Avchd

[PC2MAC2012]

I have been a PC guy for many years and just recently switched over to mac. In general it’s been a good experience. Mostly it’s just learning where the equivalent setting of feature is on the Mac verse the windows machine.

I did run it a problem that I am confused about. It appears that iMovie cannot support mts or m2ts file format. I asked Google and sure enough iMovie doesn’t support AVCHD (mts or m2ts) files, but will convert them if they are in the correct folder structure.

So now for my questions:

Who else has run into this problem and how did you solve it? Download a program like Video Monkey or purchase a Video converter? Do you lose any video/audio quality? What is the best format for HD video that works with iMove? How do you keep the mts files for future use?

Is there or is anyone working on a plug-in for iMove or iPhoto to utilize AVCHD format? Do you think Apple will ever fix this lack of support?

 

[AcesHigh87]

I use Roxio Toast 10 Titanium to convert my AVCHD files personally. Conversion time is relatively quick and as long as I convert it to another HD format (usually Apple ProRes to guarantee compatibility) the quality is exactly the same.

Toast has been updated so getting the same one as me is tougher but the new one is likely better anyway. I do think it runs somewhere around $100 but is a great conversion / burning tool so well worth the price.

 

[dmsmith]

If I'm not mistaken, the last update to iMovie added AVCHD support. So your hits on Google might be out of date.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

As you did not import your footage directly from the camera or copied the whole card, thus leaving the file/folder structure intact, you are left with .mts files you have to transcode to the proper format (.mov using Apple Intermediate Codec for video and Uncompressed/Linear-PCM for audio).

Transcoding .MTS files (AVCHD footage) to an editable format (.MOV)