Use of SLR for video

[Josh Berer]

Hi all.
I had the same issue as Rik, using HD video from a canon 5d mkii, until I discovered the miracle of proxy editing. There are plenty of articles online on the actual method, but basically the short of it is you downgrade all your clips to tiny, low quality files for editing, then when the project is fully edited, you have premiere replace all the crappy quality files with the full HD versions, and it exports the finished project as HD. It allows you to edit huge files on even an old and slow laptop, because the actual grunt work of editing is all being done with the tiny versions, which don't tax the hardware. 
   

Sent from my iPad

On May 29, 2011, at 9:21 AM, Rik <rdbusser at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Randy,
> 
> If you don't mind spending money (and time to use a new program), you could go for Adobe Premiere, which has native AVCHD editing since CS4. However, you need a lot of hardware. I tried it on my Win7 laptop with 4GB of RAM and got so annoyed by the choppy real-time editing that I ended up transcoding everything to AVI. For the latest version of Premiere (CS5.5) you also need a 64 bit computer.
> 
> Cinelerra CV, an open-source video editing program, is supposed to have AVCHD support. I never used it, but you can download it for free.
> 
> Best,
> Rik
> 
> 
> On 29/05/2011 14:16, Randy LaPolla wrote:
>> 
>> Hello,
>> Before my recent fieldwork in NW Thailand I bought a Sony SLT-A55V (a very high end digital SLR), and its paired mic Sony ECM-CG50 (a directional mic that mounts on top of the camera). I was told by the salesman that it would film for 29 minutes and then you could start again. It takes HD video of amazing quality. It worked fine in the shop and in trials at home, but in the village in Thailand it failed miserably, overheating after only 5-7 minutes (it was about 33 C in the shade). The manual does say that in 40 C it will only last 5 minutes, and the 29 minutes is only in 20 C, but the salesman never mentioned that, and I wasn’t aware of it until after I bought it. So one point of this message is to warn anyone thinking of using an SLR for video to think again. (Btw, in contrast a cheap Nikon Coolpix camera that we had had no problem shooting 29 minute videos with clear sound in that heat.)
>> 
>> A second issue is the format Sony uses: I was warned about the proprietary software and format that Sony uses, but assumed it wouldn’t be a problem. Wrong again. The software they give you for working with the videos does not work on a Mac, and the HD files created seem to not be openable by any other software currently available on my Mac other than VLC (which only is for viewing, not editing). From a check of the Web it seems iMovie’08 (which I don’t have) and certain other types of software might be able to play them, or convert them, but there are problems with some of them. Does anyone know what is the best software for working with .MTS AVCHD files (ideally without converting them, if possible)? (There is the choice to create MP4, but I want to keep the HD quality if possible.)
>> 
>> Thanks very much.
>> 
>> Randy
>> 
>> --- 
>> Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA
>> Professor (Chair) of Linguistics
>> La Trobe University
>> VIC 3086 AUSTRALIA
>> Tel.: +61 3 9479-6402 (RCLT) / 9479-2555 (Ling)
>> FAX:  +61 3 9467-3053 (RCLT) / 9479-1520 (Ling)
>> 
>> RCLT: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/ 
>> Linguistics: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/
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>> Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area: http://stedt.berkeley.edu/ltba/
> 
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