SONY's Delivering HDR-SR1 with NO SUPPORT FOR AVCHD!

I was very excited about this camera after reading the reviews, and purchased one. The lack of software support is incredibly frustrating. I've decided to be patient with the pro editing software dilemma, and have hopes that everything catches-up soon.

Here's an issue that I'm not going to be so patient about:

I attached an external mic to my brand new HDR-SR1 and immediately noticed a hissing noise coming through the headphones. When I hit record, the camera starts buzzing. The noise DOES record to the hard drive, and is apparent on playback. I have since tested other types of quality mics with the same outcome (dynamic & condenser).

The reviews that I've read praise the fact that the HDR-SR1 has an external mic input. This feature is one of the reasons that I bought this camera. It would be great if the audio recorded with an external mic was usable.

I have contacted Sony and am waiting for their response, but was wondering if anyone else is experiencing this problem.

Thanks!

seesync, I have the EXACT same problem as you. I've been searching a while for anyone else with the same problem. Haven't had much luck.

I'm curious if your camera has that "reversed stereo channels" problem when recording in HD. If you haven't heard about it, it's a whole batch of these SR1's that have the wrong firmware loaded on them (mine being one of them), that basically switches the left and right audio channels in HD. SD mode is fine, strangely.

Anyways, I did a little troubleshooting and discovered that this buzzing/hissing problem is much less noticeable in SD. I'm thinking the two problems might be related. So sony should be releasing an update to the firmware sometime this month, and I'm anxious to see if that fixes both problems.

Let me know if you find anything else.

After reading your post, I tried to recreate the issue. I tried using several types of microphones as well as a straight line-in from my computer. The buzz is present regardless.

Have you heard anything from Sony yet? I don't know how this could get through QA, if it is in fact a universal problem with the model...

I hooked the HRD-SR1 directly via HDMI into a 40" Sony XBR2 LCD (that I absolutely love) and noticed an annoying background whine on playback. Although it wasn't distracting to the others watching the video, it made me wonder what was going on. I haven't tried an external mic yet, but the exernal jack was one of the reasons I bought the camera. The picture is incredible and did not disappoint, especially in a nighttime stroll outdoors with Christmas lights for lighting - not using either of the nightshot features.

The information on editing is a bit disappointing. I bought the camera from a shop that sells to broadcast and other professoinals and the salesman is someone I know pretty well. He got a demo model before it was released to play with and was won over by the camera. AVCHD is a new format dubbed MPEG 4 according to this shop. I have Sony Vegas 7, and assumed it supported AVCHD, but guess I'll have to wait until spring. I've been told that files can be stored in HD on a computer hard drive without losing quality....

A couple of other points.... I bought the upgraded battery and it has been going about 4 1/2 hours and still has about an hour left on the charge. It's a bit bulky, but it's sure nice not having to worry about running out of juice. Second, (I didn't buy the camera for stills) the still camera feature has a bit to be desired especially at night. The redeye reduction doesn't work well and the flash is only adjustable to two levels... extremely bright and very bright... when you don't get redeye, the flash almost always reflects back from the eyes of the subject and washes out all color. Stills in daylight are good.

If there is a software fix for the background noise, I hope someone posts it here. I don't regret buying the camera and am glad I didn't get the Canon HV10 instead. I'd probably recommend to someone planning to buy it to wait a few months for the next generation and full HD software editing support. The camera software is fairly user friendly, simple and idiot proof for downloading to DVD. It lacks features, but makes creating DVD menus and scenes a breeze.

Two different divisions of Sony. Might as well be two different companies entirely. The Sony Media people that work on Vegas come from an American company that Sony bought out. The camcorder was developed in Japan. Chances are pretty good that the developers on Vegas found out about the camera a few months before it was released.

If you don't understand this then you probably just don't understand how corporations or software development works. You certainly don't know anything about how Japanese corporations work.

But let me repeat the obvious again. The camera in question is a consumer toy. It came with software to capture your footage to a PC. If you want to edit it with professional level software you'll have to wait for that software to be finished.

for AVCHD fomatted files. Period. Not from Sony, not from anywhere. You can, however opt to capture in standard definition (rather than the camera's advertised 1080i high definition) and edit that with lots of applications that can be installed personal computers regardless of operating system.

It did NOT come "with software to capture your footage to a PC". That's the issue. If the camera is set to its advertised 1080i format and the end-user transfers that AVCHD-encoded file to a PC, the lack of AVCHD support in any pc-based video-editing application does not allow any applications to do anything with the file. That you consider the camera a "consumer toy" is irrelevant.

That Sony does not support the capabilities of its own hardware is laughable regardless of how the software development organization came into being. After having been an IT manager in a previous life and currently working in an ~25,000 employee, global company, today, that makes software and hardware, I am fully aware of development cycles.

If we were to release hardware with no (or extremely limited) software to run it, or software with no (or extremely limited) hardware to run it - "but I *promise* it will follow in a few months, so trust me that running in an emasculated mode will be fine until that follow-on release [vaporware/chartware] finally appears", I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be selling much product.

But you are correct, I don't have a lot of insight to the way Japanese corporations work (just because my mom is Japanese does not mean I know how Japanese business works)... Frankly, this discussion is moot - I don't have the camera, so I really don't care... it just seemed oddly half-baked and I was feeling sorry for the poor people who spent $1,500+ to get a "consumer toy" that won't allow use of its main features until some ambiguously later time.

I can't find software to edit my movies - anywhere! I asked Sonny tech support about playback software - or how I can share movies with others.

Tech support at Sony was amazingly bad - they told me to get a video digitizer card for my laptop and search for some "3rd party software". Great. My Sony laptop (VGN-SZ260P) software click-to-DVD (requires 1394 interface) can't talk to my Sony camcorder HD-SR1 (which has USB2 only).

Perhaps Sony should outsource tech support to someone with knowlege about their products.

Sony says Spring, 2007.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/products/product.asp?PID=404&PageID=40

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD) hints that there may already be support from Canopus.

I've a technical question though. I've heard it stated that AVCHD is just another name for H.264. And Adobe Premiere Elements claims to support H.264. But as we're seeing, no one yet (with the possible exception of this unconfirmed Canupos thing) supports AVCHD.

What does that mean. Is AVCHD *not* synonymous with H.264?

thx.

are completely synonymous - But may be. I keep seeing "MPEG 4 AVC / H.264" - so perhaps a variant? And from what I can tell, just because an application can write out to AVCHD or "MPEG 4 AVC / H.264" apparenty does not mean it can read in for editing.

http://www.avchd-info.org/ has a list of companies indicating "support", but the really interesting part is if you don't do any editing - or if you can edit in the camera, and push the output straight to the DVD, it will play in a BluRay machine...

I extrapolated this using a combination of the information at CyberLink (under the Technology tab, select "BluRay/HD DVD Solution" in the section, "High-Def and H.264 Ready", it does not specify that users can read in H.264, but it does specify that "Users can output in MPEG-2 HD, MPEG-4 H.264, and WMV-HD formats" and later, "industry-leading media player, CyberLink PowerDVD also supports a complete range of key formats and standards, including MPEG-2 HD, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)". Note the word "PLAYER"... not a "READER"...

Then, the US Sony site was not too helpful - other than AVCHD support was expected for Vegas in Spring 2007... but I happened to be looking for something else and ended up at the Asia/Pacific site... in customer support. If you go to http://www.css.ap.sony.com/ and serach on the HDR-SR1, there is a link on the right, "Important Information on AVCHD Camcorders"... I suppose they are targeting the UX1 DVD-based camcorders... but there are all sorts of references to watching the DVD in AVCHD format and driver updates for the Vaio... and NOTHING about editing. video from the UX1 or the SR1... until you get to the comment:

"You can edit the AVCHD contents by Adobe Premiere* with VAIO Edit Component Ver.6.1.
Please refer to the VAIO web site for the availability of VAIO Edit Component Ver.6.1."

But searching the Asia Pacific or US Sony sites for VAIO Edit Component never got me to any "Version 6.1"... and like I've said, I edit on a Mac using iMovie and FinalCut Pro (and I use a Sony HDR-HC1 which does not use AVCHD for HD compression as it is a miniDV tape based 1080i hidef camcorder, so I really don't care) - it just seems odd to me that the UX1 and SR1 would have been released so long BEFORE any software could edit the AVCHD formatted video these cameras compress to - and I'm feeling a bit sorry for the folks who spent money on a camera with capabilities they can't do anything with until Spring (at least having to wait for Sony Vegas), I guess...

The Adobe site gets some hits when AVC is searched - but nothing about their products being able to read in that format - only output. And there are no hits when AVCHD is searched. And doing a search using "mpeg 4 avc" in Premiere Pro results in a hit about the PlayStation being able to playback that format... and Premiere Elelments can create MPEG 4 AVC format (but there is not indication it can read in that format for editing).

On your Canopus comment - The "FireCoder" looks promising - it takes in HD and HDV... and encodes to MPEG 4 (though it does not specify MPEG 4 AVC)... so it does not look like it can take in MPEG4... unless I am reading that product spec sheet incorrectly... Plus with the SR1, it transfers using USB, so that would bypass the FireCoder... I believe... unless there is another of their products I should be looking at. I have always liked Canopus' gear, though... Really good stuff.

Then there's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264 that talks about "H.264, MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC, "... so what happened to parts 1-9? Lots of companies use H.264 to output - but no one yet seems to be inputting for edit... unless I read it wrong...

Am I missing something here? The impression I'm getting from this thread, and from general reading about, is that there is as yet simply no way at all to edit AVCHD format data from cameras such as this new Sony.

But is that right? Or is it rather that it is not yet possible to edit the data *on the camera's disk*? If so, is it possible to take the data off the disk, onto the PC, and edit it there (perhaps after going through some conversion first)?

Or is it really all as dead in the water as the original poster suggested?

AVCHD is probably not dead - I can't imagine the fallout if there is no editing software soon - as I'll be in line with thousands demanding our money back - most likely class action - when is another problem... In the mean time I use the camera without High Def

Malibu310 wrote:
> In the mean time I use the camera without High Def

Exactly what are you managing to do then? Questions:

1. Are you *capturing* in standard def, or are you capturing in high def but then post-processing in standard def?

2. If the second, how are you getting from the AVCHD captured format to <whatever-you-are-using>?

3. Regardless of how you are capturing, are you managing to use an existing editing tool to edit your stuff?

4. If so, what editing tool?

thx.

The camcorder menu allows selecting capture of High Definition (1080i, 16:9, AVCHD), Standard Definition (16:9) or Standard Definition (4:3). AVCHD is applied only to the HiDef capture - not the Standard Definition options.

If captured in High Definition, it is compressed with AVCHD, so no post-processing of the transferred file(s) is possible.

When captured in either of the Standard Definition options, any video editor should be able to handle the transferred captured footage (including Sony Vegas).

I'm just using standard def - ignoring High Def till it's supported...

Malibu310 wrote:
> I'm just using standard def - ignoring High Def till it's
> supported...

OK, so that's not just *as* bad as it could have been, no? And so, all things considered, are you glad you bought it?

I'm asking because I was *just* about to buy one when I stumbled across this thread (for the starting of which, thanks!). The editing problem you described sounded so ridiculous I had written off the SR1 entirely. But now, well maybe it's not so bad (assuing of course that AVCHD support does come along soon).

Bottom line: if you were buying today, based on what you now know, would you choose the SR1, or the HC3? (My main problem with the latter is its lack of external mic input, but is that better or worse than no proper editing capability? Shrug.)

thx.

Knowing what I know today - yeah I'd still buy it - I can wait for AVCHD support - it's still much better in standard mode then my previous Sony digital handycams..

I'll be relly upset if AVCHD is not supported by summer!

> Knowing what I know today - yeah I'd still buy it - I can wait for
> AVCHD support - it's still much better in standard mode then my
> previous Sony digital handycams..

And is the AVCHD something you think is really worth it? The HC3 gives the High Def without the AVCHD stuff. Did you consider that model?

thx

Connect HDR_SR1 > Go windows explorer > SD Import MPEG 2 files and edit in favourite software.... EASY as PIE.

standard definition format video - when the camera captures standard definition video it does not compress it to AVCHD because it does not need to do that. The camera applies AVCHD decompression to high-definition video in several newer hard drive based and DVD based camcorder when that video is captured because it has to in order to have enough consumer-useful recording time.

In case you were not aware, AVCHD is MPEG4 AVC / H.264... not MPEG2 as you have listed.

For those of you who bought 1080i hi-def camcorders which are hard drive or DVD based - which use AVCHD compression - and have been awaiting the ability to import your video to your computer for editing, it looks like your wait may finally be over... in case you have not already seen this:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7594_102-0.html?forumID=59&threadID=236094&messageID=2416800

It seems like they were saying you could import a distinct SD video file without doing the conversion from HD to SD in Sony's bundled software. Which I believe is incorrect. A conversion from HD to SD is still needed. The SD video file is not recorded with the HD video file at the same time. (i.e. in camera terms: Capturing a TIFF or RAW image with an extra JPEG copy for good measure) However, I do think now and through the next couple of months is when people can feel comfortable to start recording in AVCHD due to AVCHD-compatible editing software.

Yes you can edit AVCHD the software is here now, follow these links:

http://dvc.uk.com/news.php?newsID=215

http://www.ulead.com/dmf/trial.htm

Ask these people, they are very nice and very helpful, they will put you right: http://dvc.uk.com/index.php

I have been looking into the SR1 for a bit and downloaded some video samples. I have no problem viewing them or editing them in Nero7 Ultra. Ithinnk alot ofit has to do with what copumter and grahpics card you areworking off of.Like everything else as technology rolls forward, everyhthing to support it must move also.For what it is worth,I'm running an Alienware Area-51 with a Nvidea GeForce 8800GTX graphics card.