 1920x1080 with imovie 08

"Share"--"Export using Quicktime" and select " Options"--"Size"--"Dimensions"-- "Custome" "1440x880" otherwise it is not 16:9

But I have no idea if it will import 1440x880 into iDVD. Does anyone know if it does and if the DVD burned with iDVD will output 1440x880 on an HDTV?

why are some words crossed out?

Sep 20, 2007 2:48 PM in response to Julian Walkner

Yes it's possible to export to either 1440 x 1080 or 1920 x 1080 using the export using Quicktime option. However on some hardware the export process reduces the size of the video to 960 x 540 and back to a larger resolution, so exporting to anything larger than 960 x 540 is pointless. I have no idea where the limitation is reached in respect of hardware, but my mac pro doesn't have this limitation but my MBP does.

The DVD format will only support Standard definition (nothing to do with ), however you don't actually need to export from imovie for iDVD. All your imovie projects are available from your iDVD media browser.

No idea about the crossing out.

Sep 20, 2007 3:47 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Why do we all grab the lastest and greatest with 1920, 1440 when it doesn't make sense at all?
But the DVDs we can buy in a store certainly support more than 960 x 540.

But I must say that the picture quality of the Panasonic is outstanding up to the size of 960 x 540.

Sep 20, 2007 4:00 PM in response to Julian Walkner

Why do we all grab the lastest and greatest with 1920, 1440 when it doesn't make sense at all?
But the DVDs we can buy in a store certainly support more than 960 x 540

Not unless they are HD-DVD or BR

Sep 21, 2007 12:51 PM in response to CoolDad

I went to Best Buy today hoping to see the SD5. I was disappointed that it was not on display. When a saleman asked if I needed any help, I mentioned the SD5. He said he had just received one, it was locked up in the cabinet, and he was willing to show it to me. We put a 256MB card in and took some video at 1920x1080. I told the salesman that the camera would not import to the Mac at the highest resolution. So he said, let's try it. Then we walked over and plugged the camera in to a 24" iMac (Aluminum).

After plugging the camera into a USB port, we started iMovie 08. The import window came up. The original footage was 1920x1080. In the import window, it gave us three options. We chose 1920x1080 here too. Then we imported into iMovie. The video imported into iMovie at the correct size. We did not experience the distortion that others have reported. We then made a quick movie and exported it to iTunes, at which time it was 960x540. It still looked quite good on iTunes.

I noticed that for about 75 seconds of footage (which fit on a 256MB card) when I checked the finder, the event file was over 1GB. So if I get this camera, I can see a big firewire drive in my future.

Overall I was impressed with the camera and will probably get one.

Sep 22, 2007 6:32 AM in response to CoolDad

Hi everyone,

Maybe I can help bring some light to those of you that are having problems importing. I picked up this camera in late august through Panasonic direct (just before it hit the street) and have had a chance to play around with it quite a bit.

I have come across the same stretching issues in iMovieHD when importing 1920 x 1080 - consistent with the everyone else getting these results. I want to give FCP6 a shot at importing the footage without converting the aspect ratio. If I can get my hands on it and import the footage raw, I'm thinking/hoping this won't occur.

More importantly, I use both PowerMac G5 (non intel) and a MacbookPro (Intel) and have come to the conclusion that non-Intel based Macs WILL NOT recognize the camera. I've successfully imported footage into an Intel iMac, Macbookpro, and the only Mac that would not recognize the camera was the non-Intel Mac. If all of you who are having problems with your Macs recognizing the camera, this could be why. One other problem I came across was that I need to import directly with the camera. If I copy footage files onto a portable external HD (to free up the SD memory card), iMovieHD 08 won't recognize those files. Not sure if FCP will recognize these exported files.

So for now, I'm pretty much resolved with having to directly import from the camera before shooting again. I might pickup an 8G memory card, and then instead of putting footage on an external drive, I'll just swap out the 2 memory cards (then dump everything onto my Mac at the end of the day).

If I can figure out how to import without stretching the footage, I'll post a follow up. Hopefully, some of this helps you guys.

The quality of the footage is great 😉 - just need to iron out a few bumps in the road. To be expected when you're an early adopter of new technology.

Best,

-Dave

Sep 22, 2007 6:49 AM in response to Dave S. Stanley

Dave.....I ran into the same concern on not being able to dump my card to the hard drive, and then be able to import later. Fear not....my son came up with the solution! Create a Disk Image (from Disk First Aid), and then dump those 3 memory card folders into the disk image. When the disk image is mounted, iMovie 08 "sees" this as a camera, and you can then import it! The implication here is that you could also use this disk image as a back up of our raw memory card footage (and you can make backups on another hard drive. Remember, this "raw" memory card footage is a small fraction of what storage requirements you will need after it is imported (uncompressed) into iMovie....then you are going to need MANY Gbs of space!

On the "stretching" issues....yes we have all be wringing our hands on this. The two known fixes (before Apple fixes this....which I am sure they will....it is just WHEN) are (from previous posts):

1 - Now as was mentioned in this thread there is some caveats when importing. For all the full 1920x1080 clips it imported them as 2560x1980 an the 1440x1080 clips were imported as 1920x1080. This was a little annoying, but when I shared using export to Quicktime I made sure I just changed the size to 1920x1080 for the ones that were 2560x1080. The exported movie looked fine again.

2 - Here's one working solution. Finish the editing of your movie and save it. Then load the movie into VisualHub and change resolution to 1920x1080, then export again. Works for me, although it's an extra step.

The question on these methods is whether or not you will lose quality after going thru the additional export import step hoops. That will be my next experiment next week. Some of us have pondered maybe we just film in 1440 mode, and not have all these issues, but heck, we got this SD5 so we would have the full monty of 1920! I know, when we dump into iMovie and share, it comes out as a lessor quality film, but at least we are STARTING off with the best possible footage. I suspect that doing one of the above 2 fixes will STILL give you a better product than giving up and using the 1440 method. For awhile, I thought of using for now 1440, but now I have decided to use 1920...in the long run I will be glad I did.

Bruce

Sep 22, 2007 8:08 AM in response to Bruce Sprague

Bruce,

Thanks for the tip on the external hd. Are you able to see a 2560 x 1080 setting in imovie? I haven't seen that aspect ratio in any of the properties. Although, I have manually changed the export to quicktime, and set the ratio to 1920 x 1080, but for me that hasn't necessarily resolved the render from looking stretched.

-Dave

Sep 22, 2007 8:17 AM in response to Dave S. Stanley

Dave.....I have not actually started or played with these "fixes" yet (the wife has MUCH to do this weekend....honey dos), and I have not "seen" where you see if it is 2560x1080. But I know the "stretch" is there just looking at it! Now, supposedly others have used one of the two fix methods I described above, and this supposedly gets the ratio back correct to get rid of the stretched out picture. I am sure this must work if done right, so not sure why it is not working for you. Eventually Apple will fix this, and that will be that. In the mean time we will have to do one of the "fixes", or just later reimport our footage. Next week I will try one of the fix methods, and post my findings...hopefully it will work like it has for others.
Bruce

CoolDad Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 22, 2007 6:46 PM in response to Bruce Sprague

Well I have done some more experiments and thought I would share my findings. I have to admit this is somewhat new stuff to me so I do not quite understand it all.

I recorded on my SD5 in 1920 and 1440 Normal mode. Instead of using iMovie 8 I decided to use Final Cut Pro to import since I can view some more details on the clips in FCP. Before I did this I did check and noticed that when I imported in iMovie I got 2560x1080 for the 1920 mode and 1920x1080 in the 1440 mode, which is what we are all seeing. I did the same imports in FCP and Quicktime shows the same dimensions that I noted above. So it appears the same issue exists in FCP as does iMovie.

In FCP the 1920 mode clips were stretched, as everyone is seeing in iMovie when importing 1920 mode clips from the SD5. I then opened the Format Properties viewer in FCP to see the details of the clips. For the 1920 mode clip it showed the Frame Size was 2560x1920 (same as what Quicktime shows). It also showed the Pixel Aspect as "Square".

I then took the 2560x1080 clip and exported from Quicktime keeping everything the same except I set the size to 1920x1080. When i looked at it in the Format Property viewer I saw the size as 1920x1080 and the Pixel Aspect as Square, which is what I would expect. One interesting note was that the size of the file was almost the same for the 2560x1080 clip and the newly exported 1920x1080 file of the same clip. I thought with the reduction of 33% in fraem size I would have files that were approx. 33% different in size.

Now for the 1440 mode clip. I looked at what Quicktime showed in the properties and it shows the 1440 mode clip as 1920x1080. Now I took the same clip and looked at it in the Format Property viewer of FCP and was surprised at what I saw. The frame size was 1440x1080, not 1920x1080. The Pixel Aspect was set to "HD (1440x1080)", not "Square" like the 1920 mode clip was. This was the same file and it showed different info based on what tool I used. I would think that FCP is able to view some more details than QT.

To be honest I am not sure what all this means but I did think it was interesting information. Does anyone know why the FCP viewer indicates the size as 1440x1080 and the QT properties show it as 1920x1080? Also does anyone know what the Pixel Aspect field is. Maybe this is the key to the issue on how Apple is importing 1920 mode clips from the SD5. I hope a fix is foun soon.

I was going to just record in the 1440 mode and wait until the fix is made. But I may just keep recording in 1920 mode with teh hopes a fix is made soon. Then i will just backup my AVCHD files so I can re-import them later and hopefully hav ethe correct sized frames. Then for now I would just work with the 1560x1080 frames and export them to 1920x1080 when i am done my editing.

Hope my ramblings made some sense and the info was useful.

Sep 22, 2007 6:55 PM in response to CoolDad

Cooldad.....nice write up.

I DO know that the SD1 camera, that takes 1440 footage, gives about 80 mins of recording on an 8 Gb card, and when doing 1440N (the best 1440 quality) on the SD5 you get about 125 mins recording time.....Soooooo.....it appears that in the SD5 the 1440 is being compressed MORE with less quality than on the SD1. It looks like maybe what you have found may validate this.

Bottom line, I have decided to film at 1920 to get the best possible footage....there will be a way to correct the aspect problem, and worst case we could reimport the stuff when Apple gets the drivers right.

thanks,
Bruce

Sep 22, 2007 7:34 PM in response to Bruce Sprague

Forgive me, but why does everyone assume this is an imovie issue rather than the camera simply flagging the movies incorrectly.

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AVCHD and iMovie with Panasonic SD5 - Bugs and Observations