[Eden Aurora]

I'm interested in purchasing the Panasonic TM700 video camera, however, recording in it's highest mode 1080/60p may not be compatible with any mac application. Anyone know more information on this?

"However, when you shoot with the HDC-TM700's native 1080/60p setting, the camcorder uses a proprietary MPEG-4 codec that isn't really compatible with anything other than Panasonic's provided software. Yes, the video shot with the 1080/60p setting looks stunning when you play it back on an HDTV, but the only way you can really do this is by playing back the footage directly from the camcorder. We couldn't find any third party software that would import or recognize the 1080/60p clips shot with the HDC-TM700"

"There's been a lot of buzz surrounding the TM700's 1080/60p record mode, and rightfully so. The mode records at a very high bitrate and it produced some of the finest video images we've ever seen from a consumer camcorder. The big downside, however, is that the TM700's 60p mode isn't compatible with most editing programs. Panasonic's provided software does allow you to view the 60p footage on a computer (PC only), but we couldn't get the clips to work with any of our third-party editing programs (like iMovie, Adobe Premiere, or Final Cut Express). So, if you shoot with the 60p mode on the HDC-TM700, you should be prepared for the difficulties of working with the footage."

[mduell]

The 1080p60 mode is AVCHD except the bitrate (28Mbps) is higher than the AVCHD spec allows (17 Mbps for main profile, 24Mbps for high profile). I guess Apple's software is strictly holding to the spec. I can't think of any good solutions for preserving quality and metadata; hopefully Apple will add support for it in their apps.

You can shoot the next lower bitrate (17Mbps) and it will work fine with the limitations of existing Apple apps.

[Eden Aurora]

what can i expect in terms of quality loss or anything else....if i record at a bit rate of 17, instead of 28 ???

Does it really make a difference?

[mduell]

I don't know enough to say but even 17Mbps is a lot of H.264 (even with the simple settings AVCHD mandates). With pretty much any other camera you're going to max out at 17, so don't buy this camera for the 28Mbps setting but buy it if you want it for other reasons.

[Eden Aurora]

I've seen a few posts online saying that Clips shot at 1080p 28Mbps have to be copied from the camera memory manually (drag and drop). And then the .MTS files should be converted to MPEG4 movies using ClipWrap2 or other similar softwares so that iMovie or FCP can open.

1. If this is done, will there be an video quality loss once it's in .mp4 format?
2. FCP has a Log and Transfer feature (that i read about). Would this work to convert 1080p 28Mbps so that it's editable by FCP?


Source: http://discussions.apple.com/thread....0&tstart=0
http://dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php...50&page=13
http://store.apple.com/us/question/a...UAX7TCJ4P9C4KF

[mduell]

It looks like ClipWrap2 is just remuxing from the AVCHD (m2ts) container to something else (mp4) that FCP is "willing" to read. No quality loss in remuxing and I assume FCP would read it if that's the purpose of ClipWrap2.

[Eden Aurora]

Simple solution is for Apple to just build in support.
When's the next iLife suppose to be released?

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by Eden Aurora 

Simple solution is for Apple to just build in support.
When's the next iLife suppose to be released?

Why should Apple provide support for a proprietary format?
Apple is all about industry standards these days.
I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Eden Aurora]

It's so easy for Apple to provide support. And if that's what the newer camera's are using -- Why wouldn't Apple want to support it?

[mduell]

Why would they want to support an undocumented format from one manufacturer? Is it just the bitrate they're creeped or are are they using other H.264 features not included in the AVCHD standard?

[P]

Depends on whether this is something that is coming to all cameras or something that Panny came up with all by themselves and noone else is bothering with, and if the difference is more than just the bitrate. Also, don't count on it showing up in iMovie until long after FCP. That camcorder is priced slightly out of range of the average iMovie user.

[Eden Aurora]

The format is already supported by iMovie and FCP. It's just the bitrate that's increased.
Support should be easy to implement.

[Eden Aurora]

Does iMovie from iLife 2011 now support this camera?

[turtle777]

Wouldn't you expect that kind of support from FCP first ?

How many iLife users will have 1080/60p material to cut ?

-t

[Eden Aurora]

it's a consumer camera and iMovie is a consumer program. i expect them to build that support into future versions like iMovie 11.

[uwzero]

Any word on how to edit the TM700 natively in FCP?

[MarkFromNJ]

Here is the thing, Sony has their own version of 60p for the HDR-CX700V. Not sure if it is the same as Pana but I think not because they are unable to edit each other's files. Soon Canon and Nikon will join the fray, and those two NEVER do anything the same way. And this is the problem with non-standards. Do we really want another debacle like camera "RAW" formats? Or, for that matter, lithium camera batteries? There probably only needs to be one of the former and a handful of the latter. There are a hundred or more of each out there now. Without all of this proprietary technology vendors would have a much harder time locking you in to their brand.

Second, 60p contains TWICE as much data as 60i or 30p. That amounts to 60 full frames per second, not the 30 full frames you get with 60i or 30p. So even though it is encoded at 28 Mbps, that is about the same quality (per frame) as 60i or 30p at 14 Mbps.

Finally, once you edit it you can't make a blu-ray or other disc. The Blu-ray format has no provision for 60 full (1080 scan line) frames per second. 60p doubles the data rate and not only does the format not understand it, but the blu-ray players could not handle the (final, uncompressed) data rate which is already huge.

Frankly the whole thing seems more trouble than it is worth unless you are recording high speed events where you really need the addt'l vertical resolution over 60i. In which case 60p is probably not really fast enough, anyway. Look at a Hollywood action flick. That's only 24p! For most uses (except maybe 3d, but don't get me started...) 30p/60i is enough. My 2 cents. Ok, maybe 4 cents. :-)

[teresabush]

It may be the way for the camcorder manufacturers to keep more users. Actually, most of us are looking for high quality videos.

I think the 1080/60p AVCHD videos are better playing on HDTV via HDMI cable. But most videos would need to be cut or edited before sharing. Look forward to the future update with 1080/60p support.