Issues with AVCHD in FCP 5

[hugh2112]

Hi All,

I am hoping someone can clarify for me the best workaround for those of us who are unable to log and capture AVCHD footage in FCP 5.

I recently bought a Sony SR11 but can only afford to have an old version of FCP so cannot use the 'Log and Transfer' tool in FCP 6 which supposedly makes importing this footage possible.

From what I can find after searching for hours, it is possible to capture AVCHD footage in iMovie '08 and then use these clips in FCP 5, but I wanted to clarify whether this method causes any loss of quality in the image?

It takes a LONG time to render the footage in the timeline of FCP and was interested to know if anybody had any faster suggestions, or whether someone can clarify if this method causes any loss of quality.

Hopefully this can can clarify things for future FCP 5 users as well.

Cheers,
Hugh

 

[spinnerlys]

During my short research I did come with a lot of threads concerning the handling of AVCHD footage in Final Cut Pro.

As it is a highly compressed format, with a bitrate of 17 to 24 Mbps.
DV (PAL or NTSC) is SD an has a bitrate of 25Mbps.

So while AVCHD has 5 times the resolution of DV, it still has the same file size , thus using a higher compression, which the computer has to process during the edit.

So my advice would be to capture it with iMovie, having set up a not so "thick" compression rate, and the import the clips into Final Cut.

Final Cut Express 4 shall also handle the AVCHD footage, but I'm not so sure abut that.

PS: Converting the video to an editable format with a higher bit rate should not loose you any information.