AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems
by Martin Phillips
on
Jan 31, 2009 at 2:17:53 pm
I downloaded a client's .mts files off their Panasonic HD disk camera thinking that I could easily convert them to something easily read by FCP.
As this is going onto SD DVD, the workflow is to downconvert all the rushes to work in DV-PAL Widescreen format. I have tried Voltaic, but I am not getting smooth movements. Procoder on the PC is ok, but whenever a red/orange colour comes on screen, other colours start 'pulsing' like a hunting auto white balance. (This is not on the original files so not a camera issue).
The client has taken the camera off to the other side of the world now so I can't play out via component, which is what I should have done in the first place ......
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Martin Phillips on Feb 7, 2009 at 5:10:22 pm
Thanks for the responses. MPEG Streamclip doesn't recognize the files. Toast 10 does do the conversion, but there is a quality hit again.
Am just experimenting with a free program from Grass Valley called AVCHD2HQ - this is giving me an AVI which doesn't have the colour pulsing, then outputting through Procoder. This seems to work and keeps the quality, although you can't batch encode. But then you can't have everything can you?!
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Nicolai Berthelsen on May 14, 2009 at 7:47:48 am
Hi
Im having the same problem. Actually i have several :o)
When playing mts files in Toast Player i have the same pulsing colors. I thought that maybe it was beause the player was not good enough ?
But another problem i have is trying to convert the mts files to something that could be imported to TCP 6.0.5. I have dragged and dropped the mts files from the camera (sony HDR SR-11) to my external hard disk. Now i want to import them to FCP but this is not possible. So the second best would be to convert the files to some other format without losing too much quality. This format could be apple pro res 422. But when i do this with Toast the files have some strange lines all over the clip. I think it has something to do with interlaced or deinterlaced but i have not solved this problem yet. Can somebody help me with the settings in Toast 9 ??????
Thank you very much if somebody can help me with this problem.
Nicolai
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Nicolai Berthelsen on Jun 17, 2009 at 1:51:59 pm
HI
I have all problems ass well with the mts files.
When playing i toast 9 and 10 the pulsing white balance or whatever it is.
If you want to drag your mts files to an exernal harddisk you have to drag the folder AVCHD and all the subfolders from the camera. Then you import by LOG AND TRANSFER and point to youre AVCHD folder. Then FCP converts the files to Apple Pro Res files for further editing.
I found out too late and have already dragged a lot of mts files to external hard disk. Now i need to convert these files. Using Toast 9 and the setting DVCPRO 50i works OK but not satisfactory. Allthoug in Toast 10 this setting is very nice and almost without loss of quality. BUT in Toast 10 all audio is out off sync approx 10 frames. Can anyone recommend software for no loss quality convertion of mts files to Apple Pro Res ???????? THANK YOU VERY MUCH IF SO.........
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by ari green on Jul 6, 2009 at 9:58:46 am
>>If you want to drag your mts files to an exernal harddisk you have to drag the folder AVCHD and all the subfolders from the camera. Then you import by LOG AND TRANSFER and point to youre AVCHD folder. Then FCP converts the files to Apple Pro Res files for further editing.
okay..... thanks for that. clears up a few things for me. now what to do if you copied over just the "stream" folder from the card and no longer have the AVCHD folder..?!!
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Michael Pye on Oct 31, 2009 at 11:42:09 am
I have experienced a similar problem, courtesy of a member of my film crew who copied over the raw .mts file stream without the directory files (hence FCP Log and Transfer cannot recognise them).
To the rescue however is a program called ClipWrap, which costs $50 - half the price of Toast - and offers transcoding to Prores 422, AIC, DV or DVProHD. Alternatively - and far more attractively - it can do 'wrapping', which losslessly reconfigures the original .mts as a quicktime movie.
Hope this helps.
Macbook Pro 15", 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; OS X 10.5.8, Final Cut Pro 6.0.6
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Michael Pye on Oct 31, 2009 at 11:49:11 am
As a brief addition to the above, I should mention that the 'wrapped' files do have a tendency to 'jerk' - although this may be because I am running a dual-core machine. The Prores output however, looks fine.
Michael
Macbook Pro 15", 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; OS X 10.5.8, Final Cut Pro 6.0.6
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Michael Pye on Nov 2, 2009 at 5:45:06 pm
... and finally as an explanation of the above, please read below a response from one of the software developers at ClipWrap.
"The rewrap option is lossless in the sense it ads no additional loss - your camera has already compressed the image into a low bitrate format, we simply wrap it in a QT movie so quicktime can play it back. Any other option is going to transcode the image - ie, decompress it and then re-compress it in another format. Prores is much less efficient with disk space - it takes much more space to encode the same image - the trade off is higher bitrates for lower cpu usage."
Macbook Pro 15", 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; OS X 10.5.8, Final Cut Pro 6.0.6
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems - Solution? by Daniel Vinoly on Dec 5, 2009 at 3:25:14 am
Might sound silly, but did you try accessing the AVCHD camera (or files) using iMovie?
iMovie will see the files (and show thumbnails) and allow transfer the M2T files full size to Apple Intermediate codec. Then they can be easily converted to Pro Res using Compressor. I tried ClipWrap but I guess I'm getting better results doing it like this.
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems by Ebba Madison on Dec 9, 2009 at 1:01:09 am
Hi,saw your question by chance. The files you downloaded from Panasonic camera is in the format of .mts, then I guess it must be a AVCHD camcorder. Factually, the latest version of FCP is able to work with this format as long as you connect the camera directly with your Mac. Since you just have the copied files, then try to use Pavtube video converter to transcode the .mts files into QuickTime format, I suppose in that way, the FCP is capable of recognizing them without troubles.I'm new here in this forum, but sincerely hope my info will be of some help for you.
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems by Daniel Vinoly on Jan 18, 2010 at 7:15:19 pm
Thanks (and sorry for the delay answering). Yes, FCP sees the camera. My mistake was to try Log&Capture, when I should have used Log&Transfer. All is good.
Re: AVC HD / .MTS files conversion problems by Celine Oudin on Mar 11, 2010 at 12:38:38 pm
Hello,
I tried to import my MTS files into iMovie, but the program shows them in the box, but they're all greyed and you can't select them, the program says it does not recognize them.
So what should I do ? I have ONLY raw MTS files on DVDs, I cannot import them as is in FCP 7 and in iMovie.
I have acquired Xilisoft HD Video Converter for Mac, which converts MTS files, but ProRes is not one option of output format. I am not very familiar with output formats and I need this footage's original quality to be preserved as much as possible, the edited project is to be screened.
What output format should I use ?
