Camera Labs

I'm thinking of upgrading from the Canon SX10is, which I like very much, to a camera that includes HD as one of its features. But I want to be sure that I can deal with HD on my computer if I do make the change.

I'm also in the market for a new laptop. What do I need to look for, besieds sufficient RAM, etc., to be able to work with HD video from my camera on the computer, including putting video on DVDs and playing them on my computer?

Hi, the following thread may not answer all your questions, but is a useful starter...

http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17266

Thanks, Gordon. Looks like a good place to start.

Well, I've been editing some AVCHD video on my system and it's pretty taxing. I had a Core 2 Duo system that was a couple of years old and it wasn't too happy rendering the video, but it was no problem editing it most of the time. That system only had 2GB of RAM, but again it didn't seem to be a huge problem, although the average length of most of the videos were only a few minutes. I was only outputting into 720p MP4 files as well.

Now I have a Core i5 750 machine with twice the RAM and it's much quicker, especially adding effects and the final rendering. There are also some editing applications that can take advantage of the GPU on your graphics card to help speed up the video rendering. Rendering out to AVCHD is more taxing on the CPU as well compared to most other formats.

If you shoot in most other formats than AVCHD the system requirements won't be as high. What's your budget? That's pretty much your limitation as more is always better when it comes to computers, although you do get to a stage where its good enough compared to what you'll pay to go any faster. A quad core CPU is recommended imho and I wouldn't bother with less than 4GB of RAM. Everything else isn't quite as important.

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Canon 500D, 18-55mm IS, 55-200mm IS, Nissin Di622

Thanks. I was thinking at least 4 GB ram.

Can you convert AVCHD to a different format so that it will be easier/faster to edit?

Well, you could, but it makes little sense as you'd get a reduction in video quality (more compression depending on the quality of the original video) and it takes a lot of time to convert the video which would negate the advantage of having an easier to edit video format.

What will your output format be anyhow? As this is really the most important factor. Rendering out in SD is of course a lot faster than rendering out in HD or AVCHD. Still, there are some clever editing software now that reduces the quality of the AVCHD video dynamically for editing, but retains the high quality for the final render.

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Canon 500D, 18-55mm IS, 55-200mm IS, Nissin Di622

There is a way where your clips are all converted and then you edit with those clips, and then they are replaced with the original ones for the final rendering output.

Not quite sure HOW it works or how you do it. I've been wanting to know my self for editing 5DMkII footage.

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
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