Camcorder questions: USB interface? Edit of HD videos?

English Hardware
1

After pondering this for a few years, I’m very close to FINALLY purchasing a camcorder. A new Panasonic camcorder (HDC-HS300K) has caught my eye, and I’m tempted to purchase this rather expensive (but presumeably fun) toy.

It would be preferable if it could connect this camcorder to a Linux PC (to download images and also process images).

I note it has a USB-2.0 interface, and given the camcorder has a 120 GB hard drive built in, I assume one simply mounts the drive, and copies movies to one’s PC.

It is an HD recorder, recording videos at 1920x1080 in MPEG4-AVC/H.264 format. Does anyone have any experience with such high definition formats under Linux?

Any views on the best ways to handle such videos? Do any users have experience with programs such as Kdenlive, Kino, or Cinelerra handling the newer HD formats?

I use Kdelinve a lot for simple formats (640x480 videos, and higher res digital still pix from my digital still camera) but these High Definition (HD) videos are in an entirely different league.

I’m probably going to ask Panasonic these questions, … but I don’t anticipate an answer (many manufacturers “clam up” when one mentions Linux).

Some articles on the nice (but rather pricy) camcorder I am considering:

Panasonic page:
HDC-HS300K - Hi-Def Camcorders - Shop and Compare at Panasonic

Panasonic HDC HS300 youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=(http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-HDC-HS300-First-Impressions-Camcorder-Review-36059.htm)

2

Reading the above, I realize it looks like I made my mind up. Actually, that is not quite true. I’m also looking at the Canon Vixia HF S10, which also appears it could be a superb camcorder. It does not have a hard drive, but rather uses a large SD card for storing the video clips. I’m assuming if I plug that Canon into my openSUSE Linux PC (using a USB cable) that I will be able to mount the SD card as an external drive. I suspect (I don’t know yet) that the SD card uses NTFS format (so that recorded movies can be many gigabytes in size) … but I need to find that out.

I also need to find out (for both Panasonic and Canon camcorders) if the HD video format can be edited with Linux non-Linear video editing software, such as kdenlive. I’m thinking I need to check out the kdenlive forum to see what I can learn there.

I’ve been using Canon digital still cameras over the years, and I am very happy with their compatibility with openSUSE Linux (for image transfer and compatibility with the video files for image editing of the short video clips from those Canon digital still cameras).

Sony also have some nice camcorders, but I confess I typically avoid Sony products for “political” reasons. While all camcorder hardware suppliers use proprietary technology, sony tend to use proprietary more than others, and hence that runs contrary to my opensource free software views. I don’t like the Sony use of their custom hardware memory stick , … etc … Now if Sony were known to support Linux more than other hardware suppliers, that would probably sway me in their direction, but I’ve seen no evidence of that.

So for the moment, I’m looking at the Canon Vixia HF S10 and the Panasonic HDC-HS300K . If anyone has any “Linux” specific interfacing experience with those (or similar) models, I would be curious to learn.

3

hi oldcpu;

thanks for raising this issue; would be very keen to hear your experiences if you treat yourself;

I was concerned about the HD format; when I read a US magazine that I seem to read about once every two years: I can find the title but it was something …Camcorder": it was the size of the HD format that concerned me: how big the files were; they were talking about many hours; or days!! to render a file;

I resolved that if I were to buy an HD, it would be to plug directly into an HD-capable TV;

I would be very interested to hear how it goes for others;

I can quickly find one or two references;

How To: Editing HD Video in Linux | Compiler from Wired.com

and

Non-linear Video Editing in Ubuntu Linux - What tools to use and how to do it! - PenguinTutor Linux Blog

I have an older Panasonic camera; it is a 3CCD; it has firewire, and that works well for us; you may have seen me say we use MainActor; and we still have Suse 9.3 on one partition, as it is just so good; I like the firewire, as it controls the camera and we can move to segments, and uplift;

the HDC-HS300K looks a beautiful camera;

the other aspect of video cameras for some is sound; I use mine at some conferences to record; using a Sennheiser gun mic on top; the older cameras had shoes; mine does; now they are not fitted; equally one can get dedicated sound units,that mount under the camera but one still needs a mount for a mic

it is what you are going to record too; holiday views?

I bought a monopod pole; it helps me a lot to steady the image; to take nice scenic shots on hols, a tripod seems the best;

you may cringe at being seen setting one up, but with an HD camera, producing glorious images, a bit of shake and shuffle may spoil things; (even with electronic image clarification)

4

Thanks for the references. As noted above, I have a Canon Ixus that takes videos at 640x480 @ 30 fps and hence I have played with kdenlive a lot. I note on the kdenlive forum, the authors of that package are trying hard to make it high definition capable. For example this post:
News about AVCHD and hardware decoding | Kdenlive

Here is some information on non-linear-video editors and linux, that someone else started, and I tried to update to make more current:
Video editing - openSUSE

Thanks. These are the sort of tips and tricks that I really know NOTHING about, and I am very keen to learn.

Yes, mostly to create holiday videos/movies. Together my wife and I have created over a dozen home videos (each typically 10 to 20 minutes in length) documenting our various vacations. My wife used WinXP movie maker, and I used kdenlive. We used a mix of still images and videos from our small Canon Digital Ixus.

Using higher quality video images from a camcorder will be a step up in our “video production”.

I have 4 different tripods (all very small) for my Ixus, so I definitely understand the benefit of a camera stand. I know NOTHING also about a monopod pole, so anything I can learn there would also be appreciated.

My wife and have our next major vacation (a few weeks) planned starting in mid-June. Hence I would like to purchase the camcorder sometime in April and definitely no later than end-May (as I need to know how to use it by mid-June).

5

thanks;

the panasonic looks really good; I hope you and your wife treat yourselves to it; looks great;

I have always regarded you as very knowledgable on kdenlive; so you should do well there and maybe innovate on HD for the rest of us;

monopods: I bought a hiking pole from LL Bean; it is designed as dual-purpose: hiking pole, and monopod for camera; it is extendible; lightweight; excellent; I cannot now find it on the LL Bean site; nor does it have a serial number, but … made in the Czech republic; LEKI technology; extendable; good for walking; unscrew the comfortable wooden top and screw into video camera; much steadier; you are in Germany? so you could source something there one would hope; I also bought a Manfrotto monopod, but to be honest, not used it much; the LL Bean pole

but not as good as tripod; while on holiday last year, I had brought the tripod (Manfrotto), and on a windy afternoon two guys went kite surfing; … I!! thought they were really good video runs .!! and with the tripod; very steady and able to zoom in and out as the boards flew across the water, towards and away from the camera;

6

I ran across the following interesting thread describing one user’s experience of using Linux with Canon HF10 camcorder:
linux tips with canon HF10/HF100 - AVS Forum

That (above) URL also references this blog, which has some interesting “hacks” for handling High Definition under Linux:
Linux & HDTV | Acmelabs’ Blog
… its definitely not for the beginner, nor possibly average user, but the advanced user may be able to “run with” the information in that blog.

7

And since I started this thread (collecting links on using modern camcorder under Linux), here is another one with information on AVCHD .m2ts conversion for Linux
AVCHD .m2ts conversion for Linux - AVS Forum
… its a long thread … and I’m still working my way through the various posts.

8

Personally I would avoid USB models and look at models with firewire interfaces.

I have used both firewire and USB and the firewire is faster, and can be controlled from within applications like kino and kdenlive. In other words, the applications can start the cam, stop the cam, rewind, fast forward, pause…

USB is cumbersome in comparison, constantly downloading files from the device then opening in the desired application…then the issue of compatibility, some USB devices are recognized and some are not, some require hacks and workarounds. Hit or Miss, Plug and Pray :stuck_out_tongue:

Firewire just works!

9

I thought the same, but you can take a MASSIVE performance hit with that restriction. Basically, its not a consideration as the firewire camcorders are not as good. At least I could not find any.

Thanks. Neat to know. I have both firewire and usb-2.0 external hard drives. I prefer the firewire.

Indeed, but as noted, firewire does not appear to be much of an option. The better camcorders that I have looked at do not support firewire.

10

Just a couple after one google search, I am sure there are many more.

Amazon.com: Panasonic HDC-SD5 AVCHD 3CCD Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilization: Camera & Photo

Panasonic Palmcorder HDC-DX1 High Definition DVD Camcorder: Compare Prices, View Price History and Read Reviews at NexTag

Specifications - Panasonic Australia

11

Yes, I saw those, but their quality is not the same.

For example, the Panasonic Palmcorder HDC-DX1 High Definition DVD Camcorder that you link to is nice, but from what I have read in the reviews, it does not have the same capabilities as the Panasonic HDC-HS300K nor the Canon Vixia HD HS F10 that I am considering. Given that the storage media is digital (and not tape) I don’t see the benefit of compromising on the higher quality for the features you note come with firewire (ie start the cam, stop the cam, rewind, fast forward, pause) … My view is to just dump the entire digital video to one’s hard drive, and work on it there. Or is this impractical because the high-resolution (and h264 codec) of HD is simply to difficult for Linux multimedia players ?

I am keen to learn if I am missing something fundamental here … :slight_smile:

12

I just prefer raw dv, over specific video formats. dv is grabbed directly from the camcorder in real time, no waiting for a video editor to import it.

Say for instance if you want to edit some video in Kino that you dumped to the hard drive from your usb device, you will likely wait 30 minutes to an hour or more depending on the length and size of the video just importing a video so it can be edited.

dv illuminates that whole process.

13

Thats for tape is it not?

Does the new digital audio work really that way? I had thought it saved each video clip as a video files (on the camcorders hard driver or on the camcorders large 32GB SD card). Hence if one records many short 5 second to 2 minute video clip, then with each video clip there is an associated file that be moderately larger, or very large. Hence one just mounts the camcorder device, and drags all of the video clips to one’s hard drive. And then “work” on each individual clip once they are on one’s hard drive.

Why import into some app like kino? Can not one just mount the camcorder, drag the individual video clips to one’s hard drive, play them with an app like smplayer, xine-ui, or vlc, and then pick the clips that one wishes to drag into kdenlive for subsequent editing? I had thought no need for kino for importing from the camcorder.

With the new digital files, does one still need to import thru something like kino? Is that not for the old dv tape storage method ?

OK, but dv is for tapes, … is it not? The new camcorders use hard drives, and not tapes.

I’m curious as to how much of the old dv tape way of doing things applies to the newer technology.

14

I’m not sure what makes you raw dv is somehow outdated as it is still the format preferred by professionals and the great majority of professional cameras use it.

Thats kind of like saying raw digital images or tiff files are outdated and jpeg is better :\

Thats neither here nor there anyways.

Get the camera you think will do the best job for you. :wink:

15

Did I say “outdated” ? … … I’ve re-read my post … I don’t think I said that.

I did say “old dv tape storage method” … :slight_smile: … it is older than the newer digital storage via hard drives, dvd storage, and sd-card storage. Is old bad? I hope not (as I am old) … But I suspect my words "old dv tape storage method " are what set you off. :slight_smile:

Thats clear. Memory prices and memory size have only recently come down to the size that an alternative to dv tape is viable.

I don’t think I said that.

But based on what I have read to date, and in how I envisage using a new camcorder, I do prefer the digital storage route, as opposed to the dv tape route. But I’m working with mental concepts and visualizations based on reading the experiences of others. Thats far far short of actually using both camcorder media (tape vs digital storage on a hard-drive/sd-card).

Thanks! I’m keen to learn as much as I can off of users like yourself who have been using camcorders for a while, … not only in the storage and interface methodology (albeit I concede the title of my thread refers to USB interface) but also in the general use of camcorders.

16

There definitely is a technology “push” going on wrt camcorder on device storage. The “news” release I have linked below refers to a new format “SDXC” (being released/labelled by the SD Association), where the intent is the specification will be released in Q1 2009. This new format increases specified (current) storage capacities of 32 GB up to a much larger 2 TB. The format also increases SD interface read/write speeds up to 104 MB per second (although purportedly the SD Association is aiming for 300 MB per second):
CES '09: 100 HD Movies on a Stamp-Sized Chip - Tom’s Hardware

I don’t plan to delay my camcorder purchases waiting for that to happen. It could be some time before a Camcorder (and SDXC card) taking advantage of a new specification “hits the street”. I’ll miss too many opportunities to take videos waiting … and I’m not getting any younger. Instead I’m intending to stick with my April/May-2009 purchase timeframe, likely with my purchasing either of the two camcorders that I noted above (although that could change, if I learn of some technical or operational aspect that causes me to take a relook at my video taking requirements).

17

Its interesting, … I was surfing the AVS Forum site to try and learn more about camcorders and the formats, and it turns out the tape vs the “new” digital formats (ie HDV vs AVCHD) was a real hot issue 12 to 18 months ago.

Of course my being new to all of this, I had no idea it was such a “hot issue”. :open_mouth:

From what I have read, the AVCHD specification has great promise, but back 18 months ago, the AVCHD camcorders that were coming out were not capable of recording videos to the full AVCHD specification, and hence the camcorders that could record in HDV had the ‘edge’. This was especially true when it come to editing videos, as the software 18 months ago had especial difficulty in handling the AVCHD.

Some articles on the specification differences:

Since then, 18 months of technological improvements have come, and AVCHD (and the supporting software) is much better today. For example , there are camcorders now that can record AVCHD video with 5.1 sound (HDV is limited to 2 channel). (Mind you, I suspect with wind noise, microphone limitations, and such, that example is a mute irrelevant point, as I’ll rarely use the recorded sound in any video I record).

I do like the idea of being able to quickly drag and drop video clips from the camcorder to one’s hard drive (which is possible with AVCHD and is not so possible with HDV tape). However back 18 months ago there were many posts about incompatibilities between different manufacturer’s implementations of AVCHD, while HDV did not appear to have the problem. Editing with AVCHD was very difficult 18 months ago, and not difficult with HDV (relatively speaking).

I’m not clear where the situation is today.

I suspect that both HDV and AVCDH approaches are ok (for use with Linux). Recent threads on the KDEnlive forum has me reasonably hopeful on this wrt AVCHD. …

Its been an interesting (albeit rather steep) learning experience thus far, and I have a lot more to climb on this …

18

Reference the “Edit of HD videos” part of this thread, … I got my hands on a raw AVCHD .mts clip from the very new Sony HDR-XR500V AVCHD camcorder.

I then processed on 3 different hardware platforms:

  • Dell Studio 15 laptop with Intel dual core P8400 CPU, 4GB RAM, and ATI-Radeon-HD3450 graphics (8-month old (on the market) laptop)
  • Desktop 32-bit athlon-2800+ CPU, 2GB RAM and nVidia FX5200 graphics (4+ year old PC)
  • Desktop 32-bit athlon-1100+ CPU, 1GB RAM and nVidia MX440 graphics (9 year old PC)

All 3 PCs running openSUSE-11.1 Linux, with recent ffmpeg svn version (which has some, not all, of AVCHD fixes) and kdenlive Non-Linear Video Editor (NLE).

I was able to import and render on all 3 PCs. Even the 9 year old PC !! Now it was slow on the 9-year old PC. :slight_smile: … In essence the P8400 was the fastest, 2.5x to 3x faster than the Athlon-2800+ and 8x to 9x faster than the Athlon-1100+. The old Athlon-1100+ could not play the raw mts file (with ffplay software) without stuttering. Both the Athlon-2800 and P8400 could play the raw mts file with ffplay software, but the audio from the raw file did not very good with the Athlon-2800, but it was ok with the P8400. After rendering, all 3 PCs had no problem playing the rendered file (both audio and video).

There is an ffmpeg svn update available, that may improve the above (I need to install it yet) so the situation may be better than the above, but the above is already not so bad.

I am planning on the purchase of an Intel Core i7 based PC. I suspect it will be 2x to 2.5x faster than the Intel Dual Core P8400.

I note that neither the Athlon-2800 nor 1100 (when running MS-Windows) will install the MS-Windows NLE (such as those from Ulead, Premier … ) as their processor is too slow for those MS-Windows NLE apps. BUT they do work with the openSUSE Linux KDEnlive application (which is based on ffmpeg). However a note of caution, despite the great development work going on with KDEnlive, it still does not have the features (such as the very large and variety of selected of transitions) that the MS-Windows NLE have.

One surprise was the very popular mplayer (which provides mencoder) could not not handle the .mts format. mplayer has handled other AVCHD formats, but it would not handle the latest Sony version.

19

Further to this, I noted this page on the kdenlive site, where they list their estimated compatibility with various camcorders on the market: Supported camcorders | Kdenlive

Its interesting they list the Canon HF 11 as “unsupported yet” although my testing with an HF 11 raw mts file indicated I can render the files with kdenlive (although playback of the raw mts file with ffplay did not work well on any of my PCs).

20

Just a short note to finish this thread.

I ended up purchasing a Canon HF S10. This is an AVCHD camcorder capable of very high bitrate/resolution videos. The videos are recorded on to 32 GB of internal camcorder storage, or alternatively to a class 6 32-GB SD card I purchased. I’m still learning about the camcorder (I suspect I will be learning for some time to come about how to use this camcorder).

I took some videos and images, and I downloaded the couple raw .mts clips to my new Intel Core i7 running openSUSE-11.1 with KDE-3.5.10. They play back with no problems on various players (vlc, mplayer, ffplay) although with mplayer I had to specify the PAL frame rate (with the -fps 25 option). xine can not handle the video format (yet).

I copied the images and video to my PC using the USB interface. For the camcorder’s still images, I plugged the cable in, turned on the camcorder, selected the “photo mode” , switched the camcorder to the appropriate data transfer mode, selected the computer interface, at which time digikam popped up on my PC. I transfered the still photos using digikam.

For the camcorder’s videos, I instead selected the video mode (after first unconnecting and reconnecting the usb cable), switched the camcorder to the appropriate data transfer mode, selected the computer interface, at which time I obtained some popups (one for digikam, which to my knowledge does not work for these videos) and some for konqueror. With konqueror I could open (using the USB PTP Class Camera interface) and browse the camera’s SD card (and internal memory). I then downloaded the video clips.

I also copied the .mts video file to my old 32-bit athlon-2800, which has a PCI (note PCI-e) nVidia 8400 GS card. It could play the .mts files with mplayer with not problem (using vdpau technology).

On my Intel core i7, I was able to drag and drop the files into kdenlive. But the editing was not satisfactory for a number of reasons (none of which was speed, as the Intel core i7 is fast). I did open the files with avidemux, and was able to convert them to different formats from avidemux (such as an mpeg or xvid or different h.264 format encoding). These avidmux produced versions work well with kdenlive.

So while all is not perfect, its looking fairly good.