It seems the HD1010 is an AVCHD camera. Here are my comments:
AVCHD is not a good consumer format for editing at the moment but will become the norm.
Powerdirector is not very good at rendering AVCHD but hopefully will improve.
DV is an excellent format with good preservation of data but is not readily supported by many media players. (XBox should- after all MS was a developer but I have never owned one so can't comment)
I suggest you keep all your DV stuff as DV. Render all your AVCHD to 1080i mpeg2 as this leads to fewer artifacts with PD and is handled by most media players.
Converting your 30fps to 25fps (PAL) is likely to create unfavourable results. Send an "NTSC" disc as your UK brother is highly likely to be able to play them.

hi Mark,
I have a 1010, and previously a 1000 (it drowned in September). I don't have a really high spec system :-

XP MCE
Athlone 64X2 4600+ 2.4GHz 3GB RAM Radeon X1600 1x 500GB SATA 1x 320GB SATA plus 3 external drives

so I have, in general, limited myself to shooting in 720p format (HD-SHQ) which does me fine for the types of display that I generally use. No doubt I will continue to experiment with full HD.

All cameras have their good/bad points but so far I get on fine with the 1010. Importing the MP4s to PD is no problem, and apart from the usual issues with previews running slow etc etc with lots of edits, effects etc I am quite happy so far.

There's a few of my videos on seemyworld.com shot with the HD1000/1010 if you want to take a look but most of the scuba videos are shot at SD.

Feel free to PM me if you want any more info on my experiences so far!


Edit :
Check out this link :-
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/4718.page


Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Thanks for the responses to date. So, to continue my education...

One benefit I like with the DV approach is that it's lossless (as many times as I copy/edit it on my Pioneer DVD Recorder I keep the original qaulity intact). Putting aside the "target" format for a second (the format I will eventually produce), what options are available to me with the combination of the Sanyo HD1010 and PowerDirector if I want to maintain a lossless format for the actual editing of my content? My understanding is that if I move to MPEG2 or MPEG4 then I am not at a lossy format - is that true?

What I am thinking here is that I should at least get my content from the camcorder onto my PC and edited (removing unwanted scenes, etc). Then, at a later time, I can make the call about the target format (DVD, Blu Ray, streaming, etc). Does my logic make sense?

Thanks again, everyone. This is very helpful.

Mark

Quote: what options are available to me with the combination of the Sanyo HD1010 and PowerDirector if I want to maintain a lossless format for the actual editing of my content?

To maintain the original data you need to use the SVRT function. It works for some AVCHD cameras and not others. Place a .mts clip into your timeline and go Directors Chair>view>SVRT info and then select the corresponding format and see in PD will render or not. If it is all green or yellow then in theory no rendering happens and the frames are copied intact to the new file.

Quote: To maintain the original data you need to use the SVRT function. It works for some AVCHD cameras and not others. Place a .mts clip into your timeline and go Directors Chair>view>SVRT info and then select the corresponding format and see in PD will render or not. If it is all green or yellow then in theory no rendering happens and the frames are copied intact to the new file.

I think I have some reading to do. I am not familar with SVRT but I will hunt it down. Thanks for the pointer.

One thing (of many) that isn't clear to me is how AVCHD and MPEG4 relate. I see .mp4 files on my camcorder. What are .mts clips - is this another format that I should be seeing from my camera? Also, there's some confusion on my part about exactly what "AVCHD editing" actually means. For example, I have an AVCHD camera and - at its highest resolution - I can copy the .mp4 files and see them in PowerDirector. My machine grinds pretty slowly but they are at least playable. Is that what one would mean by "AVCHD support"?

Finally, if I take the clip in PowerDirector, move to the timeline and produce to (say) an MPEG4 file, is that lossless? Assuming it is, does the SVRT support mean that it won't be lossless?

Thanks.

Mark

Mark:

On material that has been shot on HDV or AVCHD I have done the following: Captured HDV (or copied over the .MTS files) and edited, adding titles, transitions, voice overs, and music.

When done produced (rendered) to regular DVD for any distribution I've had to do, and then taken the same project and rendered (produced) to hi definition WMV files that play back using Windows Media Player (and look great, too).

The latest "wrinkle" comes with Western Digital's new WD TV. This is a little box with 2 USB inputs, an HDMI output (also regular composite output for TV's that have no HDMI) that connects to an HD TV. The USB inputs take an external USB hard drive or other USB storage device (I use thumb drives) and allows one to play HD content from the hard drive or thumb drive on the TV.

I tested this with a 26 minute WMV file rendered to 1920x1080 and stored on a thumb drive. Full HD from a thumb drive!

This may not answer all of your needs but may give you a partial answer. Out of Power Director 7 I've tested with a 15 minute HD WMV at 1440x812. Looked pretty much as good as the 26 minute file.

Some are speculating this may allow a lot of us to "bypass" Blu-ray as a few years will likely see most content delivered electronically or on flash media. Sony may have kept Blu-ray prices too high for too long.

Quote: Mark:
On material that has been shot on HDV or AVCHD I have done the following: Captured HDV (or copied over the .MTS files) and edited, adding titles, transitions, voice overs, and music.

When done produced (rendered) to regular DVD for any distribution I've had to do, and then taken the same project and rendered (produced) to hi definition WMV files that play back using Windows Media Player (and look great, too).

Thank you Bif. I appreciate the detailed response. It won't surprise you that I have some follow up questions... :

I am not clear on what an .mts file is. My Camcorder (Sanyo HD1010) produces .mp4 files that I copy over. What am I missing here? Also, the capture option is not available when I connect my camcorder - I need to copy over files using Windows Explorer. That's not a big deal but I don't have the ability to capture sections of the camcorder's file as I would in Capture mode.

Let's say I have copied a file across from the camcorder and imported into PowerDirector. At that point I assume I still have the full resolution of the file available to me and any trimming, splitting, etc I do in the editing mode is just setting pointers to the content in the clips. It's only when I Produce that I have to make my decisions about the quality of the target format (and potentially lose resolution). Is that all correct?

WMV is very interesting to me, because everything I do is with Microsoft technology (Windows, XBox, etc). I know XBox 360 supports HD but do you know if I can produce WMV HD files and then stream that to the XBox? That would be a pretty flexible solution, if so.

The final question (for now!) relates to a title page and chapters. I like the ability to create chapters on a title page but it seems to me that this is really only available for a DVD (presumably including Blu Ray). My perfect solution here involves being able to produce to "some" format where XBox can recognize a title page and allow me to browse around the content, as if I had placed a DVD in its tray. I effectively want "DVD on a server". If this feasible in any way?

Thanks again. This thread has been immensely useful.

Mark

Quote:
Thank you Bif. I appreciate the detailed response. It won't surprise you that I have some follow up questions... :

I am not clear on what an .mts file is. My Camcorder (Sanyo HD1010) produces .mp4 files that I copy over. What am I missing here? Also, the capture option is not available when I connect my camcorder - I need to copy over files using Windows Explorer. That's not a big deal but I don't have the ability to capture sections of the camcorder's file as I would in Capture mode.

You're not missing anything - .mts is the filename extension given the files generated by my Canon HF100, in AVCHD. Some other brands will also generate .mts some will have .m2ts and that has no real impact on you. I believe these may be in some form of MP4.

As far as not having to or being able to "capture" I think you are better off having to copy your files over. Capture can have it's own set of headaches.

Quote: Let's say I have copied a file across from the camcorder and imported into PowerDirector. At that point I assume I still have the full resolution of the file available to me and any trimming, splitting, etc I do in the editing mode is just setting pointers to the content in the clips. It's only when I Produce that I have to make my decisions about the quality of the target format (and potentially lose resolution). Is that all correct?

I believe that is correct but with one caveat. Don't expect to see it in any quality in the edit window. Pretty much all NLE's show you a low res image there. The Power Director Media player will be a bit better but still not full resolution. And I'm seeing some complaints that the PD7 AVCHD rendering lacks a bit. But this doesn't worry me, AVCHD is still a relatively new codec in application and I have no need to render to it anyway.

Quote:
WMV is very interesting to me, because everything I do is with Microsoft technology (Windows, XBox, etc). I know XBox 360 supports HD but do you know if I can produce WMV HD files and then stream that to the XBox? That would be a pretty flexible solution, if so.

I don't know. Try it and see if it works. If not, the Best Buy price on that WD TV dropped from the $129.99 I paid a month ago to $99.99.

Quote:
The final question (for now!) relates to a title page and chapters. I like the ability to create chapters on a title page but it seems to me that this is really only available for a DVD (presumably including Blu Ray). My perfect solution here involves being able to produce to "some" format where XBox can recognize a title page and allow me to browse around the content, as if I had placed a DVD in its tray. I effectively want "DVD on a server". If this feasible in any way?

Most likely it's not. Menus seem to be available only on disk as far as I know. However the filenames (or titles) should show up as a listing and work somewhat the same way in a limited fashion.

Hope I've helped in some way.

Hi Mark,

Whilst I don't rely on the exact accuracy in Wikipedia, it's often a reasonable starting point. Try these links:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_codec#Commonly_used_standards_and_codecs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.m2ts

At the risk of overkill and purely for your records, this is the detailed mediainfo anaysis of the 720p 30fps MP4 files from my 1010.

General #0
Count : 197
Count of stream of this kind : 1
Kind of stream : General
StreamKindID : 0
Count of video streams : 1
Count of audio streams : 1
Codecs Video : AVC
Video_Language_List : English
Audio codecs : AAC LC
Audio_Language_List : English
Complete name : D:\Documents and Settings\win user\My Documents\My Videos\Insects\snail\snail3.MP4
Folder name : D:\Documents and Settings\win user\My Documents\My Videos\Insects\snail
File name : snail3
File extension : mp4
Format : mp42
Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 version 2
Format/Family : MPEG-4
Format/Url : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html
Format/ : mp4
Codec : mp42
Codec : MPEG-4
Codec/Info : ISO 14496-1 version 2
Codec/Family : MPEG-4
Codec/Url : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html
Codec/ : mp4
File size : 39387136
File size : 37.6 MiB
File size : 38 MiB
File size : 38 MiB
File size : 37.6 MiB
File size : 37.56 MiB
PlayTime : 34304
PlayTime : 34s 304ms
PlayTime : 34s 304ms
PlayTime : 34s 304ms
PlayTime : 00:00:34.304
Bit rate : 9185432
Bit rate : 9185 Kbps
StreamSize : 266688
StreamSize/String : 260 KiB
StreamSize/String1 : 260 KiB
StreamSize/String2 : 260 KiB
StreamSize/String3 : 260 KiB
StreamSize/String4 : 260.4 KiB
Title/More : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA HD1000
Movie name/More : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA HD1000
Encoded date : UTC 2008-07-25 17:44:11
Tagged date : UTC 2008-07-25 17:44:11
File creation date : UTC 2008-07-30 19:32:48.602
File last modification date : UTC 2008-07-25 16:44:10.000
Origin : Digital Camera

Video #0
Count : 90
Count of stream of this kind : 1
Kind of stream : Video
StreamKindID : 0
ID : 1
Codec : AVC
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Codec/Url : http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html
Codec/ : avc1
Codec profile : Baseline@L3.1
Codec settings : 2 Ref Frames
Codec settings, CABAC : No
Codec_Settings_RefFrames : 2
PlayTime : 34300
PlayTime : 34s 300ms
PlayTime : 34s 300ms
PlayTime : 34s 300ms
PlayTime : 00:00:34.300
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 8996776
Bit rate : 8997 Kbps
Width : 1280
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 720
Height : 720 pixels
Pixel Aspect Ratio : 1.000
Display Aspect ratio : 1.778
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate mode : CFR
Frame rate : 29.970
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
FrameCount : 1028
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : PPF
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.326
StreamSize : 38573680
StreamSize/String : 36.8 MiB
StreamSize/String1 : 37 MiB
StreamSize/String2 : 37 MiB
StreamSize/String3 : 36.8 MiB
StreamSize/String4 : 36.79 MiB
Language : en
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2008-07-25 17:44:11
Tagged date : UTC 2008-07-25 17:44:11

Audio #0
Count : 75
Count of stream of this kind : 1
Kind of stream : Audio
StreamKindID : 0
ID : 2
Codec : A_AAC/MPEG4/LC
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
Codec/ : 40
PlayTime : 34304
PlayTime : 34s 304ms
PlayTime : 34s 304ms
PlayTime : 34s 304ms
PlayTime : 00:00:34.304
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 128000
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 192000
Maximum bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48000
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
SamplingCount : 1646592
Resolution : 16
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 546768
StreamSize/String : 534 KiB
StreamSize/String1 : 534 KiB
StreamSize/String2 : 534 KiB
StreamSize/String3 : 534 KiB
StreamSize/String4 : 534.0 KiB
Language : en
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2008-07-25 17:44:11
Tagged date : UTC 2008-07-25 17:44:11

Just in case you need it !
Cheers
Adrian


Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.