ZS3 newbie - three questions

Hi,

Just got a ZS3. Two questions:

1) I installed the software that came with the camera, but I don't see why I would use it. Any uses for it, or should I uninstall?

2) Videos: Any drawbacks to using MOV, besides different format/size? Is the captured sound quality any different, for example, does AVCHD lite use greater bit rate and/or Dolby (I noticed the Dolby logo on the box), but MOV use a lower-quality sound encoding or is MOV sound the same as AVCHD sound?

The second question above relates to how I download pics/videos onto my computer using Windows. I like being able to specify a Tag/description for a photo session, and have all pictures and videos given that tag/name, preserving the order I took the pics/videos in. That way I can tell approx what time the video was taken, by comparing the EXIF data from photos adjacent to the videos. MOV videos are renamed correctly within the sequence of photos, so the shooting order is preserved. But after using the camera on my one and only outing using AVCHD, I noticed that AVCHD videos are not downloaded or renamed with the tag/description I used for the photos. I had to either copy the video files directly from the camera, or use the panasonic software to download the files along with a bunch of other (junk?) files. So that's a drawback for me using AVCHD lite, because I can't tell where the videos fit into the sequence of photos, unless I use MOV.

So the answer to 2) above could make this question moot, but if the quality of MOV is lower, I want to shoot in AVCHD, but is there a solution for shooting in AVCHD, and still being able to easily download everything from the camera in one action and have all the pics/videos given the same name, while preserving the sequence the pics/videos were shot in?

I want to figure out a shooting/naming system now, before I launch into additional uses of this camera. I don't want to use MOV for the sake of convenient naming/downloading, and later find out that the audio quality could have been better had I used AVCHD and put up with the added difficulty of naming and manually downloading/renaming the videos separately from the pics.

Thanks, sorry for the long-windedness.

I have spent some time comparing the video quality of the two modes, and find no meaningful difference on a large HDTV. I haven't done any serious comparisons of the audio, but in practice they also seem equally good. The only significant differences seem to be the ease of use of MJPEG versus compactness of AVCHD. Given the acceptable price of SD cards, the latter matters little to me. MJPEG is generally easy to edit, whereas AVCHD is not. I particularly like being able to trim and join segments in Quicktime Pro without having to render.

Ok you've saved me the work of testing the visual quality, so I'll check into verifying the audio in MOV vs AVCHD.

I was wondering how to compare the audio by analyzing the MOV file and the AVCHD file - maybe a video recoding utility will identify the bit rate for the MOV file, but I don't think my recoding utility will handle AVCHD.

I'll also try to come up with a series of tests using voice/music/television sounds in the background so I can listen to the resulting audio quality and post the results, although it won't be scientific because I'll be using my ears for that part.

I agree with you on not having to worry about filling up the memory so MOV is OK with its big file sizes, as I plan to get a 16 or 32 GB card and don't need to record long continuous segments (I like to take several separate "scenes" using video, avoiding a long continuous shoot with excessive zoom changes etc. I want a longer video, I can always edit the scenes together. But MOV caps each recording to 2 GB, unlike AVCHD).

But I hate to think that MOV might be sacrificing sound quality compared to AVCHD. As I mentioned before, the packaging box for the ZS3 camera carries the dolby logo, but I can't tell if that applies only to AVCHD.

I was a bit peeved that the marketing on the presentation boxes at Costco for this camera tout "60fps video recording" when I later discovered that each second frame is the same as the first. Of course I'm glad to have the zoom, the zoom range, etc etc and t the CHOICE of the movie modes but advertising the 60fps is kind of misleading although not lying.

Real 60fps would result in camcorder-like smoothness of motion.

Just to add a couple of points about the 60fps.

1. If you live in England or Australia you get 50fps which ends up 25 individual frames/sec. This is because England and Australia work on PAL not NTSC

2. Be aware some advertising shows 60fps when speaking about 60 fields per second interlaced video which if you are lucky will mean 30fps progressive.
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I got the following audio info from MediaCoder, but I'm not sure if it difinitively answers the question. AVCHD appears to have a lower bit rate, but higher sampling rate. I guess the bit rate is lower for AVCHD because AC-3 is compressed, unlike PCM? So I can ignore that, and focus on the sampling rate which shows AVCHD has triple the sampling rate of MOV?

AVCHD lite:
Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 12s 512ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 293 KiB (1%)

MOV:
Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : twos
Duration : 12s 500ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 512 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 16.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 781 KiB (2%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2009-12-06 23:09:14
Tagged date : UTC 2009-12-06 23:09:14

According to Harry Nyquist, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem )

in MOV mode you'll only record sounds up to around 8kHz, somewhere between AM and FM radio quality.

AVCHD Lite mode will give you full HiFi quality, but it's up to you to see if you're that bothered by the difference.

The more senior of us have lost so much of the high frequency range that they may not notice any difference no matter how hard they try, unfortunately. One of the joys of getting older and wiser
Your younger audiences will probably tell the difference easily.
--

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I haven't installed my FZ38's software, I don't see any need for it. I simply pop the memory card into a USB card reader and drag-n-drop the files over by hand. I make a new folder for each day's shooting, or maybe 2 or 3 for different events/topics.

The AVCHD Lite files have to be found in their own folder structure, but they have date/time stamps on the folder listing, so it's easy enough to find the relevant new clips and copy them into the same folders as the photos for that day.
--

Canon A-eighty since 2004 (13,000 shots), Pan.FZ.eighteen (5,000 shots and counting) & Pan.FZ.thirty-eight (29aug09)

The AVCHD format and the .MOV format serve two different purposes. I specifically bought the Panasonic brand over the others because of the AVCHD option. AVCHD is what you want to use if your goal is burning to disc and playing back your HD videos from that disc on your HDTV. If your interest is only to play your videos on a computer and upload to YouTube then the .MOV format is best. Panasonic is the only brand I know of that gives you the choice of both.

AVCHD can be easily burned to standard DVD's and then played back through a PS3 or BDP (Blu-ray Disc Player) onto your HDTV via an HDMI cable. BDP's have gotten so cheap now there is really no reason not to own one, especially if you have an AVCHD enabled camera. They can be had for around $140.00 and sometimes as little as $100.00 if you catch the sales right. Just be sure it supports AVCHD. The best way is to just try it yourself with one of your AVCHD DVD's that you recorded. Only the Panasonic and Sony BDP's will say on the box that they support AVCHD, but just about all other late model BDP's will play AVCHD as well. They just don't say it on the box.

If you were to try to make a disc that you can play in HD on your HDTV with the .MOV format, you would have to convert the file to a Blu-ray format (hours of rendering) and then burn it to an expensive BD (Blu-ray Disc - $15-20.00) using a spendy Blu-ray Disc Burner (BDB). And you will still need the BDP to play it on because you need an HD player to play HD content. With AVCHD you simply burn the files using the software that came with the camera to a .50 cent DVD and pop it into your AVCHD capable BDP and you're watching your home movies in beautiful HD on your HDTV. I can burn 30 min of AVCHD video to a DVD in about 20 min with my computer. Far far quicker than converting a .MOV file to a format that the BDP can play. And the quality difference is like night and day compared to what you see on your computer. If you have a home theater, the Digital Dolby Stereo sound the ZS3 creates on the AVCHD files will be decoded and sounds beautiful when played back. That sound is not available on the .MOV files.

Then there's the size issue. If size matters, and it should. these files add up quickly. The size of the AVCHD file is much smaller than the .MOV files. I did a little experiment with my ZS3. I recorded two 5 min videos using the AVCHD format and the .MOV format both at the highest qualities. The AVCHD file was 541mb in size. The .MOV file was a whopping 1000mb in size. That's nearly double the size of the AVCHD file.

Then there's the difference in how long you can shoot your video non stop. There are no limitations as to how long you can shoot AVCHD other than the size of your card and the length of time your battery will allow. The battery that comes with the ZS3 will allow about 56 min of non stop shooting before running out (no zooming used). When shooting in MOV HD mode, you're only allowed 8:20 sec of shooting before the camera stops.

These are the issues you should be considering when trying to decide between using AVCHD or MOV HD mode when shooting your videos. Not which one sounds better.
--
Ernie

I appreciate all your comments, good stuff to think about.

How do you download and rename your AVCHD videos when downloading the rest of your pictures from a shotting session? So far, I use the windows autoplay to tag/name and download the pics, but it doesn't recognize the AVCHD files. So I have been manually copying and renaming the AVCHD videos, but I was hoping to find a utility that can automatically use the same tag/name for the AVCHD videos as the pictures when I am downloading the shooting session/pictures - I want to grab everything at the same time without any manual fiddling around. MOV files are automatically grabbed and renamed along with the rest of the pics.

MOV videos will get recognized/downloaded/renamed in the session with correct numbering using the windows utility, but not AVCHD. So my issue is that while I don't have to recode AVCHD, it's still quite an annoyance to manually have to go in and copy/rename the AVCHD video files anyway.

So I'm stuck choosing between 1) having to figure out each AVCHD video's position in the shooting session and then manually copying and renaming the AVCHD files, or 2) getting the benefit of automatic renaming/copying by the Windows utility using MOV files, but manually recoding the MOV video into MP4 for manageable archiving filesizes.

Because I am going to get a big SD card and I already shoot short video "scenes" without using really long continuous shots, the MOV 2 GB limit is not a factor for me. And because I would recode the MOV anyway, the large MOV filesize is also not an issue for me. So then it comes down to the differences in the underlying quality of the resulting videos. If MOV has a lower audio quality, then yes, that is very important to know because why throw away audio quality?

Another consideration regarding filesize is that, for a given video/audio quality level, AVCHD produces a larger filesize than an MOV file that has been recoded into MP4 using h.264 and AAC. So actually, for me to use AVCHD will save space on the memory card (which doesn't matter to me), while actually causing me to use more archival storage space, than if I use MOV that are recoded to MP4. I would like to not worry about having to recode any MOV files, but since I have to sit there and babysit the copying/renaming of the AVCHD files anyway, why not use MOV and manually recode - I would spend about the same amount of time doing the work, although the recoding would take some time to do (and illustrates how it's possible to beat the filesize/quality of AVCHD, by harnessing a more powerful CPU and time-consuming codecs in non-realtime after the video is already recorded).

Bottom line is that I want to avoid throwing away information. MOV involves throwing away some audio quality compared to AVCHD. Even though you can always recode video after the fact in post-processing to save archival space (as video quality looks about the same between the two formats), you shouldn't throw away audio quality by using MOV with its lower sampling rate. I think the low sampling rate is fine for capturing audio frequencies that matter for recording speech, but I also want to capture the sound of the ambiance/background - I mean that's why I got the stereo capture anyway, to better immerse the viewer in the audio soundscape of when the video was captured. I like to hear all the little details that get lost when you use a low sampling bit rate.

Just a couple of points

Pictures and AVCHD files will never be in the same folder on the card, so you wont be able to grab them all together. This being said you could create a small batch file that automates the process for you.

Once you drag and drop the pictures and the AVCHD files (.mts), into a folder on the PC, if you sort the files by creation date before renaming them, they should automatically put the AVCHD files at their proper place in the list, so when you rename them they should have the proper sequence number.

AVCHD encoding is using h264 encoding which is the most efficient compression today (size versus quality) (together with wmv VC1). So if when you convert your mov files to mp4 they end up being smaller, it is because the compression setting you use is higher, and therefore you are loosing quality compared to the AVCHD files. The difference may not be visually significant but be sure it is there.

You can use AVCHD lower quality setting (smaller bit rate, more compressed) and compare their size and quality to what you are using for mov conversion.

So I would definitely stay with AVCH for quality and size (eventually using a lower bit rate), and just automate the transfer process.

KingFatty,

I believe in keeping things simple so I just use the software that came with the camera for downloading the files to the computer and creating and burning AVCHD DVD's. If you install the PhotofunStudio software that was included with your ZS3, the next time you insert your memory card into the card reader on your computer the "Acquire" window will automatically open and all of your JPEG, MOV, and AVCHD files can be download to the folder of your choice in the proper manor. The PhotofunStudio program isn't very full featured, but it is a great starting point. You can always use different software for more advanced editing if you like.

I prefer using the AVCHD format over the MOV format because my main goal is to burn my movies to DVD's and play them on my BDP through my entertainment system. My receiver has a built in Dolby Digital system that decodes the Dolby Digital Stereo audio track so it sounds great. My other AVCHD camcorder, a Sony HDR-SR1 records audio in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, so it sounds even better when decoded by the receiver.

I don't play my movies much on the computer and I'm not much for uploading movies to the Internet, so I don't really use the MOV format myself. I also don't do much in the way of file conversion other than to convert some of my AVCHD files to SD MPEG files so they can play on standard def DVD players for friends and family. I just use the software that came with the camcorder for that too. I find it very simple and quick to use. But I really prefer to just keep my AVCHD files in their native format and play them in the BDP. They look and sound so much better that way.
--
Ernie

The software that came with the camera changed the MTS files to M2TS - what is the difference?

Also, the software doesn't seem to change the name of the video files to the ones of the pictures - are you able to download the videos together with the pics, or do you do it separately?

I'm not really sure exactly what the difference is between the mts and the m2ts files, but I know the m2ts files won't play in my Sony AVCHD camcorder if I try to drag them back into it. And the files that end up on the DVD's I burn are of the m2ts variety. Some say there is no difference except for the extension and that you can just change it yourself and accomplish the same thing. I don't know for sure, but I know I seem to have a lot less trouble than other people do by just using the proprietary software that came with the camera and just letting it do it's thing.

When you insert your SD card into the card reader the PHOTOfunSTUDIO software will open and the Acquire window will come up. All of the photo's and videos should come up in the window with a check mark in the box next to them. Select a drive with a good amount of room on it to acquire to since the files will add up quick. I select "Sort by day of recording" but you might prefer "Sort by specified folder name" instead. You can add a description in the keyword line as well to aid with finding files in the future too if you like. Then just hit OK and let it run it's course. With the "Sort by day of recording" method I use, the jpegs as well as any mov files I have end up in folders listed in a month, day, year format, ie - 12112009 (12/11/2009). Any AVCHD files end up in a different folder listed in a year, month, day format, ie - 20091211 (2009/12/11) I tried the "Sort by specified folder name" option to see what would happen, and it created a folder in the name I specified, but only put the AVCHD file in it. The jpegs and the mov file ended up in a folder that corresponded to the date the files were made. You can however change the name of the folder after the fact if you want in PHOTOfunSTUDIO (PfS herein) by opening the Explorer pane on the left and renaming the folder. I would be sure to do that within the PfS program to make sure it gets registered properly. You'll just have to experiment and see what works for you.

I highly recommend downloading all your photo's and videos this way. It is very important that the AVCHD files get filed correctly. AVCHD files are very different from jpegs and mov files because they are in some kind of a "container" structure and are comprised of many different files that you don't even normally see. After you download your files using PfS, open Windows Explorer and look at the file structure of the AVCHD files contained in the folder. You will see that there are .modd, .moff, .cont, .iis, and .tmb files all associated with the individual .m2ts files. It is not recommended to rename AVCHD files because of this. In fact, you will see a warning every time you acquire AVCHD files to PfS that says;

"Do not change the names of the imported AVCHD Lite-related movie files of folders.
Movie operations may not work correctly if the names are changed.

Movie-related files (.cont, .m2ts, .tmb, .iis)"

I know you mentioned renaming your AVCHD files. I don't know how much damage you've already done, But I wouldn't do it anymore. Instead, just name the folder they're in. Not the files themselves.

If you want to use third party editing software such as Vegas 9 Premiere or Nero 9UE, both excellent AVCHD editors, I would recommend that you just acquire the files directly from the folder PfS put them in and use the "Save As" command from the program to rename your project to whatever. But NEVER change anything about the original files themselves. I think you'll find your AVCHD file editing and burning will go much smoother if you follow these recommendations.

I have been working with AVCHD since it first came out in 2006. I have learned these things the hard way through much trial and error.

--
Ernie

Actually, the .mts file is all you really need as far being able to play the video. The other files are part of the AVCHD file structure, and are only used for an enhanced manipulation of the file. Some program like Photofun Studio will require it, and if you want to put the files on a DVD to play them in a Blu-Ray player, you would also need that complete file structure. You would also need them if you wanted to put the files back into the camera to view them from there

This being said the file structure can be recreated at any time from the main .mts video file. Software that create DVDs will usually do that when you want to write the file onto the DVD, and there also are some utilities, lite TSMuxer, that will recreate the file structure for you. You just give them a list of mts files, and it renames them and creates the folders and files necessary so you can put them on a DVD for Blu ray playback.

So you can preserve the full AVCHD file structure if you like and dont mind the restrictions and multiple files/folders that comes with it, but if you just need the Video files to view on your PC or even put them on DVD, and want to archive them with proper names like I do, you can also just take the mts files, and rename them to whatever you like. The AVCHD file structure can be generated at the time you need to put the on DVDs.

See here for more details on the AVCHD structure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

Kingfatty started this post by saying he just pops the chip into his USB reader and loads it to a folder and renames it and then it loads to his software. He did not mention what software that was, nor what system OS his is using. This would really help me.

The only software I have is what came with my FZ35 which is PhotofunStudio. I used the built in function to upload the first 2 video's I shot and burned them to a DVD+RW. On my third video it all loaded and played OK, but it would not burn. The software would get ready to burn, examine the DVD and initialize it OK, then after running for 40+ seconds it would kick the DVD out with error= 0x87600030 0x80004005. No mater what I do or what kind of DVD I use, on 3 different computers, 2 with Xp and 1 with Vista, they all kick out the DVD. Today I tried a DVD-RW becuase Panasonic said that would work.

I've searched everywhere and tried Live Movie Maker and all kinds of new codec but nothing works. Live MM is supposed to support m2Ts file and it says it does but it will load the file but there is no video, only audio.

I've searched the web for Converters and tried three and all have failed. The panasonic software really sucks. Once you load any video in AVCHD the only thing you can do is burn it to a DVD in standard format. While it will see my Universal NEC DVD writer, since I'm on Windows Xp it can use either DVD-R or DVD+R, only RW media. It can't just save the VOB or image to a hard disk. How stupid is that. What good is that.

I desperatlely need help as I shot a 30+min HD video with my new Camera of the Last Performance of the year of the Women's Christmas Chorus, and if I can get that video out I'm dead meat.

Download a trial of Cyberlinks PowerDirector 8 it handles the videos fine. At least that will get you out of the bad books with the ladies.

Google will find you the link.

Cheers

Robert
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Looks like I need to upgrade to Windows 7, which supposedly supports AVCHD natively.

Windows 7 therefore should enable typical programs, used for acquiring pics/vids off the camera/memory card, to recognize the extra folder where the AVCHD videos are located, when acquiring pics off the camera/memory card. That way, the AVCHD videos will be included in the single step where you provide the name/tags for the contents of a shooting session (camera or SDHC card), such that the name/tags are applied to the AVCHD videos along with the rest of the pics.

I have no support for this except for another thread on here somewhere, but the writer seemed to have first-hand experience so I'm going to install Windows 7 and see how it works for the ZS3 mts files.

trigger1937 said:

No mater what I do or what kind of DVD I use, on 3 different computers, 2 with Xp and 1 with Vista, they all kick out the DVD. Today I tried a DVD-RW becuase Panasonic said that would work.

Click to expand...

trigger1937 said:

I've searched the web for Converters and tried three and all have failed. The panasonic software really sucks. Once you load any video in AVCHD the only thing you can do is burn it to a DVD in standard format. While it will see my Universal NEC DVD writer, since I'm on Windows Xp it can use either DVD-R or DVD+R, only RW media.

Click to expand...

Wow, three computers?. Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble. I guess I'm fortunate because the PHOTOfunSTUDIO program works fine on my HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop running XP 32bit. I don't have any trouble burning AVCHD video to DVD+R's and playing them in HD on my Blu-ray Disc Player.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that AVCHD doesn't seem to be as compatible with computers running AMD chips for some reason. Mine has a Intel Celeron Core2Duo 1.66GHz with 2GB RAM that seems to work fine.

Another thing to check is that you have the latest firmware in your Blu-ray Disc Player. I know several people who's AVCHD playing problems were solved by simply updating their firmware.

Another software program to check out that does AVCHD well is Nero 8 or 9UE. Sony's Vegas Platimun Pro 9 works well too.

--
Ernie

can AVCHD movie files be edited in Adobe preier Elemnts? are they supported?

i know the .MOV files can ...

thanks ..
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