I believe I was finally able to find software that can edit my AVCHD movies from my Sony HDR-SR1 camcorder-Pinnacle Studio 11 Plus. I was able to download the m2ts files on my hard drive via a USB, then use the directory structure to navigate to the files & finally insert them into my video timeline. However, whenever I tried to preview the files, they tend to slow down & get very jagged, keep on freezing, although not completely. The sound & the vidoe jumps and when i stop & restart it starts playing well again...for about 3-5 seconds. Then it starts jumping again...It almost seems like my PC is not able to handle it, or its just not working well...So, is there a fix? What should the min PC specs be for using AVCHD & Pinnacle Studio? Its a recent dual core, 2GB memory running vista 32...Please help...even thought the software seems to work, it just does not allow me to do things that i want!

...don't know. But my dual core with 2GB of ram runs it just fine. I'm running XP, so may be Vista is the issue.

I have been editing AVCHD footage from a Panasonic SD5 using a Pentium quad core and 4 Gb RAM with Vista and Pinnacle Studio 11. It works fine but the preview is somtimes jerky and out of sync with audio. I have made the same SD DVD with Nero 8 and have found the preview is very smooth. Perhaps the Nero codec is more efficient than the Pinnacle. Both programs handled a mix of AVCHD wide screen and standard video 4:3 very well even though the Pinnacle manual did not recommend this. Using a 2 pass rendering setting with Nero, the result was sharper than with the Pinnacle - there doesn't appear to be a 2 pass option. I was used to Pinnacle 8 and find the interface more intuitive than Nero. Adjusting volume changes within clips is not possible in Nero, so you have to divide a clip to do this. But Nero does plays the raw AVCHD clips. I'm hoping that Nero will allow me to copy back the edited movie in HD to the SD card so I can see it in HD via the camcorder (on loan to my son in Australia at the moment!)

sergv,

Pinnacle Studio 11+ has the highest system requirements for AVCHD editing than any other software on the market. I'm not saying it's bad or anything. It's just that you need a lot of processing power to run it properly when it comes to editing AVCHD. Here is a cut from the Pinnacle website regarding system requirements for AVCHD editing;

With Windows Vista, you have to be right on the top of all those requirements. Also, you need to have the "Ultimate" edition if you want to be able to retain your Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound that the SR1 records in.

If your editing needs aren't real high, you might be able to get away with using Nero 8 Ultra Edition for editing and outputing AVCHD to DVD. It covers most needs of the "Home Movie" editor, and it has the lowest system requirements of any of the AVCHD editors on the market. It's also one of the very few editors that actually outputs AVCHD to DVD's. It will also output to Blu-ray and HD DVD burners as well if you have one. Here is a cut from the Nero website;

While it's not the most complete editor out there, it does allow you to do things like create Menu pages with thumbnails that are totally customizable, and add titles with motion if you like to your video footage. You can also add many different kinds of transitions between scenes and add music or narration. You can add stills and create a slide show too. For me, it's all the editor I need. Maybe for you too. It works very smoothly on my Centrino Duo 1.66GHZ laptop with 2gigs or RAM running Windows XP. And the best thing is I found out it's on sale right now until the 25th! Here is another cut from Nero's website;

I'm sorry I'm posting this on a Pinnacle forum. I just hate to see someone suffer needlessly when there may be something better suited for there needs out there. Please accept my apologies.

__________________
Ernie
Sony HDR-SR1 AVCHD HDD User

So how are your PSU 11 experiences now with the latest patches?

No, thank you. I think your input is very appropriate to the Pinnacle forum.

I wasn't very wise in my purchasing, as I reacted to requirements instead of planning for them. I bought my Panasonic HDC-SD5 which I'm very happy with but hadn't given any thought whatsoever to hardware requirements to edit avchd.

I'm not unhappy with the ~$80 I paid for Pinnacle Studio 11, however, I bought it without taking a hard look at system requirements as I figured that Dell XPS m1210 with dual core 2.0ghz processor, Intel GMA 950 graphics chipset, and 4gb of RAM would be satisfactory. I have Vista Ultimate as well.

From what I can gather, my Studio software is giving me problems either due to inadequate processor speed or graphics card speed.

Thank you for the results of your comparison. I will give some serious research and consideration to Nero 8 Ultra.

I was having preview and rendering problems in Pinnacle running 1920x1080 AVCHD files. The preview video would freeze or only play sound. Sometimes it would just go black altogether.

I'm running a 3.0GHz AMD Dual-Core with 3GB RAM. It had an onboard NVIDIA card that was sharing 256MB of that RAM, so I put in a GeForce 8800 GT Overclocked with 512MB DDR3. It now runs the previews for approximately 1 minute before the video starts lagging behind the audio and gets jagged. If you stop it and restart it, it picks back up ok.

It's still not perfect, but at least now it's functional because I can actually see where I'm clipping the scenes. However, considering that it took 34 minutes to render 1 minute of AVCHD 1920x1080 footage to a 1920x1080 60i WMV file last night, I may take back the graphics card and stick with standard definition for a few more months. Editing the AVCHD is just far too time-consuming to be profitable.

After $71, I am now experimenting with Nero 8 Ultra although I still see Pinnacle Studio 11 as a challenge and won't stop toying with it until it works or I'm certain that it won't.

I'm now thinking about overclocking my CPU. It seems as though it either isn't possible for me to upgrade or tinker with my graphics card (Dell XPS m1210 laptop), but I am persistent and if there is a way, I will find it.

I don't like to waste money and it seems as though Studio 11 is of equal value to the Nero Ultra, but it looks like Studio is more robust and definitely has way more options for expansion (with plug-ins.) However, if the capabilities of my laptop are finite and I am unable to get Studio to work, that's just a shame.

My desktop is only 1.8ghz (an old Dell Optiplex 270 that I got at my school's surplus store) but it might become an option if I am able to upgrade it's processor without too much fuss.

After a couple weeks of trying various things to get Pinnacle working smoothly, I finally broke down and built a new machine because I plan to be doing a lot of editing with AVCHD.

I ended up putting together an Intel Quad-Core 2.4GHz with 2GB DDR3 RAM and an EVGA Nvideo GeForce 8800GT graphics card with 1GB DDR3 onboard.

I was worried I wouldn't have enough RAM, but the DDR3 really seems to be a step up over the DDR2. Plus, Windows XP/Vista 32 can't recognize more than 3GB of RAM anyway. (I don't know if the 64 version of the OS would make things run faster or not. I haven't tried it, and I didn't want to spend money on a new OS.)

The preview and video in Pinnacle Studio 11 run smooth as silk. It's amazing. Rendering is about twice as fast as it was on my 3GHz Dual-Core with 3GB DDR2 RAM.

I haven't loaded any clips up with tons of transitions and effects yet to see just how much the machine can handle, but I just got the machine running last night, so hopefully I'll get to play with it more this week.

Here's a question for you other Pinnacle users, when you render video out for YouTube, what format do you use?

I get the most compression with WMV, but it makes it almost unwatchable. I tried a small AVI, but in YouTube it only played the audio, no video. Any suggestions?