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EDITING AVCHD WITH FINAL CUT STUDIO PRO 2

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Editing AVCHD

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The AVCHD Workflow On Apple Computers…………………………………………......... 3

EDITING AND OUTPUTTING AVCHD WITH APPLE FINAL CUT PRO STUDIO 2

Transferring AVCHD Footage To Your Mac…………………………………………............ 3

Copying AVCHD Footage To A Hard Drive…………………………………………............ 4

Transferring AVCHD Footage Directly From The Panasonic AG- HMC70 or AG- HMC150 AVCCAM Cameras To Your Mac...........................................................

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Editing With Final Cut Pro............................................................................................... 5

Converting Your AVCHD Files To .Mxf Files For Editing............................................... 8

OUTPUT OPTIONS

Outputting To iPod……………………………………………………………………….......... 8

Outputting To YouTube…………………………………………………………………........... 10

Outputting To Blu-ray…………………………………………………………………….......... 13

Outputting To AVCHD Disc……………………………………………………………............ 13

Outputting To Standard Definition DVD………………………………………………......... 14

THE AVCHD WORKFLOW – ARCHIVING

Archiving To Hard Drive…………………………………………………………………......... 16

Archiving To Blu-ray Disc……………………………………………………………….......... 16

Archiving To Standard DVD Discs…………………………………………………….......... 16

Archiving To Inexpensive SD Cards……………………………………………………....... 16

Archiving To Digital Linear Tape……………………………………………………….......... 16

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THE AVCHD WORKFLOW ON APPLE COMPUTERS

Apple Intel-based Mac computers (MacBookPro laptops, iMac or Mac Pro Towers) work really well with Panasonic AVCCAM cameras shooting AVCHD footage. Working on a Mac platform presents four editing solutions, based on your budget and the complexity of your final edit. The four editing applications are: iMovie ’(08 or ’09), Final Cut Express 4, Final Cut Pro (v.6.05 or higher Part of Final Cut Studio 2) and Adobe Premier Pro as part of CS4.

This paper will discuss a typical AVCHD workflow for editing with and outputting from Final Cut Pro Studio 2. We will examine outputting to Blu-ray, AVCHD disc, or 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.

EDITING AND OUTPUTTING AVCHD WITH APPLE FINAL CUT PRO STUDIO 2

KEY POINT #1. TO EDIT AVCHD IN FINAL CUT PRO STUDIO 2, YOU MUST HAVE AN INTEL BASED Mac COMPUTER.

KEY POINT #2. Final Cut pro studio 2 does not support native AVCHD editing. It will automatically transcode your footage during the transfer process.

Please remember that transcoded AVCHD files require a lot more disc space than native AVCHD files. A good rule of thumb is to figure that transcoded files take about ten times the disc space of native AVCHD files. So, look at the size of your native AVCHD file before log and transfer operations in Final Cut Studio Pro 2. It is possible to overrun your hard disc space during this process, so again, it is good practice to calculate the disc space your footage will need before beginning.

TRANSFERRING AVCHD FOOTAGE TO YOUR MACWhen you are ready to transfer your AVCHD footage from your camera to your computer, the fastest and easiest method is to simply remove your SD card from the camera.

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.

Then use a SD to USB reader/writer like this one.

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Just insert your SD card into the reader and connect it to a USB port on your Mac. It will appear as a No Name hard drive on your desktop. You will now be ready to open Final Cut Pro and begin editing.

COPYING AVCHD FOOTAGE TO A HARD DRIVESTEP #1 – MOUNT THE SD CARD ON YOUR COMPUTER

Many people prefer to copy their footage to a hard drive before editing. This frees up the SD card so that you can immediately use it again. After you have inserted the SD Card into the USB reader, find the No Name Hard Drive on your desktop.

STEP #2 – OPEN THE SD CARD FILES.When you open No Name, 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 CAMERAS TO YOUR MAC.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

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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.

STEP #3 – TRANSFER THE FILES. The camera will appear as a hard drive on your computer. Simply copy the contents of the Private Folder as shown earlier. You will now be ready to open Final Cut Pro and begin editing.

EDITING WITH FINAL CUT PROSTEP #1 – OPEN FINAL CUT PRO STUDIO 2. (REMEMBER YOU MUST HAVE VERSION 6.05 OR HIGHER TO EDIT ALL THE FORMATS AND FRAME RATES OF AVCHD, INCLUDING THE PH MODE).

STEP #2 -CLICK ON FINAL CUT PRO > AUDIO VIDEO SETTINGS.

This will open the Audio Video Settings window.

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STEP #3 – SET YOUR SEQUENCE, CAPTURE AND DEVICE CONTROL PRESETS THEN CLICK OK.

Since Final Cut Pro does not handle AVCHD natively, you must set your Presets as shown above. Sequence Preset should be Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920x1080 60i 48kHz, if you are shooting 1080/60i.

For any of the PH mode settings, you will need to reset the Sequence Preset as follows;

Format Preset1080/24p Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920 x 1080 24p 48kHz 1080/30p Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920 x 1080 30p 48kHz 720/24p Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1280 x 720 24p 48kHz720/30p Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1280 x 720 30p 48kHz720/60p Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1280 x 720 60p 48kHz

Capture Preset should be HDV-Apple ProRes 422 (HQ). Device Control Preset should be Non-Controllable Device. Video Playback should be Digital Cinema Desktop Preview – Main and Audio Playback should be set to Default.Note: If you forget this step, FCP will automatically sense the format of your first clip and ask if you would like to set the sequence to match the clip.

STEP #4 - CLICK FILE > LOG AND TRANSFER

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This will open the log and transfer window. Your AVCHD clips will appear on the left side of the screen. Clicking on any individual clip will open it in the browser. Here you can rename the clip. You can also mark rough in and out points for the clip. This is a good idea as the clip still has to be transcoded and using only what you need of the clip will speed this process.

STEP #5 - CLICK ON ADD CLIP TO QUEUE.This will begin the transcoding of your AVCHD clip into Apple ProRes for easy editing. You can watch the progress bar to see the speed of the transcoding.

Alternatively, you could simply drag all your clips to the Queue and transcode everything. Just remember, this will require significant hard disc space and increase the encoding time. The actual speed of the encoding will be dependent on the speed of your Mac. When the transcoding is finished your clips will appear in your bin.

Note: Log and Transfer is a background process so you can start editing while you continue to log and transfer. From this point on, you will edit as you normally edit in Final Cut Pro. For future details on editing in Final Cut Pro, please visit: www.apple.com/support/finalcutpro

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CONVERTING YOUR AVCHD FILES TO .MXF FILES FOR EDITINGIf you choose not to transcode to ProRes, you can easily trancode your AVCHD footage to Panasonic’s DVCPRO HD codec. The AVCHD format was created as a high quality, bandwidth efficient camcorder codec. Panasonic’s DVCPROHD codec (used in the popular P2 format) is an excellent and very efficient editing codec. If your current workflow uses P2 files (which are .mxf files), it is very easy to transcode your AVCHD footage to .mxf. FCP works very well with .mxf files.

STEP #1 – DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER AND FREE TRANSCODERGo to the Panasonic website www.panasonic.com/avccam. Under the resource center, you will find the MainConcept AVCHD to DVCPRO transcoder white paper which will give you detailed instructions on how to use the transcoder. Immediately below the white paper is the AVCHD to P2 DVCPRO HD Transcoder software. Download both of these to your PC.

Note: the AVCHD to P2 DVCPRO Transcoder software is for PC only. At this time, there is no Mac version. If you wish to edit your AVCHD files in a DVCRPO HD format, you will need to do your transcoding on a PC and then transfer the .mxf files to your Mac.

OUTPUTTING TO IPODIn order to output your movie to display on an iPod or iPhone, you will use Compressor.

STEP 1 – CLICK FILE > EXPORT >USING COMPRESSOR

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STEP 2 – OPEN APPLE DEVICES FOLDER IN THE SETTINGS WINDOW ON THE LOWER LEFT OF THE SCREEN.

STEP 3 – SELECT H.264 FOR IPOD VIDEO AND IPHONE 640 X 480.

This will compress your movie into a format that your iPod or iPhone can display.

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OUTPUTTING TO YOUTUBEYou might want to share your movie with the world on YouTube. From Final Cut, this is easy to do as YouTube will accept a .mov file, or a Quicktime movie.

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. To prepare your movie for YouTube uploading, follow these simple steps.

STEP 1. CLICK ON FILE > EXPORT > QUICK TIME MOVIE

Step 2 – Name your movie, click Make Movie self-contained and then save

Your movie is now ready to upload to your YouTube account.

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Alternatively, you could export your movie to Compressor and compress to h.264.

STEP # 1 OPEN COMPRESSION CLICK FILE>EXPORT>USING COMPRESSOR

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STEP 2 – OPEN APPLE DEVICES FOLDER IN THE SETTINGS WINDOW ON THE LOWER LEFT OF THE SCREEN.

STEP 3 – SELECT H.264 FOR APPLE TV 1280 X 720.

You Tube specifies that your movie should be 1280x720. This will also help to keep the file sizes smaller.

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OUTPUTTING TO BLU-RAYYou can also transfer your movie to a Blu-ray disc. Note: you must have a Blu-ray burner, Blu-ray media, specific Blu-ray burning software, such as Roxio Toast 10 or Adobe Encore (part of Adobe CS4).

To play back your Blu-ray movie, we recommend the Panasonic DMP BD35K Blu-ray player (or equivalent).

OUTPUTTING TO AVCHD DISCCreating an AVCHD disc allows you to burn your high definition footage onto a Standard DVD using DVD-R media. Software such as Roxio Toast 10 with BD/HD Plug-in will allow you to drag your native AVCHD files and copy them, and even add a menu. You can also create AVCHD discs of edited content in this manner. Note: you are limited to 20 minutes of AVCHD footage on a DVD-5 disc and about 40 minutes on a DVD-9 disc. See www.roxio.com for more detail. The AVCHD disc will play in a Blu-ray player, such as the Panasonic DMP BD35K (or equivalent). Check to see if your Blu-ray player supports this format.

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OUTPUTTING TO STANDARD DEFINITION DVDEven though you have shot your material on high definition and edited it in HD, you still might need to down convert it to standard definition to show your movie. AVCHD footage will make dazzling standard definition DVDs.

STEP 1 – CLICK FILE > EXPORT >USING COMPRESSOR

STEP 2 – OPEN DVD FOLDER IN THE SETTINGS WINDOW ON THE LOWER LEFT OF THE SCREEN.

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STEP 3 – SELECT THE ENCODING QUALITY FOR YOUR PROJECT.

STEP 4 – ENCODE YOUR PROJECT

STEP 5 – OPEN DVD STUDIO PRO TO CREATE YOUR DVD.

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THE AVCHD WORKFLOW – ARCHIVINGOnce your project is finished, you will want to archive your High Definition AVCHD footage (not just your ProRes 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 #3: THE SECRET TO SUCCESSFUL ARCHIVING OF ANY FILE BASED MEDIA IS REDUNDANCY AND MIGRATION. Make multiple copies and move your data as technology advances.

ARCHIVING TO HARD DRIVEThe 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).

ARCHIVING TO BLU-RAY DISCTo 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, specific Blu-ray burning software, such as Roxio Toast 10 or 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.

ARCHIVING TO STANDARD DVD DISCS 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.

ARCHIVING TO INEXPENSIVE SD CARDS

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.

ARCHIVING TO DIGITAL LINEAR TAPE (DLT)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 that 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.

Please see the AVCHD WORKFLOW ACQUISITION White Paper. You will find that shooting and transferring AVCHD material is again simple, quick, flexible and inexpensive.

About the Author: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.