Apple Mac PRO Now Supports Panasonic AVCHD Format
After months of waiting, users of those tiny new AVCHD high-definition camcorders from Sony and Panasonic now have a reliable and robust post-production option for Apple’s Mac platform.
Apple has released an update to Final Cut Pro (version 6.0.1) that transcodes AVCHD video for use in FCP. The company’s new version ingests AVCHD in Final Cut’s Log and Transfer window as either Apple ProRes 422 or Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC).
There are, however, some tradeoffs. Although AVCHD camcorders may be tiny, the files created after transcoding are not. Because AVCHD has a much higher compression ratio than its ProRes 422 codec, the ingested files are significantly larger than the original files.
How much bigger? How about ten times! Apple said a two-minute native AVCHD file takes up about 200 MB of space. After transcoding to the Apple ProRes 422 codec, the file size can be as large as 2 GB. Since FCP does not estimate the size of a transcoded AVCHD file before ingesting, it is entirely possible to exceed the available space on your capture disk during transfer.
Another new option for Mac users is Voltaic, a $30 standalone application that converts AVCHD clips to a QuickTime-formatted movie using AIC. Converted files can be edited in both Final Cut or iMovie HD. Output files are four times the size of the ingested file.
One caveat is that Voltaic, in version 1.0, can only handle file sizes up to 500 MB, which means clips are limited to five minutes in duration at the highest quality.
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