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How to Play AVCHD (.mts / .mt2s) on Mac OS X?

M

MacVault

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 10, 2002
1,144
59
Planet Earth
I have a Canon HF100. I love it! However, I cannot seem to find an OS X app that will play the raw AVCHD files from the HF100's SD card. I have tried the latest nightly build of VLC but it is unstable and fails to play the video all the way through.

I did find an AVCHD player for Windows XP called Oxygen, however, as you can see from going to the site it has been stopped due to copyright issues or something like that.

Surely someone here must know of a native Mac OS X app to play these files.????
 
N

NRose8989

macrumors 6502a
Feb 6, 2008
629
0
MacVault said:
I have a Canon HF100. I love it! However, I cannot seem to find an OS X app that will play the raw AVCHD files from the HF100's SD card. I have tried the latest nightly build of VLC but it is unstable and fails to play the video all the way through.

I did find an AVCHD player for Windows XP called Oxygen, however, as you can see from going to the site it has been stopped due to copyright issues or something like that.

Surely someone here must know of a native Mac OS X app to play these files.????
Click to expand...

iMovie or FCE/FCP where you have to transcode it a quicktime format
 
speakerwizard

speakerwizard

macrumors 68000
Aug 8, 2006
1,655
0
London
As I understand it AVCHD isnt designed to be played back raw, but decompressed into something like prores (used in final cut for editing before final rendering) or the intermediate codec in imovie designed for non-pros that probably dont have very high powered machines. Ive not had any problems with my avchd cam.
 
R

RicAlonso

macrumors newbie
Feb 5, 2008
9
0
MacVault said:
I can't believe it... the "world's most advanced OS" has no way to play raw AVCHD files???
Click to expand...

This is not an OS issue. AVCHD was created by Sony and Panasonic. They tend to make Windows based computers.

Sony has a Windows based editor which supposedly lets you edit natively. That has not been my experience, even on a powerful PC.

One of the problems of native AVCHD editing has nothing to do with the OS. It has to do with processing power. Most computers today, even with 3ghz dual cores, cannot do it properly. So it has to be converted to something that the computers can work with.

Eventually we'll all have 16 core 4 ghz Intel Quatrapinion (silly) Macs with 64 GB of RAM. Then we'll be able to edit AVCHD. Of course by then someone will come out with Ultra HD cameras and the cycle begins once more. :eek:
 
M

mynameisshawn

macrumors member
Jul 2, 2008
73
0
Oregon
RicAlonso said:
Eventually we'll all have 16 core 4 ghz Intel Quatrapinion (silly) Macs with 64 GB of RAM. Then we'll be able to edit AVCHD. Of course by then someone will come out with Ultra HD cameras and the cycle begins once more. :eek:
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they said about DV years ago.
 
bobbleheadbob

bobbleheadbob

macrumors 6502a
Feb 6, 2007
653
0
Massachusetts
Roxio's Toast 9 (as someone mentioned earlier) is the only app I know of. Although I just dump it directly into FCP using Log & Transfer, not Log & Capture, and edit it from there. No problems doing it that way.
 
R

robbietherobot

macrumors newbie
Oct 12, 2005
17
0
VLC Nightly Build

I looked into this about a month ago and one of the nightly builds at the time played my AVC files from my Sony no prob. Problem is I can't find the number of the nightly build!

But it did work. I'm sure if you look into different nightly builds you will find one that plays them fine!

Here's hoping there will be proper QuickTime support in Snow Leopard.
 
A

a2dxp

macrumors newbie
Jul 17, 2008
1
0
It works. Just use nightly built VLC to play AVCHD .mts files.

Just use nightly built VLC to play AVCHD .mts files. It works flawlessly on my macBook Pro, a 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB ram. However, it barely works on my old mac G4. To play .mts file with VLC, a fast mac is recommended.
 
Courtaj

Courtaj

macrumors 6502a
Jul 3, 2008
701
0
Edinburgh, U.K.
Has anyone used Roxio Toast on an Intel Mini? I'm wondering whether my C2D 2GB 2GHz Mini will handle AVCHD relatively smoothly via Toast.

Otherwise, is there a Final Cut Express solution, or does FCE just do what iMovie does with AVCHD and translate it to AIC?

Cheers very much,
Andrew.

vionel said:
I have a dual core 3.16GHz 2GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT and processors are at 50-60% and the videocard it seems to interlace a bit, I'm not sure if is because is overloaded or my video settings are wrong.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it's because the video is interlaced?

Enjoy your spam.
 
S

sjbaydm

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2008
3
0
is my mac compatible with a sony camcorder HDR-SR12 ?

is my mac compatible with a sony camcorder HDR-SR12 ? will my mac book pro recognize the camera when i plug into each other best buy reps. says no camera will not see camera when connected sony say's yes what do i do i have an old imac g5 10.4.11 version and i recently bought a macbook pro 10.5.4 2.6 ghz intel core 2 duo 4gb 667 mhz ddr2 sdram please advise me what to do why doesnt apple support these files or usb or firewire all this is so annoying oohhh this camera is a hard disk drive its a new kind of technology no more little tapes its like a hard disk drive i think thats why theres the problem apple wont recognize the drive anyway pease advise me
 
Courtaj

Courtaj

macrumors 6502a
Jul 3, 2008
701
0
Edinburgh, U.K.
sjbaydm said:
is my mac compatible with a sony camcorder HDR-SR12 ? will my mac book pro recognize the camera when i plug into each other best buy reps. says no camera will not see camera when connected sony say's yes what do i do i have an old imac g5 10.4.11 version and i recently bought a macbook pro 10.5.4 2.6 ghz intel core 2 duo 4gb 667 mhz ddr2 sdram please advise me what to do why doesnt apple support these files or usb or firewire all this is so annoying oohhh this camera is a hard disk drive its a new kind of technology no more little tapes its like a hard disk drive i think thats why theres the problem apple wont recognize the drive anyway pease advise me
Click to expand...

An SR12 should work fine with an Intel Mac. If you want to be sure, grab an Memory Stick (if you have one), take it to the Sony store, tell them you want to fire off some clips to test the camera's compatibility with your Mac, set the camera to record to the Stick then plug the card into a USB card reader when you're back home and import into iMovie.

That is, assuming you have a spare Memory Stick and a card reader . . .

You could also do a more specific search on this forum for "SR12" or "SR11" - I'm sure there are people out there who own these cameras and use them with Macs, and a search might turn up a few reassuring remarks (though is more likely to turn up a bunch of anxious posts by people in the same boat as you - thinking about buying the Sony but fed misinformation by cretins employed by Sony).

Cheers.
 
S

sjbaydm

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2008
3
0
Sony Hdr-sr12 Tapeless Video Camcorder With A Harddrive???????

speakerwizard said:
As I understand it AVCHD isnt designed to be played back raw, but decompressed into something like prores (used in final cut for editing before final rendering) or the intermediate codec in imovie designed for non-pros that probably dont have very high powered machines. Ive not had any problems with my avchd cam.
Click to expand...

WELL I BOUGHT A SONY HDR-SR12 TAPELESS VIDEO CAMCORDER AND IM WORRIED WITH ALL THESE COMPATIBILITY ISSUES I WONT BE ABLE TO IMPORT / PLAYBACK MY RECORDINGS IN HIGH DEF I HAVE A BRAND NEW MACBOOK PRO 2.6GHZ 4GB MEMORY INTEL 2CORE DUO COULD YOU TELL ME ANYTHING THAT WILL HELP ME PEOPLE SAY THE OS WONT EVEN RECOGNIZE THE CAMERA WHEN CONNECTED
 
northernmunky

northernmunky

macrumors 6502a
Jan 19, 2007
829
295
London, Taipei
I've been given some .m2ts files on a disk but have found no way of converting them without VoltaicHD.

Anyone any idea how to convert these decently without having to fork out for VoltaicHD?
 
bobbleheadbob

bobbleheadbob

macrumors 6502a
Feb 6, 2007
653
0
Massachusetts
Why not just pay for it? It's a quality program and if you're using it as intended (e.g., over 50mb files) then shouldn't the developer be compensated for your use? It's only $35. It's not that much money.
 
northernmunky

northernmunky

macrumors 6502a
Jan 19, 2007
829
295
London, Taipei
bobbleheadbob said:
Why not just pay for it? It's a quality program and if you're using it as intended (e.g., over 50mb files) then shouldn't the developer be compensated for your use? It's only $35. It's not that much money.
Click to expand...

Because I only intend to use it once an never again. I dont own an AVCHD camera.

Besides, I discovered a workaround albeit a bit lengthy....
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/545597/
 
C

Chris7

macrumors 6502
Aug 8, 2008
396
0
Lost in Thought
plod said:
Voltaic will copy and convert your AVCHD files.[/url]
Click to expand...

Looks like some people on this thread have experience with VoltaicHD. I was planning on buying something like this to convert AVCHD into AIC or ProRes, before importing into FCP. However, VoltaicHD only converts to AIC, and I'd like to also be able to convert it to ProRes. Any other suggestions for third party software that will do this?
Thanks in advance,
Chris
 
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