Video Card for AVCHD editing

January 26, 2009 6:16 AM

Would a video/graphics card allow me to be able to edit my avchd (.mts) files from my new Canon HF100 camcorder?

When I try to play my files, a lot of frames get skipped. They play at about 2 frames per second, skipping all the rest. Nor can I edit.

Worse: the Canon ImageMaker 3 software that came with the camera has the option of burning straight from the camera to a DVD, but when I try this option the application goes into "not responding" mode.

My rig is Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, 4GB ram, no video card. But the ImageMaker 3 software says you can burn to a DVD with a Pentium 4 1.49 Ghz, 512GB ram, and sound card compatible with DirectSound. So maybe I just need a cheap sound card to be able to do that.

To play or edit, you need at least a Pentium D 3.0 Ghz cpu or an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz cpu, and a sound card compatible with DirectSound. A cheap sound card would meet the sound standard. But what about my having a Pentium 4 instead of a Pentium D? Do I need a better cpu, or can I make up for the deficiency by getting the right video card? I'm poor. Might this $26 card do the trick?

Here are the specs:
Model
Brand GIGABYTE
Model GV-R435OC-512I
Form Factor Low Profile
Interface
Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer ATI
GPU Radeon HD 4350
Core clock 650MHz
Stream Processors 80 Stream Processing Units
Memory
Memory Clock 800MHz
Memory Size 512MB
Memory Interface 64-bit
Memory Type GDDR2
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10.1
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0
Ports
HDMI 1
D-SUB 1
DVI 1
General
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
Cooler With Fan
Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
HDCP Ready Yes
Packaging
Package Contents GV-R435OC-512I
Driver Disk
User's Manual
L-P Bracket

posted by Eiwalker to computers & internet (3 comments total)

The problem here isn't so much your video card; as your computer. Editing high bandwidth video files on an older P4 isn't going to work out so well. A Pentium 4D is a dual core CPU, while the Pentium 4 isnt. Thats roughly a 50% performance hit.

Invest in a newer E8400 level machine (Dual Core, 3ghz -- but much faster overall) and you will have a much nicer time editing videos.
posted by SirStan at 8:57 AM on January 26

I agree that it is the computer, not the video card, but I'd figure I'd also mention that if you have a Pentium 4 machine, it is unlikely that your machine can use a PCI Expresss 2.0 x16 graphics card. PCI Express 2.0 was only first available late 2007.

I have the same camcorder and the format it records to, AVCHD, is particularly difficult for computers to edit because of its compression. You really will need at least a dual core machine to edit it. You may also want to find different software, because the Canon ImageMaker software is pretty terrible. You can see here which software can handle AVCHD.
posted by miscbuff at 1:59 PM on January 26

Thanks for the very helpful responses! But what about burning straight to a DVD without editing or playing back on my computer. ImageMaker specs say that I can do this with a Pentium 4 1.49 Ghz, 512GB ram, and sound card compatible with DirectSound.
posted by Eiwalker at 5:22 AM on January 27