AVCHD - IMOVIE - APPLE TV - CONFUSION

Capturing the footage is the most important thing, you can worry about how to crack the nut later!

Having said that, if the Mac is your video processing choice, you would be well advised to go for the camcorder which gives you best flexibility and ease of use in conjunction with imovie 08. If you haven't done so I would strongly suggest you ask on the iMovie 08 forum as many contributors there will be up to date with the latest camcorders and their use in iMovie 08.

So long as your footage is converted to AIC, which is lossless, then I wouldn't worry too much as you will have many tools (including excellent free ones like MPEGStreamclip) at your disposal for rendering output to different devices.

As far as iMovie 08 goes all your footage is split into Events and you can use different bits from different events to compile a movie.

Once you've compiled the movie there are preset options for output to iPod/appleTv etc which may be fine, but you will probably get better results using custom Quicktime settings. Again the iMovie forum will be a wealth of knowledge.

I'd also ask what's the best way to archive your original AVCHD files - AIC is a lossless format and as such even storing compressed source material means big files in comparison.

AC

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums.

I have the sony HDR-SR8, which is a similar camera to the one you are considering except the SR12 shoots at 1920 x 1080 whereas the SR8 is 1440 x 1080, the SR12 also has a slightly bigger HDD.

I have had no issues importing files into imovie 08 or for that matter into Final cut.

Your understanding of the workflow to produce video for the tv seems fairly accurate. AVCHD is a highly compressed format used by sony and many other camera manufacturers to record video to an HDD. The problem with AVCHD is it can't be played on all but a few computers and devices and isn't editable.

This is where AIC comes in, the AVCHD is decompressed and written in a format that is editable. AIC still has its issues, again only relatively powerful computers can play it and it uses up large chunks of your HD, (one hour of video is around 50 GB).

So AIC is used while you edit and once you are finished you need to export it to another format. Which format depends on how you will use it, if you want to use it on the tv you will need to export it to h264 (mpeg4/10 or AVC by its other names)

This is quite easily achieved in imovie. Choose 'export movie' from the 'share' menu, you have 4 sizes to choose from, simply choose the largest and wait for it to complete.

I have had troubles similar to the ones that you are facing now. I have an HDV (MPEG 2) camcorder that I use for family video recording, and an Apple TV. In this post, I will discuss what I normally do with my video, and I have some comments on what other users have said here.

First of all, the Apple Intermediate Codec is NOT lossless. In fact, it is highly compressed, just not as much as AVCHD (H.264). In the AIC, every frame is basically a JPEG. So even if this format looks lossless (to the eye or file size), it actually isn't.

That said, now to my workflow.

The first way I export my videos is like how Winston said. I use the 960x540 resolution in iMovie. While this format looks OK on my Apple TV, it is still not as good as if I played directly off the camcorder. This is because the resolution is only 1/4 the resolution of the original source, and the bitrate is much lower. So, I make a higher quality backup that I can edit or view at a later time, but keep in mind that this backup will not play on the Apple TV because of its video limitations. Those can be found here under 'Video formats supported':

http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

If I were in your position, I would try to back up the actual AVCHD files directly from your hard drive. Since I have never used one of these cameras, I am not exactly sure how you would get these file or what they look like, but I would guess that the hard drive mounts on your computer when you plug it in via USB. The file format might be something like .MP4 or .TS (just look for the big files). From there, MPEG Streamclip can export them to AIC if you ever want to edit them again.

I normally export to H.264 720p30 @ 8 mbps and stereo AAC audio @ 160 kbps when I know that I am finished editing. But how you want to preserve your video is totally up to you. Some people are bigger on quality than others. The only thing that I would NOT recommend is that you back up your video in AIC format (or other codecs that are that lowly compressed). This is just a total waste of hard drive space, especially when you can keep the original files for (at least) half of the space.

Hope this helps, and good luck!! -- Ian.

mac20genius wrote:
First of all, the Apple Intermediate Codec is NOT lossless. In fact, it is highly compressed, just not as much as AVCHD (H.264). In the AIC, every frame is basically a JPEG. So even if this format looks lossless (to the eye or file size), it actually isn't.

AIC is compressed but only very lightly.

MPEG Streamclip can export them to AIC if you ever want to edit them again.

Mpegstreamclip is not able to convert AVCHD, if you take AVCHD off your camera and put it on your HD for archiving purposes, imovie nor Final cut will be able to import it, AKAIK the only way to convert AVCHD once on your HD is with an application called 'Voltaic', it's a bit slow but does the job, it will cost you $ 30.00.

By way of example an hour of AVCHD will take up about 7 GB, an hour of AIC will take up around 40 GB, very roughly.

I have been following this with interest.

Do I understand this correctly?

I have an HD Camcorder. I have iMovie capable of HD resolution set to import 1080i video as Full 1920x1080. I have an Apple TV capable of plahying HD.

But, when I put them all together I cannot get HD home video to play on Apple TV in High Def. I can only play it in 960x540. If it can play HD rented movies why not HD home movies. 960 x 540 is only slightly better than SD. What is the point of the Hd camera? What am I missing?

Your HD camera may or may not be 1920 x 1080, only the very latest are. While most HD cameras do indeed shoot 1080 lines of resolution, most only have 1440 pixels in the vertical plane.

HD is basically anything over SD. HD movies you rent on the tv are not 1080. The tv is able to play resolutions up to 720p at 24 fps, if your camera shoots at 30 fps (depends where you are) then the tv will only play video from it at 540p.

720p is significantly better than SD and for that matter so is 540p. SD is either 480i or 576i (720 x 480/576), but in addition to the increase in resolution you should remember that 720/540p is progressive which means you get twice the information per horizontal line of resolution displayed at any one time.

Many movies available in blu-ray format are 1080p but your camera will be 1080i, which basically means it only scans 540 lines of resolution at once and interlaces them with the next 540 lines of resolution. imovie or other software will merge these interlaced scans into 540 progressive lines of resolution (you should now see why 540 is a little bit of a magic number).

Yes this process does lose some quality, but not as much as you may have originally thought.

Final Cut Pro WILL import AVCHD data stored on your hard disk. For storage, I drag the AVCHD folders from my Sony camcorder to my hard disk and give them unique names with the date of capture. Later I can edit them with Final Cut Pro. Open the log and transfer (not log and capture) window in fcp, and drag the required AVCHD folder to the Log and transfer window. All the clips open, and can then be be converted and edited.

It's also easy to import and edit AVCHD files stored on your hard disk with IMovie. Get a USB or firewire disc, (or mount the memory card from your camcorder). Copy the stored AVCHD folder to the drive. Make sure it has the original AVCHD folder name. Open IMovie, and voila, it will see the attached drive and allow you to import the clips.

I suspect this will work with USB attached camcorder - copy the folder BACK to the camcorder drive, and IMovie will likely see it.