Video Testing

It occurred to me that if we are to have an awesome video camera, that we need to make sure we have enough power to edit it on the road.... unlike the technical disaster that was the 'Car PC'. It didn't have enough power to play 720p videos let alone edit and render them.

I've downloaded some AVCHD clips and intend to manipulate them together to make sure the laptop is fast enough. Most high end Panasonic & Sony camcorders record in AVCHD (After all, the format was developed by both of these players in partnership).

You might wonder why I suspect it'll be an issue, well, its a lot more data...

Click on this diagram to see a graphical representation of how much more data there is in 1080p as compared to even 480p broadcast footage.

From some rough numbers, the difference in data between 480p (Digital TV) and 1080p is roughly 7 times more data. This has flow on effects in the ability to store, process, render and upload 7 times more data.

I've been trying out numerous editing packages on the laptop to make sure they are quick enough. I'm glad I did:
-Adobe premier 8 was unable to work with AVCHD footage fast enough to be useful.
-Adobe Premier 9 was nice and fast until another layer was introduced, rendering it unusable.
-Windows Live Movie maker was flawless, working super fast in every scenario. It's a bit basic, but may suffice for our 'on the road' editing. It covers 90% of what most people would want to do with footage.
-Sony Vegas 10 was also awesome, not having any issues whatsoever. The odd thing is that I get hopeless performance on the desktop at home which should have more than double the power.

I think when we're actually travelling, our attitude towards compiling video may be very different.
Hardly anyone has the bandwidth to stream full HD video, and of the select few that do, hardly any of those will choose to watch in HD. I suspect we will capture all our video in full HD, but only upload regular SD quality. I imagine the availability of fast broadband in our destinations will severely limit our ability to upload large high quality videos anyway. And as you've read in previous posts, even a single photograph will take minutes to upload on the sat phone, so video is out of the question all together.

The hidden advantage of not publishing HD footage, is that when we show the good footage to family and friends, it will take on a whole new level of realism, resulting in a totally new experience.



I've provided a video which is completely boring, but gives you the opportunity to view it in standard 360p, all the way up to 1080p by clicking on the '360p' at the bottom of the video.