The AVCHD format has been touted as the cure all for the consumer and lower end prosumer market for acquisition of video content. The biggest obstacle has been the raw horsepower required to decode the hight compressed HDV format - leaving many using the format left wanting due to the nature of the formats burden on what many thought were fairly powerful computers being used to edit video footage.
The recent release of AVC Upshift for Windows has now changed the nature of editing AVCHD content on computers that up until this time were underpowered.
According to VASST’s product description, “AVCHD UpShift is the answer for the AVC editing blues. This stand alone AVC file conversion application will allow you to convert your AVCHD clips to high bitrate MPEG files able to be edited on any MPEG2 capable NLE.”
Basically, AVC Upshift works by taking your original AVCHD content and converts it to several high quality converted m2t bitrates. The m2t files are can then be brought into virtually any modern NLE for editing that supports the m2t file format (Vegas Pro 8 being my recommended and preferred tool)
There have been several cameras released to market that utilize the AVCHD compression scheme and the horror stories I have read equate to editing the format akin to going to the dentist. At NAB, Panasonic recently announced new prosumer grade cameras that will be utilizing AVCHD as their acquisition format. In particular, the Panasonic AG-HSC1U, has given Solo VJ shooters reason to rejoice. This three chip 1080i compact camera is the perfect size for solo video journalists looking for the balance of compactness and image quality and now have a tool by which to shoot content in a format that is tapeless, yet financially affordable. Coming with a 4GB SD card and 40GB drive to offload content, this is a compact setup perfect for shooting tight deadline web video journalism projects. Combined with AVC Upshift, this creates n agile acquisition and post production setup.
Other cameras from SONY and Canon can be utilized as well so one isn’t precluded to just using the Panasonic camera. The pricing on these latter cameras comes in at less that $1000, which is easily handled by the ever shrinking departmental budgets of newspapers. The trade offs include the lack of mass for cameras of this type which makes for acquiring steady hand held footage more difficult, but it can be done using proper techniques for hand holding. If needed, utilizing a third party shoulder mount like the Video Innovators S-800 Shoulder Mount provides a level of stability that without this kind of support, makes for steady hand holding an arduous task.
I had a sneaking hunch that 2008 was going to be a make or break year for video and the way things are looking, it will be a make year - at least on the equipment end of things.
