Panasonic Avccam AG-AF100A Series User manual

Editing AVCHD

with iMovie

09’

Understanding

AVCCAM Workflow

Table of ConTenTs

 3

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 3

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

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 10

 11



 12

 12

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 13

THE AVCHD WORKFLOW ON APPLE COMPUTERS

Apple Intel-based Mac computers (MacBookPro Laptops, iMac or Mac Pro Towers) work really well with Panasonic

AVCCAM cameras shooting AVCHD footage. Working on a Mac platform presents four editing solutions, based on your

budget and the complexity of your ﬁnal edit. The four editing applications are: iMovie ’(08 or ’09), Final Cut Express 4,

Final Cut Pro (v.6.05 or higher, Part of Final Cut Studio) and Adobe Premier Pro as part of CS4.

This paper will discuss a typical AVCHD workﬂow for editing with and outputting from

iMovie’09, part of iLife’09. For detailed information on editing with iMovie please see: www.

apple.com/support/imovie

EDITING & OUTPUTTING AVCHD WITH APPLE IMOVIE ‘09

KEY POINT #1. TO EDIT AVCHD IN iMOVIE ‘09 YOU MUST HAVE AN INTEL BASED MAC COMPUTER

One of the fastest and easiest ways to edit AVCHD footage on a Mac computer is with iMovie ’09 software (part of the

iLife ’09 bundle).

Although this application is not as sophisticated as Final Cut Express 4, Final Cut Pro or Adobe CS4, for simple editing

it is quite good. Like the other Apple editing tools, iMovie does not recognize AVCHD natively, it will transcode your

footage using Apple’s Intermediate Codec. It is quite fast, but does require additional storage on your hard drive.

TRANSFERRING AVCHD FOOTAGE TO YOUR MAC.

When you are ready to transfer your AVCHD footage from your camera to your computer, there are basically three

different approaches you can take. The fastest and easiest method is to simply place your camera in PC mode and

connect to MAC via USB cable. If you don’t want to tie up your camera, you can remove your SDHC card from the

camera and mount in on the computer using an external SDHC card reader. And ﬁnally, you can copy your footage to an

external hard drive for later editing. We will look at each approach.

KEY POINT #2. WRITE PROTECT YOUR SDHC CARD PRIOR TO MOUNTING.

Your SDHC card has a small little slider on the left hand side of the card labeled Lock. Push this

slider down to write protect the data on your card. This is a critical step to protect your footage

before you insert the SDHC card into your Card reader, Camera, or computer SDHC Slot for

mounting. Your Mac will see the SDHC card as a No Name Drive (see below) and immediately try

to index the card. In indexing the card, it will try to write data to it. If you have not write protected

the card, you could lose some of your footage as the Mac does this indexing. Don’t risk it, just

write protect the SD card before you mount it on your computer.

APPROACH #1

TRANSFERRING YOUR AVCHD FOOTAGE FROM PANASONIC

AVCCAM CAMCORDERS TO YOUR MAC.

You can, as expected, transfer your AVCHD footage directly from your camera. The next few steps will show you how to

do this. Unfortunately, this ties up your camera and prevents you from shooting with it while you are transferring.

Note: AVCCAM cameras do not have a IEEE1394 Fire Wire output, only USB. Since the AVCHD format is ﬁle based (not

streaming oriented), there is no requirement for a Fire Wire output.

sTep #1 – ConneCT your panasoniC Camera via a usb Cable To your CompuTer.

Note: It is recommended to connect your camera to an AC power supply, as a low battery could damage your

transferred footage. Also, write protect the card as instructed prior.

sTep #2 - Turn The Camera To The pC on posiTion

On the AG-HMC70 camcorder, this is accomplished by moving the record button to PC. This puts

the camera into USB device mode, making it appear as a card reader to the MAC OS. The SDHC

card inside the camera will mount on the desktop as a No Name Volume.

On the AG-HMC150 camcorder, you must push the mode button on the back of the camera. The

light will change from Cam to PB for playback, push again and the PC light will turn on. This puts

the camera into USB device mode, making it appear as a card reader to the MAC OS. The SDHC

card inside the camera will mount on the desktop as a No Name Volume.

On the AG-HMC40 camcorder, when you connect your USB cable

to your computer, the LCD display on the camera will prompt

you to touch either the PC or Printer Device button. Touch PC.

The Printer Option here is for the still picture functionality of the

camera, and has nothing to do with this video ﬁle transfer.

sTep 3 – open imovie ’09. iMovie will automatically

sense the camera and open up an import video window with

thumbnails of all your clips.

You can look at any clip in the viewer window and you can

choose to import all clips, by clicking import all.

Alternatively, if you want to import only selected clips, you can

check the clips you want and click on Import Checked.

sTep 4 – DeCiDe where To sTore your Clips anD aT whaT size. A pop up window will appear and you

should choose the hard drive where you want to store your video.

Here you can also choose how you want to organize your imported video in the Event Library. And ﬁnally you will need

to choose the size you wish to import, either Full – 1920x1080 or Large – 960x540.

Since your Panasonic AVCHD camera records in full

1920x1080, you should select Full.

sTep 5 - CliCk ok. This is the step where iMovie

will transcode AVCHD to the Apple Intermediate Codec.

Depending on your clips, it may take minutes or more than

an hour for iMovie to import and create thumbnail images

of the clips. When the import is complete you will see a

message similar to this.

APPROACH #2

TRANSFERRING AVCHD FOOTAGE DIRECTLY FROM THE

SDHC CARD TO YOUR MAC.

If you don’t want to tie up your camera for transferring your footage, you can remove the

SDHC card from the camera and mount it on your computer. Many new Macs have an SD

card slot. Just insert the SDHC card in the slot.

If you are using an older Mac then you will need a SDHC-to-USB reader/writer like this one.

Just insert your SDHC card into the reader and connect it to a USB port on your Mac. It will

appear as a No Name hard drive on your desktop. iMovie will detect the card and think it is a

camera connected. You will now be ready to open iMovie ‘09 and begin editing.

APPROACH #3

COPYING AVCHD FOOTAGE TO A HARD DRIVE

sTep #1 – mounT The sDhC CarD on your CompuTer

Many people prefer to copy their footage to a hard drive before editing. This is a good practice. Not only does this free

up the SDHC card so that you can use it again after verifying that the transfer is successful, but it gives you a back up

if you choose to keep the SDHC card. After you have inserted the SDHC Card into the USB reader, ﬁnd the No Name

Hard Drive on your desktop.

sTep #2 – open The no name harD Drive

When you open No Name, you will see a folder named “Private.” You

will want to copy this folder to your hard drive. Do not try to copy from

any other folder within the “private” folder, as the structure of folders

inside is important. Create a destination folder that you have named

with an easily recognizable identiﬁer, such as the project and the date.

It is highly recommended to verify the integrity of the copy before re-

formatting your SDHC cards. Also, consider your backup strategy as

you begin to accumulate larger numbers of folders and projects. The

more planning up front, the easier your life will be when you decide to

re-visit material for different sessions (re-purposing content).

Note: Panasonic recommends 3rd party applications such as Shot Put Pro from Imagine Products for copy and

veriﬁcation. Shot Put Pro provides a safe backup to up to 3 simultaneous target locations (such as hard drives or Blu-ray

burners) with validation of the copy. Please see www.imagineproducts.com for more information.

TRANSFERRING AVCHD CAMERA ARCHIVED FOOTAGE TO

YOUR MAC

f you have transferred your footage to an external hard drive, you can still get your footage into iMovie. Connect the

hard drive to your computer.

sTep #1 – open imovie.

Click File>Import>Camera Archive.

This will open a navigation window.

sTep #2 – finD your folDer.

Click on the folder that contains your footage, in this example select “Bryce” and it will appear in the import window of

iMovie.

sTep #3 – imporT Clips.

iMovie will automatically sense the camera and open up an import video window with thumbnails of all your clips.

You can look at any clip in the viewer window and you can choose to import all clips, by clicking import all.

Alternatively, if you want to import only selected clips, move the slider on the bottom left to Manual. Now you can check

the clips you want and then click on “Import Checked.”

sTep #4 – DeCiDe where To sTore your Clips anD aT whaT size.

A pop up window will appear and you should choose the hard drive where you want to store your video.

Here you can also choose how you want to organize

your imported video in the Event Library. And ﬁnally

you will need to choose the size you wish to import.

Either Full – 1920x1080 or Large – 960x540.

Since your Panasonic AVCHD camera records in full

1920x1080, you should select Full.

sTep #5 - CliCk ok.

This is the step where iMovie will transcode AVCHD to the Apple Intermediate Codec. Depending on your clips, it may

take minutes or more than an hour for iMovie to import and create thumbnail images of the clips. When the import is

complete you will see a message similar to this.

No matter which approach you use to get your AVCHD footage into iMovie, you are now ready to begin the creative

fun of editing. From this point on, you edit your AVCHD footage (which has now been converted to Apple Intermediate

Codec) just like you edit any other footage in iMovie ‘09. For more information on editing with iMovie ‘09, please visit:

www.apple.com/support/imovie

OUTPUTTING TO IPOD

It is very easy to export your AVCHD iMOVIE to a video iPOD. When you have ﬁnished your movie, click on Share and

then on iTunes.

Pick your destination: iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or computer. Pick

Medium Size for iPod.

Your movie will be exported to iTunes in the format that iPod

understands. All you need to do is sync your iPOD with iTunes

and your video will be transferred to your iPOD.

OUTPUTTING TO YOUTUBE

Publishing your AVCHD iMovie on YouTube is just as easy. Click on Share,

then on You Tube. Note: you must have a You Tube account.

Pick your category, give your video a description and pick the size you wish to publish.

Now the world can see your AVCHD footage.

OUTPUTTING TO BLU-RAY

Unfortunately, iMovie does not support the creation of Blu-ray discs. In order to make a Blu-ray disc, you will need to

transfer your movie to a third party Blu-ray burning software, such as Roxio Toast Titanium 10 Pro or Adobe Encore (part

of Adobe CS3).

OUTPUTING TO AVCHD DISC

You can also burn an AVCHD disc (which is a duration-limited Blu-ray image on

standard DVD media, using the Mac’s internal DVD / Super Drive). You are limited to

20 minutes of AVCHD footage on a DVD-5 disc and 40 minutes on a DVD-9 disc. The

AVCHD disc will play High Deﬁnition in a Blu-ray player.

Software such as Roxio Toast Titanium 10 Pro will allow you to drag your native

AVCHD ﬁles and copy them, and even add a menu.

See www.roxio.com for more detail.

The AVCHD disc will only play in a Blu-ray player.

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