1. First, I take the memory disk out of my SD1 and insert it into the card reader built into my PC. I then drag the files into a folder on my media drive, in my case a separate 500gig unit.
2. I open Pinnacle Studio 11, an NLE that can be purchased for around a hundred bucks.
3. Once Pinnacle is opened, using the Folder icon, I browse through my drives until I locate the folder that contains the files I just copied to my media drive. When I open them up, thumbnails appear on screen. I drag each thumbnail into my timeline. I don’t do any editing at all in Pinnacle.
4. Once all the files I need to “convert” are in the timeline, I select the tab labeled “Make Movie”. You have plenty of options for your render. You can render down to a standard DVD resolution, but my interests lie in HD.
5. Once I choose to “Make Movie”, I press the green button labeled “Settings”. Now, when the settings menu pops up, under “File Type”, I choose MPEG-2 and under “Preset” I choose HD 1080i. Then I click “OK”.
6. Located next to the “Settings” button is a button labeled “Create File”. I press that button and the usual “save file as” box pops up. I find a location to save the file to, usually on my media drive in the same folder as the original AVCHD files from my camera.
Voila. Your project will render as a 1080 MPEG file that any NLE can open. Now I could certainly edit the AVCHD clips from my Panasonic in Pinnalce Studio 11, but it does not offer nearly as many features as the more robust Sony Vegas does.
Is this the best way to handle this particular issue? Probably not. I’ve seen other solutions and they all have their pros and cons. This is, however, a method I am comfortable with using until Sony adds support for other camera manufacturers, which I have to believe will happen sooner, rather than later.
