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Final Cut Pro support for AVCHD when?
- Thread starter YoYoMa
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YoYoMa said:
I would say no. The earliest would probably been the next version of FCP which most likely won't be announced until spring 2007. Even then I don't know if FCP would have support since AVCHD is being targeted at consumers.
Lethal
YoYoMa said:Wow, well. waiting untill spring won't be too awful, however, if it ends up not being supported at all that would just be astonishing
Not really all that astonishing. AFAIK FCP doesn't natively support consumer cameras that record MPEG2 to MiniDVD or HDD. No real support for HDV happened until 6-8 months after the Sony FX-1 came out even though the first HDV camera (made by JVC) came out around 2yrs before the Sony.
If the FCP team sees formats their target audience will use then they'll try to incorporate them. If they don't think their target audience will use it then they won't waste their time adding it to FCP.
Lethal
Although many pro's use FCP, many regular consumers such as myself do as well. If they don't think of people like me as part of their target audience that would indeed be astonishing. Had HDV become a highly accepted standard as AVCHD is now when that JVC was released 2 years before the Sony? I believe there is only one company that has yet to support AVCHD (although there aren't any cameras out yet.) I was under the impression it was the future of consumer high def recording.
Apple doesn't expect most consumers to be using Final Cut Express. So AVCHD may be included in the next version of FCE would could come at pretty much any time. FCPro will not be updated to 6.0 (99% sure) til NAB next April. Although, it may be something that is added in that 5.2.1 Beta which popped up on Apple's website.
There is a reason iMovie and FCE exist. Apple's target customers for FCP are working professionals.YoYoMa said:
JVCs first HDV camera was pretty limited, from a professionals perspective, and that's why it never really caught on. Sony's FX1 and Z1U were the first HD cameras under 70 grand that it were truly usable for pros. AVCHD may be the future of consumer HD recording or it may not. It's too early to tell. But again, consumers aren't FCP's target audience.
There is no way to know.YoYoMa said:
Right now the cameras are consumer grade thus lacking in things that pro users want/need. Also, as I understand it, the compression and data rate of current AVCHD cameras is not that desirable for pro use. There is speculation that AVCHD cameras aimed at the prosumer market ($5-$10k) are in the works (pro features on the cameras, higher data rate version of AVCHD), but right now there is no evidence of that. There is also the AVC-Intra (aka AVC-I) which is similar to AVCHD, but uses an intraframe compression method (as opposed to the GOP compression method of AVCHD).YoYoMa said:
The more compressed a format is the harder is on the computer to handle it because the CPU's have to work harder to decompress the footage on the fly so it can be viewed.
Lethal
Yeah. There is a noticeable difference in quality between the AVCHD camcorders and the HDV (tape ones). If you really want a Hard Disk based camcorder, then JVC is meant to be bringing out a decent one that using MPEG2 (so should work in FCP) and uses a similar bitrate to HDV camcorders.
If you really want a Hi Def camcorder now, I would recommend the Sony HC7 or Canon HV20 (check out the reviews to see which is best for you).