Digital Juice Forums

Fluidly working with h.264

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

All Forums >> [Tips, Tricks, & Tutorials] >> Using Digital Juice Products with Final Cut Pro >> Fluidly working with h.264

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

Fluidly working with h.264 - 1/31/2009 7:54:06 PM

Logos

Posts: 120
Joined: 5/27/2007
Status: offline

I shoot with a Sony HDR-SR12 and work daily with .m2ts files. Always outputting to to the .mp4/h.264 codec. My curiousity is peaked with Macs and am wondering what ya'll would recommend were I to go Mac and be able to work fluidly with these files types. Any "minimum" specs I should be consider if I go Mac? If you were going Mac from PC and working with these file types what kind of Mac should I be looking at? Will a Macbook pro handle em just fine? Will a beefed up IMac handle these files fluidly? 2 gigs ram? 4? Curious to hear the recommendations.

Kind regards,
Logos

RE: Fluidly working with h.264 - 1/31/2009 11:34:36 PM

D. Eric Franks

Posts: 2544
Joined: 11/10/2004
From: Florida
Status: offline

H.264 is a very computationally intensive format that is a pain to edit, but the fluidity has almost nothing to do with the operating system, whether that's WinXP, Vista, Windows 7, Ubuntu, BeOS or OS X. Hardware is hardware, and a beefy PC is, by definition, just as fast as a beefy Mac.

And, in this particular situation, Sony hardware (HDR-SR12) with Sony software (Vegas) is probably the best way to go. I'm not even entirely sure you can just drag the MTS files from your camcorder into FCP and edit without some sort of trick. I know FCP can edit H.264, I'm just not certain it is as easy as it is in Vegas (I've accidentally edited files that are still on the camera in Vegas it's so easy).

It is possible to transcode the MTS files to an intermediary format that is less hair-pullingly frustrating to edit (VAAST has a $50 plugin that does this), but I mostly just grin and bear it. So as far as "fluidly" goes in terms of workflow, I'm thinking a Mac or an intermediary is less fluid.

_______________________

I don't take the movies seriously,
and anyone who does is in for a headache.
-- Bette Davis
videopia.org

(in reply to Logos)

RE: Fluidly working with h.264 - 2/1/2009 5:37:41 PM

Logos

Posts: 120
Joined: 5/27/2007
Status: offline

Thanks D. I started having glitches/problems in Vegas and was getting a bit frustrated. I work on lots of little projects almost daily and my system at work (XP Pro/Quad T660/4 gig ram) would constantly lock up while rendering mp4 hd files. Those posts from Mac folks were being recalled in my mind which is what started to make me wonder/consier a Mac option. Turned out I had a lot of dead files (that I had deleted) associated with 1 project that it was screwing things up apparently becuase when I started with a fresh project and made a new template my troubles went away in Vegas. :) I do have to say working with the m2ts files in Vegas Pro *have* been a piece of cake. Thank you for this input though because I was wondering how Macs did with these files anyhow.

All the best to you man.

Logos

(in reply to D. Eric Franks)

RE: Fluidly working with h.264 - 2/2/2009 10:54:26 AM

D. Eric Franks

Posts: 2544
Joined: 11/10/2004
From: Florida
Status: offline

Yea, on complexish projects, I sometimes have final render issues. The Sony AVC codec seems to cause the most problems (like 50% of the time it crashes), but occasionally the Main Concept one does too. By "complexish" I mean a couple of dozen tracks (audio, video), MT2S H.264 sources at 1080i, luma keying entire A-Roll, color correcting the whole project and rendering out to 720p. No, it doesn't really make much sense that Vegas will be rock-stable for 3 day of editing and then hang on render - I mean, if it can render the frames while editing, what's up with the export?! But anyhow, yea, it's frustrating when a render goes for an hour and a half and then just ... hangs. At that point, I usually just render out a QT MOV PNG (lossless) intermediary and then transcode that to MP4.

Incidentally, I'm using the 32-bit version of Vegas on Vista64. The 64-bit version of Vegas is installed on my system, but doesn't seem to have any advantages speed-wise and is less stable, in my esperience.

(in reply to Logos)

RE: Fluidly working with h.264 - 2/5/2009 11:15:36 PM

Logos

Posts: 120
Joined: 5/27/2007
Status: offline

Argh... I get similar issues. When working with Vegas 64 bit in Windows Vista 64 bit I have probs rendering long projects too. When I do half hour programs though, even multicam edits I'm able to render just fine. I've been working with my daughter's wedding video which was shot in 1280 x 720/24p that's 2.5 hours I was having probs. :( I'm trying again but using the project settings and keeping them at the 24p/720 settings to see if that works. Perhaps I should just do the whole project in 32 bit to play safe.

(in reply to D. Eric Franks)