Help please with panasonic sd700 avchd editing

ps burley

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I am about to buy a panasonic sd700 pr canon m31, I have read lots of comments on the forum about the difficulty with avchd editing.
I wanted a camcorder with mic input and at a £600 price point these two seem to be the ones. My pc is quad core 3 mb ram dell about 2 years old.
I have basic editing software Sony Vegas, adobe elements and want to know if I am going to regret this type of camcorder. If I convert the avchd aren't i going to lose quality and negate the reason for spending £ 600? Any help in this appreciated and any comments on sd700 v m31
 
I am about to buy a panasonic sd700 pr canon m31, I have read lots of comments on the forum about the difficulty with avchd editing.
I wanted a camcorder with mic input and at a £600 price point these two seem to be the ones. My pc is quad core 3 mb ram dell about 2 years old.
I have basic editing software Sony Vegas, adobe elements and want to know if I am going to regret this type of camcorder. If I convert the avchd aren't i going to lose quality and negate the reason for spending £ 600? Any help in this appreciated and any comments on sd700 v m31

no reason to convert AVCHD on a PC, it edits easily, i have no idea what people are talking about when they say its hard to edit, my suspicion is, they have never edited AVCHD.

the SD700 is the better camera, 3 sensors, EVF, 50p mode, manual control ring..the canon just cant compete, all it has is a hard drive, big deal, something to drain the batter and go wrong ( the battery life in the canon is already poor) ..its just a Canon HF20 with a few minor tweaks..
and your PC will be fast enough to edit the panasonics 50p footage, you dont mention your video card, get a 1gb card and maybe up the ram a bit
 
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Rob thanks the m31 doesnt have hard drive it has 32 mb flash so were you thinking of another model? I have dual core with 512 graphics card. Budget would already be spent on sd 700! I then have to buy sd card for 700 .....all makes the difference between 2 models over£150. Will sd 700 run with class4 or 6 sd? I want the 700 just don't want to have to spend a lot more using and editing the output, your help would be appreciated
 
Class 6 would be better, but you should be Ok with a Class 4.
 
I have dual core with 512 graphics card.

You're going to find it very sluggish trying to edit AVCHD on that machine, especially if you choose an editor that reqires a lot of computer power - like Adobe Elements, for example.
You can probably playback OK (although I suspect it will struggle with the top rate 1080/50p recordings from an SD700) - but when it comes to editing, you're going to need a more powerful machine, or an editor that requires a lot less computing resources, like Edius Neo 3.
 
no reason to convert AVCHD on a PC, it edits easily, i have no idea what people are talking about when they say its hard to edit, my suspicion is, they have never edited AVCHD
.
Maybe but it could also be because thier PC which is good enough for everything else is a tad underpowered for AVCHD editing

... and the software they use is letting the side down
Vegas 10 Pro and Premiere CS4 (9 and CS5)are fine but are hardly budget packages
Im yet to get Premiere Elements to work flawlessly on my kit:(
 
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Maybe but it could also be because thier PC which is good enough for everything else is a tad underpowered for AVCHD editing

... and the software they use is letting the side down
Vegas 10 Pro and Premiere CS4 (9 and CS5)are fine but are hardly budget packages
Im yet to get Premiere Elements to work flawlessly on my kit:(

if you are talking about 50p then yes, but i was editing sd10 AVCHD footage on a dual core pretty low spec pc..

lets face it most cameras are AVCHD nowadays.. and thats good.
 
Sorry guys I got spec wrong, it's a quad core with 3mb ram, got elements and Vegas budget version will these be any use with sd700 for editing? And what if any limitation....Really appreciate the feedback guys
 
Sorry guys I got spec wrong, it's a quad core with 3mb ram, got elements and Vegas budget version will these be any use with sd700 for editing? And what if any limitation....Really appreciate the feedback guys

Should be fine, although 50p editing may have limited software support
by Vegas Budget Do you mean Vegas Movie Studio 10 platinum?
Premiere Elements likes 4Gb and above RAM though but if you have DDR3 you may have to go from 3 to 6
 
Yes Sony Vegas movie studio plat ver 10 makes no mention of avchd on the box.... Am really concerned that if I pay £600 for sd 700 then the output will be superb hd quality but that I won't be able to edit that quality on Vegas......decisions....I don't want to be disappointed by not being able to edit sd 700 1080 footage or indeed have to suffer degrade in quality..help !
 
It's only the Pro version of Vegas that currently supports the 1080/50p output from the SD700 (see here for the comparisons : Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 Product Comparisons)

So you will need to remember to record at one of the lower rates if you want to edit in Vegas Movie Studio.

I think the cheapest editor that currently supports 1080/50p is MAGIX The video software MAGIX Movie Edit Pro – the perfect Christmas gift.

If you do want to record, edit and keep your footage as 1080/50p remember that you cannot write to Blu-ray in that format - 1080/50p is not currently part of the Blu-ray spec.

Some of the newer media players can handle it though -the latest WDTV for example.

However the SD700 has excellent reviews, so even if you don't actually use the 'top' format, you're going to get pretty good results anyway!
 
rogs;13608677 I think the cheapest editor that currently supports 1080/50p is [URL="http://www.magix.com/gb/movie-edit-pro/offer/" said:
MAGIX The video software MAGIX Movie Edit Pro – the perfect Christmas gift.[/URL]

About £61.00 on Amazon. Awaiting delivery of a copy. I can't test it with 1080p50 though

PC not powerfull enough :thumbsdow

Camcorder highest quality 1080i50 at 1920 x 1080 17mbps, which is better than broadcast HD anyway.
 
It's only the Pro version of Vegas that currently supports the 1080/50p output from the SD700 (see here for the comparisons : Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 Product Comparisons)

So you will need to remember to record at one of the lower rates if you want to edit in Vegas Movie Studio.

Although it's not very clear from the website, I can confirm that Vegas Movie Studio v10 Platinum DOES support 1080/50p from my SD700 as an input format. (I'm not sure about the output options, having no suitable delivery medium that will use /50p, but judging by the forum posts on the sonycreativesoftware site, it will certainly output /60p for our NTSC cousins, so I presume 50p will also not be a problem!):thumbsup:
 
it will certainly output /60p for our NTSC cousins

I wonder if that's 1080/60p output, or 720/60p ouput?

I can import and edit 1080/50p using my early (v.1.01) version of Edius Neo, but can only export as 720/50p. (Which still looks pretty good anyway!:))
It's only the latest Edius Neo3 that can export as 1080/50p.

I wonder if the Movie Studio version of Vegas is the same?

The comparison site I linked to seems quite specific, with only the 'pro' box having a tick for 1080/50/60p support.
 
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travel junkie if you have vegas movie 10 and sd700 how do you find editing and what spec pc?? what do you output to and whats the quality like, my concern is you are forced to edit and output to a lower quality and thus negate the benefts of the sd700.my spec is quadcore with 4mn ram.
Also how do you find the fan noise some reports say its very noticable on the sd7oo.
 

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