lossless editing

have a Macbook pro running 10.6.8, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3. I am new to video, and am trying to edit some camera files that are MTS. I ran them through the Wondershare converter (mov) and found that iMovie 11 has a big drop in resolution. I read that it is because of single field processing, and that older versions of iMovie (06 and HD) do not use that.

I'm working with someone who is running FCP7, so ideally whatever I do needs to be able to be opened there.

I just downloaded the FCP X trial version, but saw online that there is no backwards compatibility with FCP7. Arrrgg.

I found my old iMovie HD from 2005 that may have lossless editing, but it was glacial in importing the file. The fcp x in contrast seems great in that way.

Since I am new to this, and don't have access to the buckets of money to buy fcp7, I was hoping someone on this list might have some ideas and/or suggestions for how to proceed. Thanks in advance,

K Clayton

The camera file is MTS, I used wondershare to turn them into both mpg and mov files. It seemed to me that both had high levels of loss of resolution when I opened them in iMovie 11. When I view the files in VLC, they are pretty good hd files; but bringing them into imovie results in a loss of res.

Kathryn

Thank you!

When I try to import the MTS files into FCP X, they are greyed out. The get info says that the MTS file is a MPEG-2 Transport Stream.

I decided to try exporting different options in wondershare. The default in Wondershare for FCP imports as HD - H.264 ; 1280*720 ; 30 fps ; 5117 bitrate. I assume that that is the codec, H.264? I imported this, and checked the box for transcoding to ProRes 422. I made a trial export of ProRes of the test file I made, and sent it to my friend with the FCP 7- it worked and she can use it! That's great!

Now to look up what the other ProRes options are.

I do have QT Pro, but have not used it- I forgot I had it. I'll have to check into that too.

Thank you for the help!

Kathryn