AVCHD vs MPEG4

Question

Level 1

5 points

AVCHD vs MPEG4

Can someone please explain the benefit of AVCHD format, knowing the user is required to import & recode video....a process that takes 1 to 2+ hours for each hour of video shot? When, on other hand there are camcorder manufactures that record directly to MPEG4, a format that is as simple as "dragging and dropping" the files from your camcorder into iMovie, or even playing directly in quicktime...hence no importing/recoding.

Seems like a slam dunk that MPEG4 is the better route. What am I missing?

Thanks

Intel Mac, Core two duo, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Dec 21, 2007 10:42 AM

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Answer 1

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Dec 21, 2007 12:18 PM in response to Greg Fisher

Seems like a slam dunk that MPEG4 is the better route. What am I missing?

You seem to be forgetting two things -- codec efficiency and the storage medium. Basically, AVCHD is a much more efficient compression format which, in turn, means smaller file storage requirements. Think of AVCHD as MPEG-4/AVC (i.e., H.264) data encapsulated in an MPEG-2 container much the same as HDV is DV encapsulated in an MPEG-2 file container. Add to this the fact that HD files tend to be 6-7 times larger than SD files of the same quality in the same compression format, you can see that using MPEG-4 here would drastically reduce the amount of time available for storing your content or require a storage capacity many times greater than that normally used for AVCHD camcorders.

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Answer 2

walloon1

Level 1

0 points

Feb 17, 2008 4:14 PM in response to Jon Walker

I am a new iMac owner. I have a Sony HDR-SR1 HD video camera. When I connect the camera directly to my iMac I can download the video files file. Unfortunately the video files are huge and I had to save some on an external drive. On the external drive they are saved as a m2ts file and when I try to access the files from my iMac the iMac does not recognize the files.

Does any know how I can covert the files to something the iMac will recognize?

Thanks.

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Answer 3

Feb 17, 2008 4:28 PM in response to walloon1

You can save the files to m2ts to save space or archive them, but you'll still need to convert them to AIC for use with imovie. imovie won't do this once you have taken them off the camera, but you can use an app called voltaic to convert your archived m2ts files.

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Answer 4

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Feb 17, 2008 4:36 PM in response to walloon1

Does any know how I can covert the files to something the iMac will recognize?

Have you tried Voltaic?

ADDED: Oops! Looks like I should have checked after finding URL and before posting. Sorry.

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Answer 5

walloon1

Level 1

0 points

Feb 17, 2008 7:34 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Thanks. I downloaded Voltaic but I get this error..

...Cannot write to output directory..

do you know how to change this in the preferences?

Thanks for your help!

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