• The Mac-Forums Community Guidelines (linked at the top of every forum) are very clear, we respect US law and court precedence when it comes to legality of activity.

    Therefore to clarify:
    • You may not discuss breaking DVD or BluRay encryption, copying, or "ripping" commercial, copy-protected DVDs.
    • This includes DVDs or BluRays you own. Even if you own the DVD or BluRay, it is still technically illegal under the DMCA to break the encryption. While some may argue otherwise, until the law is rewritten or the US Supreme Court strikes it down, we will adhere to the current intent of the law.
    • You may discuss ripping or copying unprotected movies or homemade DVDs.
    • You may discuss ripping or copying tools in the context that they are used for legal purposes as outlined in this post.

Before spend can you confirm?

Joined
Apr 5, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
First of all I am computer challenged. I understand simple instructions but not technical terms…so please be kind to my mind. I have spent hours/days researching and trying to figure this out. The apple salespeople make it seem so simple, yet when I research, dealing with ACVHD doesn’t seem so simple at all.

We plan on purchasing an HD camcorder. We are leaning towards the Canon HG10 with a 40 gb Hard drive (AVCHD)
We were planning on buying a Dell laptop anyway and are now leaning towards a Macbook 2.4 with 2Ram and 160 Hard drive. This laptop will be used for general surfing, home stuff, nothing heavy.

My research has shown me that imovie08, for simple editing, is one of the most user friendly and more importantly, AVCHD compatible so far. I just want to be able to plug and play. I’ve read a few reviews saying that the Canon HG10 and the imovie08 with leopard worked flawlessly.

One of the main considerations for these 2 purchases is that we are taking a family trip to Europe for one month and I want to be able to roughly edit, as I go, so we don’t come home with 30 hours of video. Once home, I hope to edit the trip down to 2 or 3 hours max. I know the kids will love using this feature for other projects.

I know that the camcorder AVCHD files will be decompressed and need lots of space, so we were advised to simply buy an external 500 Hard drive for storing the imports and then the edited final video and photos. My hope is that in time the blue-ray technology will get ironed out, come down in price and make it easier to make hard usable copies of HD home videos. Until then we plan on using our laptop and the external hard drive (if needed) to view our home movies on our HDTV.

I have a few questions before I make my purchases:

1. My TC-32LX50 HDTV Panasonic has an HDMI connector type A. The Macbook has a mini-dvi. The Apple sales guy said all I need is a mini-dvi to dvi adapter and then a dvi to hdmi conversion cable. Is it that simple? It says in my manual: “This input terminal is not intended for use with computers”. Further infor states:“ the HDMI terminal can only be used with 720p, 1080i,480, or 480p”. It also seems that if you use a dvi conversion cable then you have to use audio cables?

2. Up to how many hours of ACHVD format video we can store on a 500 Harddrive?

3. After editing, can the files be compressed, kept on the Macbook’s 160 Harddrive, and still be viewed on the HDTV through the Macbook?

4. Once I edit my home videos can I burn a DVD anyways (knowing I will lose HD quality), as a hard copy for myself, or to give as copies, that would play in a DVD player? Is the quality of this still better than using a regular non-HD camcorder?

Thanks
 
Joined
Dec 3, 2006
Messages
9,383
Reaction score
417
Points
83
Location
Irvine, CA
Your Mac's Specs
Black Macbook C2D 2GHz 3GB RAM 250GB HD iPhone 4 iPad 3G
There are actually cables that go straight from DVI to HDMI, so all you'll need in addition is the mini-DVI to DVI cable.

Example
 
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Messages
3,231
Reaction score
112
Points
63
Location
On the road
Your Mac's Specs
2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid
2. Up to how many hours of ACHVD format video we can store on a 500 Harddrive?
I tried researching how much time you could place onto a 500GB drive. When you import AVCHD video from the camera, iMovie 08 converts it to Apple Intermediate Code format. I've read it can take as much a 50GB of space per hour of video, and as little as 38GB. So as little as 10 hours on that 500GB drive. My reference is Just How Much Disc Space Does HDV Use? where it has a quote. Another Apple thread suggests to me that is could use as much as 60GB. The format uses variable compression, so it depends on how complicated the video is.

The 40GB drive on the camera you mention can hold as little as 5.5 hours of video in its high quality mode, which I'd expect you to use since you are investing in an HD camera. If iMovie allows you to drag the AVCHD files from the external drive, then you could put more hours on the drive. For some reason I think this could be an issue. Can someone else confirm this? If it is an issue, then you must do the import into iMovie up front.

Once you hit the limit of a hard disc camera you are stuck to having to export or delete video from it. This is where removeable media still rules. You just swap in blank media and continue on. If you take a lot of video, you might want to consider this type of camera instead of dragging a computer and hard drive with you.

3. After editing, can the files be compressed, kept on the Macbook’s 160 Harddrive, and still be viewed on the HDTV through the Macbook?
You would export it into a format of your choice. The popular one currently is H.264. The TV you mention is only capable of 720p, so I think you would export to 1280x720 for the size to get the best picture.

4. Once I edit my home videos can I burn a DVD anyways (knowing I will lose HD quality), as a hard copy for myself, or to give as copies, that would play in a DVD player? Is the quality of this still better than using a regular non-HD camcorder?
You could move the edits to iDVD and burn a disc. The quality should look very nice. I personally think it looks better than video that came from a non-HD source, but my experience is limit.

Toast would be the current answer to creating Blu-Ray HD discs. According to their video, the current version can do that. You of course would require a Blu-Ray burner.


Look into how well a regular Macbook can handle HD video in iMovie 08. I think it will be fine because another thing that IM08 does is create a miniture of all the imports so that you can quickly skim through the clips to find scenes of interest. Check out the Apple tutorials.
 
Joined
Dec 31, 2006
Messages
323
Reaction score
10
Points
18
Location
Connecticut
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook Pro 14" M1 Pro, 16GB, 1TB, OS 12.6.9
I have an HG10, so i'll see if I can help out a bit.

As mentioned above, iMovie (and Final Cut as well) transcodes AVCHD into its own codec for editing (AIC- Apple Intermediate Codec). There's 2 big things to note about this:
1) Transcoding/importing video from the HG10 takes longer than real time when you record at the highest quality.

2) You CANNOT import video from any place other than the camera's internal HD. For example, you can NOT drag and drop the .mts files (compressed in AVCHD format) to an external hard drive, your computer, ect., then try and import them into iMovie later. The HG10's HD has a specific file/folder format that iMovie/Final Cut will be looking for when it imports.

I'm currently trying to figure out a way to get around #2, by cloning the HG10's HD in disk utility or Carbon Copy cloner, and trying to drag/drop .mts (AVCHD) files into it so that I can store them until I want to transcode them using my video editing software.

This is the way that Macs work with AVCHD, and not anything specific to the HG10, which i'm very happy with as an HD camcorder. If, knowing this info, you're still looking into one, let me know and i'll go into detail with your other questions.

Hope that helps.

-Nick
 
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Messages
3,231
Reaction score
112
Points
63
Location
On the road
Your Mac's Specs
2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid
2) You CANNOT import video from any place other than the camera's internal HD....
I'm currently trying to figure out a way to get around #2

Have you tried VoltaicHD. I have the impression, no facts, that it may work with MTS files that were copied.
 
OP
A
Joined
Apr 5, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Thanks for all the great information. I can't imagine storing all this stuff on hard drives...and then storing on more hard drives...
I think being totally dependent on the AVCHD is probably not a great idea for us (non-tech people) this early in the technology.
So I think right now I'm gravitating back to the Panasonic SD5 that comes bundled with the HD burner.
Until all this stuff gets figured out we'll just have to go easy on the filming, delete what we don't want and make HD hard copies as we go.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top