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when it counts
TABLE OF CONTENTS
IntroductIon........ 3
SYStEM rEQuIrEMEntS For cS4 Windows.............. 3 Mac.............. 4 Transferring AVCHD Footage To Your Computer................. 4 Copying AVCHD Footage To A Hard Drive................ 5 Transferring AVCHD Footage Directly From The Panasonic.............................................. 6 AG-HMC70 Or AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Cameras To Your Computer................... 6 EdItIng wIth prEMIEr pro................. 7 Editing Directly From Your SD Card Using Media Browser................ 8 Editing Directly From Your SD Card By Using File>Import............. 11 Converting Your AVCHD Files To .mxf Files For Editing................. 12 Using Adobe Dynamic Link.................. 13 output optIonS Outputting To iPod Or iPhone.............. 13 Outputting To YouTube................. 16 Outputting To A Blu-ray Disc Via Adobe Dynamic Link................ 18 Outputting To A DVD Disc Via Adobe Dynamic Link....................... 21 thE AVchd workFlow ArchIVIng 23
Archiving To Hard Drive................ 23 Archiving To Blu-ray Disc................. 23 Archiving To Inexpensive SD Cards .................. 23 Archiving To Digital Linear Tape.................. 23
This paper will discuss a typical AVCHD workflow for editing with and outputting from Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4). Besides editing the AVCHD footage, we will examine outputting to Blu-ray, and even creating a Standard DVD disc. We also look at alternative delivery such as outputting to iPod and You Tube. In addition, archiving options including copying your content onto a hard drive, Blu-ray or DVD discs or even back to an SD card are presented. Adobe CS4 contains a wealth of rich applications that allow you to move your project between Premier Pro (for Editing), After Effects (for effect work) and Encore (for DVD and Blu-Ray creation). Note: CS4 supplies native support for AVCHD files, significantly speeding up your workflow. However, CS4 v. 4 only supports 1080/60i footage. Adobe says that future releases will support all PH Modes of AVCHD (1080p/24 and 30, 720p/24, 30 and 60).
wINDOws
* 2GHz oR fASTER PRoCESSoR foR DV; 3.4GHz foR HDV; DuAl 2.8GHz foR HD* * MICRoSofT WInDoWS XP WITH SERVICE PACk 2 (SERVICE PACk 3 RECoMMEnDED) oR WInDoWS VISTA HoME PREMIuM, BuSInESS, ulTIMATE, oR EnTERPRISE WITH SERVICE PACk 1 (CERTIfIED foR 32-BIT WInDoWS XP AnD 32-BIT AnD 64-BIT WInDoWS VISTA) * 2GB of RAM (MoRE RAM RECoMMEnDED WHEn RunnInG MulTIPlE CoMPonEnTS) * 16.3GB of AVAIlABlE HARD-DISk SPACE foR InSTAllATIon; ADDITIonAl fREE SPACE REquIRED DuRInG InSTAllATIon (CAnnoT InSTAll on flASH-BASED SToRAGE DEVICES) * 1,280X900 DISPlAY WITH oPEnGl 2.0CoMPATIBlE GRAPHICS CARD * SoME GPu-ACCElERATED fEATuRES REquIRE GRAPHICS SuPPoRT foR SHADER MoDEl 3.0 * DEDICATED 7200 RPM HARD DRIVE foR DV AnD HDV EDITInG; STRIPED DISk ARRAY SToRAGE (RAID 0) foR HD; SCSI DISk SuBSYSTEM PREfERRED * foR SD/HD WoRkfloWS, An ADoBE-CERTIfIED CARD foR CAPTuRE AnD EXPoRT To TAPE * oHCI-CoMPATIBlE IEEE 1394 PoRT foR DV AnD HDV CAPTuRE, EXPoRT To TAPE, AnD TRAnSMIT To DV DEVICE * DVD-RoM DRIVE (DVD+-R BuRnER REquIRED foR DVD CREATIon) * Blu-RAY BuRnER REquIRED foR Blu-RAY DISC CREATIon * MICRoSofT WInDoWS DRIVER MoDEl oR ASIo-CoMPATIBlE SounD CARD * quICkTIME 7.4.5 SofTWARE REquIRED To uSE quICkTIME fEATuRES * BRoADBAnD InTERnET ConnECTIon REquIRED foR onlInE SERVICES
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* MulTICoRE InTEl PRoCESSoR * MAC oS X V10.4.1110.5.4 * 2GB of RAM (MoRE RAM RECoMMEnDED WHEn RunnInG MulTIPlE CoMPonEnTS) * 20.6GB of AVAIlABlE HARD-DISk SPACE foR InSTAllATIon; ADDITIonAl HARD-DISk SPACE REquIRED DuRInG InSTAllATIon (CAnnoT InSTAll on A VoluME THAT uSES A CASE-SEnSITIVE fIlE SYSTEM oR on flASH-BASED SToRAGE DEVICES) * 1,280X900 DISPlAY WITH oPEnGl 2.0CoMPATIBlE GRAPHICS CARD * SoME GPu-ACCElERATED fEATuRES REquIRE GRAPHICS SuPPoRT foR SHADER MoDEl 3.0 * DEDICATED 7200 RPM HARD DRIVE foR DV AnD HDV EDITInG; STRIPED DISk ARRAY SToRAGE (RAID 0) foR HD; SCSI DISk SuBSYSTEM PREfERRED * DVD-RoM DRIVE (SuPERDRIVE REquIRED foR DVD CREATIon) * Blu-RAY BuRnER REquIRED foR Blu-RAY DISC CREATIon * CoRE AuDIoCoMPATIBlE SounD CARD * quICkTIME 7.4.5 SofTWARE REquIRED To uSE quICkTIME fEATuRES * BRoADBAnD InTERnET ConnECTIon REquIRED foR onlInE SERVICES
kEy pOINT: COpy pROTECT yOUR sD CaRD. Your SD card has a small little slider on the left hand side of the card. Push this slider down to write protect the data on your card. This is a critical step to protect your footage before you insert the SD card into your computer. Many PCs have a SD card slot. If this is the case, simply insert the SD card into your computer. Some PCs and Mac computers do not have a SD card slot. In this case, use a SD to uSB reader/writer. Just insert your SD card into the reader and connect it to a uSB port on your computer. It will appear as a hard drive volume on your computer. You will now be ready to open Premier Pro and begin editing.
sTEp #2 OpEN ThE sD CaRD fIlEs. In either case, open up the hard drive. You will see a folder named Private. Simply drag and drop that folder to your hard drive. It will then copy all your footage. Do not try to copy from any other folder.
TRaNsfERRINg avChD fOOTagE DIRECTly fROm ThE paNasONIC hmC70 OR hmC150 avCCam CamERa TO yOUR COmpUTER.
You can, of course, transfer your AVCHD footage directly from your camera. The next few steps will show you how to do this. unfortunately, this ties up your camera and precludes you from shooting with it while you are transferring. note: AVCCAM cameras do not have a fire Wire output, only uSB. sTEp 1 CONNECT yOUR paNasONIC CamERa vIa a Usb CablE TO yOUR COmpUTER. Note: you will need to also connect your camera to an aC power supply. sTEp 2 - TURN ThE CamERa TO ThE pC ON pOsITION
on the AG-HMC70 camera this is accomplished by moving the record button to PC.
on the AG-HMC150 camera you must push the mode button on the back of the camera. The light will change from Cam to PB for playback, push again and the PC light will turn on.
Premier Pro is an extremely powerful editor with impressive output capabilities. one of the nicest advantages of using Premier Pro and all of the CS4 applications, is that they support native AVCHD files! This means that there is no transcoding of the data (like many other edit systems). By treating the data as native files, you can edit AVCHD very rapidly.
sTEp #2 CREaTE a NEw pROJECT once Premiere Pro has loaded you will be asked to either create a new project or open an existing project. for the purposes of this white paper, we will create a new project. sTEp #3 sET yOUR sCRaTCh DIsCs aND NamE yOUR pROJECT. You will then be asked to set up your project and designate your scratch discs.
Here you will set the preset for your sequence. Click on the AVCHD folder. You will find three folders inside the AVCHD folder: 1080i, 1080p and 720p. Click on the format and frame rate that matches your project. for this paper we will choose 720p24. note: in CS4 you can create multiple sequences with different settings and group them together into a single sequence. This means you can have a sequence that contains 720p settings and 1080i settings and so on. The real time playback operation and smoothness will depend on the robustness of your system hardware.
After you have selected your sequence settings, you should name it and then click ok.
When you open your project at the lower right of the window, youll find the Media Browser. At this point, we have the SD Card mounted in the uSB reader and it appears as a Hard Drive. Make sure the View as is clicked to AVCHD. Your clips will appear in the Browser.
You can play the clip and even set some rough in and out points.
Drag this clip directly onto the time line and edit directly from the SD card.
You will notice that once you have done this, the clip now appears in your Project Bin. As noted above, AVCHD footage can be dropped onto the timeline without any transcoding or rendering. Continue to add the clips that you want and edit normally.
NOTE: It is possible that a red bar will appear above the footage. This occurs when the footage does not conform to the Sequence setting and it will have to be rendered on final output. In this case, I have added a clip
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that is 1920x1080/30p to my 720/24/p timeline. So, my last clip has a red line over it indicating that it does not conform to the timeline. However, you can still playback and edit this footage on the timeline. Again, the strength of your computer will dictate whether you will see full quality playback. You might experience dropped frames.
This will open a window where you will indicate where your footage is currently located either on the SD Card in a uSB reader or on a hard drive. The file folder structure of AVCHD clips are as follows: PRIVATE>AVCHD>BDMV>STREAM.
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Then click on Send to Encore or new After Effects Composition. Your Premier Pro Project will be sent to the new application. Any changes you make to the project in Premier Pro will be reflected in the other applications.
Output options
When your project is finished, CS4 gives you a host of options for outputting your media.
CS4 makes it easy to output your finished movie to a variety of devices and in a multitude of formats. Here are the steps to output your movie to play back on an iPod.
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Your clip will now start to encode. You can watch the progress bar on the bottom of the screen. When finished your clip can be added to your library in iTunes and displayed on your iPod or iPhone.
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OUTpUTTINg TO yOUTUbE
You might want to share your movie with the world on YouTube. This is easy to do. note: You must, of course, have a YouTube account, in order to upload your movie. Also remember that YouTube specifies that your movie be less than 10 minutes in duration and smaller than 100MB. You Tube will accept the following formats: .AVI, .MoV, .WMV and .MPG. To prepare your movie for YouTube uploading, follow these simple steps.
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on the right hand side under export settings, click on the format drop down and choose H.264.
next, set your preset to YouTube and click ok at bottom of the screen.
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Adobe Media Encoder opens. Click Start queue at lower right of the screen
Your clip will now start to encode. You can watch the progress bar on the bottom of the screen. When finished your clip can be uploaded to your You Tube account.
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sTEp #2 NamE yOUR pROJECT aND sElECT yOUR aUThORINg mODE, IN ThIs CasE blU-Ray.
for this project, the codec should be H.264 and the dimensions must match your project. Since this project was 720/24p, I have selected 1280x720. Click ok.
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In the Project Window at the top left of your screen, click on Build and Select Blu-ray as your format.
Note: to burn a Blu-ray disc, you must have a Blu-ray burner and Blu-ray media. To play back your Blu-ray movie, we recommend the Panasonic DMP BD35K Blu-ray player (or equivalent).
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sTEp #2 NamE yOUR pROJECT aND sElECT yOUR aUThORINg mODE, IN ThIs CasE DvD.
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In the Project Window at the top left of your screen, click on Build and Select DVD as your format.
once your project is finished, you will want to archive your High Definition AVCHD footage. There are a number of options available at this time, depending on your budget and how long you want to keep the footage. kEY PoInT: THE SECRET To SuCCESSful ARCHIVInG of AnY fIlE-BASED MEDIA IS REDunDAnCY AnD MIGRATIon. Make multiple copies and move your data as technology advances.
The quickest and least expensive way to archive your AVCHD footage is to copy your files to a hard drive. This is accomplished in the same way as copying any other data to a hard drive. Copy the Private folder of your AVCHD to your drive. The key thing to remember is that you want to check that you have enough hard drive space. There are a number of manufacturers who make inexpensive uSB hard drives. I suggest copying to two different hard drives (See redundancy note above). Also, these hard drives should not be considered permanent long-term storage. The lubricant in hard drives will dry out over time. Create a regular schedule to move your data to newer hard drives. (See migration note above).
To archive to a Blu-ray, you will basically be making a Blu-ray RoM data disc. To do this, you will need a Blu-ray burner, Blu-ray media, and Adobe Encore (part of CS4 suite). Remember, in order to retrieve your data from this archive in the future, you will need a Blu-ray drive. keep your eye on how technology advances and migrate your data to new storage technology as needed.
Although DVD-R media is technically not specified as archival media, you can archive your data onto standard DVD discs. Since these discs do not hold high amounts of data, this is very time consuming and requires a lot of discs. Remember, in order to retrieve your data from this archive in the future, you will need a DVD drive.
As the price continues to drop on SD cards, they are now becoming a viable archival media. Simply copy your data onto the SD card, label the card and store it. Remember, in order to retrieve your data in the future, you will need some way to read the SD card.
If you have to store your footage for a very long time and want absolute confidence in your archival media, do what financial and medical institutions have been doing for years, back up your data on Digital linear Tape. This is a more expensive option than those listed above, but it is time tested. A number of companies, such at quantum (www. quantum.com), make DlT tape drives and media.
sImplE, qUICk, flExIblE aND INExpENsIvE! ThaT Is ThE avChD pRO EDITINg wORkflOw.
about the author:
Please see the AVCHD WoRkfloW ACquISITIon White Paper. You will find that shooting and transferring AVCHD material is again simple, quick, flexible and inexpensive. Bernie Mitchell is an Emmy nominated Producer/Director, a Multimedia Person of the Year and member of the DVD Association Hall of Fame. He is president of Silver Platter Productions, Inc.
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