Thinking about the new Sony HD camcorder to go with iMovie '09 (1 Viewer)

[Marinaxp]

Dear Sam,
I have noticed that you hav ebeen using the sony xr500v for a while , I have it for a few days and I could not open any video files in imovie HD. stills only. do you use imovie HD now , you did not have a problem opening video files in imovie . how can i do that?
Also I have noticed that during video playback INcamera, when you press PAUSE and then press FASTFORWARD i get a slow smooth forward motion but when i press pause and back forward all i get is a series of jerky backward stills. shouldnt i tbe slow backward motion too?
since you have been using sony for a while now can ou please give me your feedback and any issues i should be looking out for as I am still considering a trade between sony and canon Hs 10. Any help woul dbe very much appreciated.
ps:should i get an extended warranty?
Thank you ))
Marina

 

[Sam Posten]

Yup, iMovie 2009 works 100% fine now with this camera since they patched the scan line problem. To connect to imovie have your camera turned off and iMovie Closed. Open your camera. Set it to USB mode. Connect your USB cable. Open iMovie. Click on the camera button to get it to import, and you should see all of your clips.

Good luck!

Sam

 

[DaveF]

Know anything about importing DV video to iMovie? A coworker has found that iMovie discards every other line (of the image) when importing video from his digital-tape video camera. He can't find any fix for it. The Genius Bar was ignorant of this.

So he's using his Windows PC for video editing because the Windows software is so much better for his camera.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

My question coincides with Dave's.

Initially, Macs were notorious for working
with AVCHD camcorders. It took a lot of
processing power and it wasn't a very quick
nor fluid experience transferring video for the
end user.

Has that finally been resolved somehow?
Are Macs now better equipped to handle
AVCHD? Is the process quick and simple
as dragging clips from the camcorder into
iMovie and then burning to DVD or other
media/fomats?

 

[DaveF]

Quick side note: Got a Flip Ultra HD. Have only dabbled with it, but it seems like a great complement to iMovie. Not a high-end camera, but easy, affordable, and good-enough quality for Toastmasters, vacation, and cat videos

 

[Sam Posten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

Has that finally been resolved somehow?
Are Macs now better equipped to handle
AVCHD? Is the process quick and simple
as dragging clips from the camcorder into
iMovie and then burning to DVD or other
media/fomats?

Works fine for me:




I import all my raw video by a click and drag to a video folder, knowing that eventually I will outgrow iMovie and move to Final Cut Studio or Premiere. So those are my long term archives. I then do an import to imovie using the medium size,slightly smaller than 720p if I remember right. I then do my edits and output to vimeo, which works great, cause it also keeps the full size as a download for you.

I will note that even the Mac Pro stutters playing back raw AVCHD files. That will change in the next OS update or when i move to Premiere CS5 on its release, as those functions will be moved off the CPU to the GPU. I posted links on that months ago, can bump that if you want.

 

[DaveF]

Sam,
On your iMovie import, you're having it reduce the size? The issue my friend has is that you can't import at full, original resolution. Have you tried an unmodified import? (I'm don't know video enough to know if AVCHD is related to the DV format he uses, but maybe it's of a similar kind.)

 

[Sam Posten]

Yes, I could and have but don't need to. If you go through my vimeo stream you will see some older 1080 stuff in there but honestly they look better at the smaller sizes and take up a LOT less space. If you are going to be pushing to TV go nuts and do full rez, if you are doing stuff for the web don't bother.

Again, I'm keeping all my original AVCHD files as a seperate area and am not worried in the least about losing the editing work I have done on making these iMovie videos smaller if I decide in the future I wanted them bigger. YMMV.

 

[Parker Clack]

I picked up a Sony HDR-XR200V last year to take with me to Cedia. Since my laptop had Windows Vista on it I downloaded AVS Video Editor which does a good job in allowing you to import your videos and then edit them. It then allows you to convert them to a video format like .mov or .mpg where you can then upload them to
YouTube. I have found that shooting in 720p for files that I am going to upload to YouTube works the best to keep file size down (YouTube limits the file upload size)
and still give you a good looking video.

I also picked up the wireless Bluetooth mic for it. When you go to a place like CEDIA you have to be able to mic the guy you are interviewing or all you get is background and can barely hear the conversation. I also found that with this mic you have to set it in mono recording because there again if you have it set for 5.1 you lose your speaker to background audio. Amazon has a great kit that includes an extra battery, case and wireless mic.

I have never used the GPS as I didn't really see a need to.

I will say that I wasn't that happy with the still shots. They tended to look either washed out or grainy. I have to play around with it more but that is the one complaint I have about it.

I also picked up an extra battery the NP-FH70 which gives you great run time and doesn't add much weight to the camera. The NP-FH100 really sticks out the back of the camera and makes it more unbalanced in your hand.