This guide will show you how to manage your new AVCHD high definition camera and make Full HD movies with Microsoft Movie Maker.

Copy your clips off your camera

Please see our article on Managing HD Video for our recommended approach for this.

All you need to do is copy the MTS or m2ts files off your camera onto an area on your hard drive.

Convert your clips using VoltaicHD

Take the event you have just copied off and convert to WMV using VoltaicHD.

Set your output directory to the place where you want your clips to end up. Again, please see our article on Managing HD Video for ideas on this.

Open Movie Maker and create a new project

Go to File->New Project

Save (and name) your Project. Movie Maker will look something like this:

Import your clips

Go to File->Import Media Items...

Select the folder that you had VoltaicHD send its converted clips to, and click Open. The clips will load into the work area, ready for editing.

Do the 'rough cut'

This is where you preview all of your raw clips and either throw them out, or split them so that only the bits you want end up in the timeline.

To do your rough cut:

• Click on the first clip in the work area. This will open it in the Preview window.
• Start playing the clip (Space bar)
• As you hit the start of the footage you want in your movie, click the Pause button, then click Split. This will create a new clip from the point that you paused. The clip will have (1) appended to its name.
• Open the new clip in the Preview window and play it until you reach the end of the footage that you want. Click Split again.

By following this process you will end up with a set of 'rough cut' clips ready to be added to the Storyboard.

Build up the timeline

Once all of your clips are ready, add them to the Storyboard.

Select the clips that you want in your movie and drag them to the Storyboard.

Add Titles

Now that your Storyboard is done, add you Titles and Transitions.

To add a Title, just click on the Titles and Credits link on the left hand menu and follow the prompts.

Add Transitions

Transitions can be easily dragged onto the transition area between each clip. Just click on Transitions in the left hand menu, then you will see all the available transitions in the work area. Drag the one you want into the relevant transition area.

Once your Titles and Transitions are done, your Storyboard should look like this.

Movie Maker has an alternate view of the Storyboard called Timeline. This displays your movie in a timeline as you would see on a professional video editing program. This is a more advanced view and lets you work with video/title/audio layers. You will probably find the Timeline view more useful as you gain experience in editing.

Publish

Now you've got a Full HD edited movie ready to go. All you have to do is Publish it from Movie Maker, then you can use it where you like.

Go to File->Publish Movie...

Select My Computer as the destination and click Next.

NOTE: If you select DVD as the destination, your movie will be downgraded to standard definition, since DVDs can only contain standard definition footage.

You want to publish in Full HD, so we have created a Publishing profile to make this easy for you. This profile is installed when you install Voltaic HD.

NOTE: we found that using the in-built profile for WMV-HD (1080p) 'letterboxes' the final movie. This means that it creates a 4:3 ratio movie, with black space at the top and bottom. Since the in-built profile is broken, we created one that works properly. If you are on Windows XP, the WMV-HD publishing profiles will not be there, so you will need the VoltaicHD profile in order to get a correctly published movie.

Select More Setttings, then select VoltaicHD 1080. Select PAL or NTSC according to your region (Japan and USA are pretty much the only ones on NTSC).

Now click Publish. Your movie will be created!

You now have a complete, Full HD (1920x1080) movie ready to go. Be aware that it is very unlikely that your PC will be able to play this movie without dropping frames (i.e. it won't be able to keep up). Don't worry about this. To watch this on the big screen, you need a media player (like an XBox) or you need to burn the movie to a DVD which plays on a Blu-ray player.

Introduction

AVCHD is the new high definition video format for video cameras. AVCHD stands for Advanced Video Codec, High Definition and is owned and managed by Sony and Panasonic.

The following manufacturers are now using AVCHD for their high definition consumer level video cameras:

• Sony
• Panasonic
• Canon
• JVC

The Format

AVCHD is a 'proprietary' standard which means that it is not publicly available. Having said that, anyone can obtain a full copy of the specification for development purposes from Sony for a small administration fee.

The most common usage of the format is in the following way:

• Video stream (always H.264):
  • 1440x1080 interlaced
  • 1920x1080 interlaced
  • 1920x1080 progressive
  • NTSC and PAL variations of the above
• Dolby Digital stereo or 5.1 surround sound

An overview of the supported video resolutions and audio formats can be found on the AVCHD Co-producers web site.

AVCHD files are stored with a .MTS or .m2ts file extension, depending on the camera brand and whether you are copying to a Mac or PC. There is no difference in the contents of the video files with the different extensions.

Working with AVCHD

There are a few editors out there that support 'native' editing of AVCHD. This means that they require no conversion in order to start editing the files. Due to the fact that AVCHD is a very highly compressed format, you will normally need a very high end PC to edit AVCHD directly. For this reason many editors require the conversion (which is really decompression) of AVCHD before they can work with it.

Apple

Apple has decided not to support AVCHD natively, which means that it has to be converted to another video format before you can edit it. This approach means that older, low powered computers can edit high definition content, but there is a delay in converting from AVCHD.

Apple uses the Apple Intermediate Codec (iMovie and Final Cut) and ProRes 442 (Final Cut Pro only) as its editing formats.

To help people manage their own AVCHD files, we have a Quick Look plug-in available called HD Quick Look which gives you AVCHD preview capabilities within Finder. This is very useful if you have a library of AVCHD clips that you are keeping as an archive. You can quickly see the first frame of the clip without any conversion.

PC

Your options on the PC vary according to the editing package that you decide to use. Starting on the simple end of the scale, Microsoft Movie Maker does not support AVCHD, so needs it converted beforehand.

Some editors, such as Sony Vegas, support native AVCHD editing, so you don't need to convert your footage. Note that native AVCHD editing takes a lot of processor power, so only high-end PCs are capable of this.

Converting

Converting AVCHD clips to a more editable format is a fairly common practice. VoltaicHD converts from AVCHD to the most common formats on the relative computer types. That is Apple Intemediate Codec (AIC) on the Mac and Windows Media Video (WMV) on the PC. Almost every video editor will be able to work with these formats.

Apple

The Apple editing suites all contain an AVCHD to AIC converter for the capture of video direct from an AVCHD camera. If you don't like leaving this process to Apple (and losing your original AVCHD clips), you can convert your AVCHD clips to AIC when you need them using a third-party converter.

You have the following stand-alone conversion options on the Mac:
VoltaicHD for Mac - an AVCHD to AIC converter from ShedWorx
Toast - this is a full-featured disk burning application from Roxio which also includes an AVCHD to AIC converter

PC

You have the following stand-alone conversion options on the PC:
- VoltaicHD for PC - our AVCHD to WMV (and AVI) converter
- AVCHD Converter - an AVCHD to MPEG2 converter from Elecard

Editing

For new HD users, we recommend starting out with the in-built (and free) movie editor that comes with your computer, then moving up to a more advanced editing suite if you need it.
The advanced editing suites that are available now are very good, but require considerable time and effort to get up to speed on. The in-built applications on the Mac and PC are very good (in our opinion) and may be all you need.

Apple

On the Mac, you have the option of iMovie08 (which comes with every new Mac), Final Cut Express/Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro. Note that Premiere Pro does not support AVCHD and is pitched more at the professional user (who wan't be using AVCHD).

Our recommendation is to start with iMovie, then move up to Final Cut Express/Pro if and when you need to.

PC

You have many editing options available on the PC. While not widely publicized by Microsoft, all Windows machines come with Microsoft Movie Maker built in. Movie Maker is HD-capable, but does not support AVCHD. We recommend VoltaicHD for PC to convert AVCHD into WMV. VoltaicHD also comes with HD profiles for Movie Maker which make HD editing and exporting a breeze.

Please see our article on Making HD movies with Movie Maker if you are going to give this a go.

Burning

Why would you want to know about burning AVCHD files to disk? Well, AVCHD is one of the two video formats supported by the Blu-ray specification. The AVCHD video file format also comes with a disk format which is playable on almost every Blu-ray player. The good news is that AVCHD disks are DVDs, not Blu-ray disks.

This means that you can burn AVCHD DVDs using your current DVD burner, and they will play on Blu-ray players!

There are a number of options for burning AVCHD DVDs or Blu-ray disks. Note that Blu-ray disk burning does require a Blu-ray burner.

Since this is an article on AVCHD, we will only cover the AVCHD DVD burning options.

Apple

You have the following AVCHD DVD burning options on the Mac:

• RevolverHD from ShedWorx
• Toast9 from Roxio

PC

Most AVCHD cameras come with basic AVCHD DVD burning software.

The new AVCHD high definition video standard stores video as files rather than tapes. This is very handy for video/asset management, but runs into a problem with very long clips.

With tape based recording, you can just record for as long as the tape goes. For files, as they get large, they have to be split. This is due to underlying limitations with the file system where the clips are saved (i.e. the memory card or hard disk drive on the camera).

You will find that for large AVCHD clips, the camera will split the files at either the 2Gb or 4Gb mark. AVCHD clips are different to other older video standards in that they are very highly compressed. This is achieved by storing a full image (also known as a keyframe or I-frame) only once, then just storing changes from then on.

When a file is split there is no keyframe at the start of second (and subsequent) clips, so VoltaicHD cannot convert these 'spanned' clips in isolation because they continue on from the previous clip.

Luckily, this is not a big problem. All you have to do is re-join the clips before converting them. Be aware that this will create one large file the size of all the spanned files put together. Make sure you have enough disk space.

Warning: this joined file will take a long time to convert. The converted file will almost certainly not play on your computer due to the file size. You will still be able to edit the file to produce a manageable movie.

Here's how you do it.

File joining on the Mac

The Mac solution requires running a command under the Terminal. Many users will not have had to do this before, but don't worry - its easy. Just follow these steps.

Open a Terminal window. The Terminal application can be found in your Applications folder under Utilities

Go to the directory where your spanned clips are located. You will need to use the Unix change directory command 'cd'

cd Movies/MyAVCHDclips

Enter the following command and press Enter:

cat file001.MTS file002.MTS > newfile.MTS

where file001.MTS and file002.MTS are your files to be joined.

This will take a while! Leave it for at least an hour before checking on your results.

File joining on the PC

Our PC solution uses a command line solution also. Here's what you do.

Open a command window. On XP you do this by going to the Start menu, select Run... enter cmd and click OK.

Go to the directory where your spanned clips are located. You will need to use the change directory command 'cd'

cd c:\Documents and Settings\justin\Desktop\Clips

Now use the copy command to combine the files.

copy /b file001.MTS+file002.MTS newfile.MTS

where file001.MTS and file002.MTS are your files to be joined.

This will take a while! Leave it for at least an hour before checking on your results.

Today's AVCHD cameras can shoot in interlaced or progressive mode. NTSC modes are 60i for interlaced and 24p for progressive. The PAL equivalents are 50i and 25p. Early AVCHD cameras were interlaced only.

Interlacing is the practice of displaying a single frame of video as two 'half' frames. Each frame is split into alternating lines, so that the first frame displays lines 1,3,5 and so on, while the second frame of the pair displays lines 2,4,6 and so on.

For all of the gory detail on why interlacing came about, read this Wikipedia article.

If you look at a raw interlaced clip converted by VoltaicHD for Mac, you will see the interlacing on playback. If you look at a clip from the same camera taken in progressive mode (24p or 25p), there will be no interlacing.

When you look at the same clip under iMovie or Final Cut, you won't see the interlacing. This is because the editor applies a deinterlace filter to the preview window. The underlying clip is still interlaced.

When you export your completed movie from the edit suite, it will be deinterlaced for you automatically by iMovie. If you are using Final Cut you will need to apply this filter manually to your completed sequence timeline.

New AVCHD cameras generally have a progressive scan mode (e.g. 24p on NTSC, 25p on PAL) which is more 'HD friendly'. As the HD workflows mature, these will most probably become the standard.

So you've got your new AVCHD camera and its been working just great with iMovie08.

You've made a couple of nice home movies and been happy with what you have achieved so quickly. So now you want to try some of those fancy things you've seen on TV or other people's videos. Fade a few different music tracks in and out during your video? Do something cool with picture-in-picture effects? Welcome to Final Cut Express.

This guide will show you how I use Final Cut Express in 'easy' mode. Using Final Cut Express in this way is actually faster than using iMovie. It also opens up all of the cool effects and methods possible with Final Cut, when you are ready. I'm not even going to give you the overview of the FC workspace. We'll just jump right in and learn on the fly.

Give yourself half and hour with this tutorial and you'll be up and running with Final Cut Express.

Copy your clips off your camera - don't use the Apple converter!

Please see our article on Managing HD Video for our recommended approach for this.

We strongly recommend that you take control of your video asset management, rather than letting Apple dictate the approach.

Convert your clips using VoltaicHD

Take the event you have just copied off and convert to AIC using VoltaicHD.

Set your output directory to the place where you want your clips to end up. Again, please see our article on Managing HD video for details on this.

Open FCE and set your defaults

Open Final Cut Express and open the Final Cut Express -> Easy Setup... option.

This is where you set the default properties for the timeline. Choose the correct HD option from the drops downs.

You only have 2 choices to make:
- are you PAL or NTSC? PAL is 50i while NTSC is 60i
- are your clips 1440x1080 or 1920x1080. This depends on you camera and the mode you shoot in

Create a new project

Go to File->New Project.

Rename the default sequence (Sequence 1) to something meaningful to you. This is the name that the exported movie will be given.

Note that you can create many sequences within a FCE project. We'll only be creating one.

Once it is created, save (and name) your Project.

Import your clips

Go to File->Import->Folder...

This will load all of your clips from the folder into a 'Bin' in the FCE Browser.

Click on the down arrow next to the newly created Bin (i.e. Folder in the Browser) to look at the clip names. It should look something like this.

Do the 'rough cut'

This is where you preview all of your raw clips and either throw them out, or set in and out points (and sometimes creating sub-clips). The in and out points define the start and stop point of the clip that will be added to the timeline.

Some important short-cut keys for moving around in your clip:
- Go to start of clip: Home key - Go to end of clip: End key
- Start/stop playing: Spacebar
- Back a frame: Left Arrow
- Forward a frame: Right Arrow
- Set in point: I
- Set out point: O