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stringtheorist

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 1, 2008
244
0
To what extent do these apps support editing of AVCHD? I am curious why the latest versions (08 and 09) of iMovie don't support AVCHD and yet these programs are so much older...?

I am shopping for a camcorder and pretty confused about whether my system and software can handle HD.
 
They convert AVCHD to Apple Intermediate Codec, with the end file being much larger. The reason is that AVCHD uses very large processing power which isn't great if the application is going give you all of those wonderful real time effects.

Look PC applications that do edit AVCHD and look at the hardware requirements to perform that. It isn't pretty.
 
They don't support AVCHD. You have to bring in your AVCHD clips into iMovie 8/9, then bring that into iMovie 6 or FCE 3. I do this all the time. I prefer iMove 6HD due to the time line. That and I use plugins from gee three. Am hoping apple will update iMovie or FCE to edit AVCHD natively now that snow leopard is out.
 
Oh, I missed that.

What Bearcatrp said is accurate. I certainly don't recall those older versions of software supporting AVCHD.

VoltaicHD can convert AVCHD for you, but it takes a very long time.

As for what you system can handle, look it up for the software you want to run. I think that iMovie, it is now Intel only as of 09. Go find the information on their product page.
 
They don't support AVCHD. You have to bring in your AVCHD clips into iMovie 8/9, then bring that into iMovie 6 or FCE 3. I do this all the time. I prefer iMove 6HD due to the time line. That and I use plugins from gee three. Am hoping apple will update iMovie or FCE to edit AVCHD natively now that snow leopard is out.

Hmm. I seem to remember having problems trying to import iMovie 08 files into iMovie 06. However, like you I prefer iMovie 6HD for the same reason. How exactly do you bring your HD movies into iMovie 6? I didn't think there was any AVCHD support in iMovie 08/09 anyway?

Which brings me to my second question: If FCE HD and iMovie 6HD don't support AVCHD then what the hell is meant by "HD" and how is anyone supposed to use these programs to process their HD movies?!
 
Hmm. I seem to remember having problems trying to import iMovie 08 files into iMovie 06. ... How exactly do you bring your HD movies into iMovie 6? I didn't think there was any AVCHD support in iMovie 08/09 anyway?

As mentioned, iM 08/09 converts AVCHD to AIC. You should be able to use the AIC file that ends up in the event folder and open it in one of those older editors. Don't choose the thumbnails.

Which brings me to my second question: If FCE HD and iMovie 6HD don't support AVCHD then what the hell is meant by "HD" and how is anyone supposed to use these programs to process their HD movies?!

HDV from an HD miniDV camera over firewire. Also you can bring in other HD files.
 
IIRC - Final Cut Express 4 was the first version to support AVHCD (It is very nice incidently... shame about them cutting Soundtrack, but luckily I have Soundtrack Pro anyway.
 
iMovie does not support AVCHD. What they mean with that is that it doesn't edit the actual file. What it does is that it takes the file (AVCHD) and converts it into AIC. So if you have a camera with AVCHD iMovie will recognize it and will import it, but will also encode it to a much bigger file: AIC.

If you're gonna take a camera with dv tapes (I'm going to that on my school, we already have one), it will record just normally on a regular DV tape. You don't need to convert it. (so what is faster, converting AVCHD or playing back your tape?).

A very nice and often advised camera is the HV20 (or HV30 and HV40).
 
OK, I can import my HD files into iMovie 08. How do I get at the AIC files to edit them in FCE? Do I need to convert them to another file type first?
 
Find the event folder from iMovie with your clips. Open FCE and select import, point to the file in the event folder, then import. It won't transcode again since they are already AIC.
 
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