Part three
I've picked examples to make a point only.

Enter the editor. Where do we start?

What our camera produces (but what did we choose)?
What output do we require (but what do we choose)?
What our system can handle (how much do we spend)?

Bluntly, anything interlaced that needs deinterlacing will be more complex, lead to more artifacts etc etc etc.

Anything that is highly compressed and with proprietary quirks may need transcoding for edit and will need more processing and graphics power.
Quote March 2008 (just 12 months ago!)
"How much more taxing? Importing 1.5 hours of full resolution AVCHD footage took over 3 hours (not bad) but exporting took about 36 hours on a dual-core 2.2GHz MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM. I’ll be the first to admit it’s not the fastest machine but 36 hours for 1.5 hours of footage.. really? While exporting I had to keep a fan pointed at the MacBook Pro so it wouldn’t melt. I’m not a video guru by far so the exporting process might have nothing to do at all with AVCHD since it was already imported and converted to a much larger format (as in 1 hour took 60GB of space)." http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/03/08/why-im-avoiding-avchd

Anything with both eg .m2ts may be really painful - for example :
http://www.jakeludington.com/camcorder/20070118_how_to_edit_avchd_m2ts_files_from_sony_hdr-sr1_camcorders.html

We then have to deal with what format to output to for our preferred purpose. Can we do it in a single process, if most output is for web streaming - PD doesn't do .flv for example, so we must have a 2 stage process.

The forum is full of experiences of editors grappling with HD in differing formats, on differing systems, for different purposes, producing different outputs.

My experience with disc based HD is non-existent, so I read the experience of others with interest but I can't comment. I tend to web-stream my video or produce to play on a 1080p or 720p domestic TV direct from a laptop or player. I shoot, edit and produce in 720p because I can do that comfortably and I can't really see the difference in my circumstances. I use several sets of software to get what I need, such as .flv and .MP4 formats because that works for me.

I'm not saying don't go for the best, but I am saying the best input may not result in the best output, there may be too many compromises all along the way and it may be a long and painful editing process, that in the end, could have been done more comfortably by making different choices from the start.


Cheers
Adrian
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
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