How can I "Import" .MTS (AVCHD) files without loosing "quality"?

[desmotesta]

Hello all,

We just had a baby and I am recording several Gigs of data a day. I have a Canon HD camcorder that records in AVCHD format (.MTS files).

When I try to "import" the movies using iMovie, I have two issues:

1- There seems to be visible degradation in quality when files are converted from .MTS to .mov

2- The file sizes grow by almost 5X or more when Imovie converts a file from .mts to .mov

Is there any solution to my issue?

Is there a way for me to archive home movies wiithout compromising video quality and file size?

Some have suggested I save/archive ALL of my SD cards (all suborders) and only archive in that way so I can "keep" all the MTS files and only "concert" to mp4/mov when editing video for a project, is that my only option?

Please help

 

[floh]

We just had a baby and I am recording several Gigs of data a day.

Congrats! To the baby, that is...

First of all: AVCHD is not just the ".MTS" files. It is a whole folder structure that you shouldn't delete! I made a video about things like this because there is so much confusion:

1- There seems to be visible degradation in quality when files are converted from .MTS to .mov

2- The file sizes grow by almost 5X or more when Imovie converts a file from .mts to .mov

That is because they are converted to a "ProRes" codec on import, which is huge but good for fast editing. The degradation is a little surprising to me, I did not expect that. Is that on import (what it looks like in iMovie) or exported? If the latter, I suspect that you have bad export settings, if the former, I guess that iMovie will maybe create proxy media? That's low resolution media that you can do your edits on, so everything is fast and smooth. Only on export will iMovie then use the "real" media files for better quality.

Is there any solution to my issue?

Yes! Don't use the old iMovie. Sadly, there is nothing you can do against this within the software you are using. You can either upgrade to the new OS X (Mavericks) and get the newest version of iMovie. That's free, and the new iMovie supposedly edits AVCHD natively (well, it rewraps the stream into a .MOV container, but at no quality loss).

If you don't dare the upgrade yet (personally, I usually wait a few months until the system is a little more stable. I've heard of lots of crashes...), I would recommend to buy some software. Noticeably, Adobe Premiere Elements is pretty good and available on the Mac App Store. Or you can go with Final Cut Pro X. I don't know how much you will actually be using it and this might both be overkill. But I don't know of any decent free editing software that won't convert the codec on import.

Is there a way for me to archive home movies wiithout compromising video quality and file size?

If you go with any of the solutions I listed, you can just backup the imported media files. For iMovie and FCPX, those will be ".MOV" files containing the original streams. So they are basically the same size and the same quality, but easier to handle than AVCHD. You can even think about including them in a Time Machine backup.

Hope that helps some.

 

[CausticPuppy]

The latest version of iMovie imports AVCHD movies without transcoding. It most likely just re-wraps the clips and allows native editing of the mpeg 4 videos. Editing appears to be non-destructive too, relying on your CPU/GPU for real-time previews of changes.

It's buggy though - it seems there's a memory leak when exporting so you'll run out of memory if your video is long enough.

 

[ChrisA]

Hello all,

We just had a baby and I am recording several Gigs of data a day. I have a Canon HD camcorder that records in AVCHD format (.MTS files).

When I try to "import" the movies using iMovie, I have two issues:

1- There seems to be visible degradation in quality when files are converted from .MTS to .mov

2- The file sizes grow by almost 5X or more when Imovie converts a file from .mts to .mov

Is there any solution to my issue?

Is there a way for me to archive home movies wiithout compromising video quality and file size?

Some have suggested I save/archive ALL of my SD cards (all suborders) and only archive in that way so I can "keep" all the MTS files and only "concert" to mp4/mov when editing video for a project, is that my only option?

Please help

You need to develop a work flow that you like. My canon HD camcorder has the option to record mp4 format video that quicktime can directly work with. But when I do record in AVCHD I use some software called "clicpwrap" that can rewrap the video without transcoding. there is no quality loss. http://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap
You cn also use "handbrake" but I'm pretty sue handbook will transcode the video. Clipwrape is as fast as a "copy" and I use it rathe than drag an drop to get video off the SD card.

You do have to decide at which point you do the archive. Some people do a rough edit just to cull out the total junk that is out of focus and whatever. I like to archive the video at this point, avetr it is converted to something quicktime can use.

Next I import it to FCP X. This can have the 5x effect you describe but those prores files are the best format for editing. the import/transcode process goes very slow. In FCP X I can turn that off and edit with the original .MOV files if I like. I FCP X I can at any time trash the large prores files. Does iMovie allow this?

OK so then I have an edited vedio based on the ProRes files. The next step is to export it to some usable format for my Apple TV or iPod.

After the video is exported there is no need to keep the large ProRes files around unless I think I might re-edit. Periodically I clear out those large files.

Backup is an issue. Time Machine picks up the .mov files from the camera but I also use other redundant backups and always have at leas one off site backup.

 

[desmotesta]

You need to develop a work flow that you like. My canon HD camcorder has the option to record mp4 format video that quicktime can directly work with. But when I do record in AVCHD I use some software called "clicpwrap" that can rewrap the video without transcoding. there is no quality loss. http://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap
You cn also use "handbrake" but I'm pretty sue handbook will transcode the video. Clipwrape is as fast as a "copy" and I use it rathe than drag an drop to get video off the SD card.

You do have to decide at which point you do the archive. Some people do a rough edit just to cull out the total junk that is out of focus and whatever. I like to archive the video at this point, avetr it is converted to something quicktime can use.

Next I import it to FCP X. This can have the 5x effect you describe but those prores files are the best format for editing. the import/transcode process goes very slow. In FCP X I can turn that off and edit with the original .MOV files if I like. I FCP X I can at any time trash the large prores files. Does iMovie allow this?

OK so then I have an edited vedio based on the ProRes files. The next step is to export it to some usable format for my Apple TV or iPod.

After the video is exported there is no need to keep the large ProRes files around unless I think I might re-edit. Periodically I clear out those large files.

Backup is an issue. Time Machine picks up the .mov files from the camera but I also use other redundant backups and always have at leas one off site backup.

Thank you all for your detailed responses.

Just so I understand this correctly, I can use "Clipwrap" to "wrap" AVCHD and drag-n-drop/Copy them to an Archive folder and will no longer need to keep/save the related AVCHD meta-data ?

I cant see myself editing video any time soon so all I am interested in is proper archiving of full video clips but if export/archiving of meta-data is also an option, I would prefer that.

 

[floh]

Just to be clear: Clipwrap will cost you $50. If you are a professional editor, this is worth it, but if not, it is overpriced in my opinion. It does keep some of the metadata from AVCHD, but not all of it.

The free tool Free AVCHD to Mov Converter on the Mac App Store keeps just as much of the metadata and doesn't cost you anything. And it's fine for converting and then getting rid of your AVCHD data. The information that is lost (timecode) is not of interest to you unless you do some dual system sound recording and fancy stuff. If you lost your folder structure and are only left with the .MTS files, I programmed a little tool myself that will rewrap the clips for you, ignoring all the missing metadata. But that might not work for very long clips that span over several stream files.

If you just want to do a few trims and edits, you will be better off buying the Adobe Premiere Elements Quick Editor for $30. It will import and rewrap your AVCHD, and allow for some simple edits. For $70, you will already get the pretty extensive Adobe Premiere Elements Editor. That's just 20 more bucks than Clipwrap, but it can do so much more.

So, what I want to say: It sounds like Clipwrap is not worth the money for you. That's just my two cents.

 

[lamerica80]

Im just getting started with Final cut pro X and wasnt pleased to see that i cant simply drag my MTS files to the timeline like I can in imovie.

Im keeping an eye on this thread to see more simple solutions to this!

 

[floh]

Im just getting started with Final cut pro X and wasnt pleased to see that i cant simply drag my MTS files to the timeline like I can in imovie.

I want to clearly state: An ".MTS" file is not a complete video, it is just a very raw stream! Tons of information is missing. You could compare it to a bunch of wood from IKEA without any screws or instructions how to assemble it. Sure you can write clever programs that try to guess how it works, but this is not the purpose. Anyone who gets their eyes on such a file has been digging withing the AVCHD folder structure, which you just shouldn't do and which is much harder to do since Mountain Lion.

I just tried dragging an MTS file into iMovie and, as expected, it doesn't work at all and shouldn't. Whatever files you had must have been strange and very specific.

Everyone who reads this: .MTS files are not video files! They are raw stream data! AVCHD is complicated! Watch the video I posted above!

So any software that allows to just drag and drop such an .MTS file onto the timeline is cheating you into thinking that this is the way it is supposed to work. No professional software will do this. The hope is that the mess that is AVCHD will go away in the near future, when the upcoming high bitrates and resolutions will not fit into the container specifications anymore. Then all camcorders will record into an easier container. But until then: Just use AVCHD the way it is supposed to be used: Import from the card/backup into your editing software! It's actually quite simple if you don't think "file based" but "clip based".

 

[lamerica80]

I want to clearly state: An ".MTS" file is not a complete video, it is just a very raw stream! Tons of information is missing. You could compare it to a bunch of wood from IKEA without any screws or instructions how to assemble it. Sure you can write clever programs that try to guess how it works, but this is not the purpose. Anyone who gets their eyes on such a file has been digging withing the AVCHD folder structure, which you just shouldn't do and which is much harder to do since Mountain Lion.

I just tried dragging an MTS file into iMovie and, as expected, it doesn't work at all and shouldn't. Whatever files you had must have been strange and very specific.

Everyone who reads this: .MTS files are not video files! They are raw stream data! AVCHD is complicated! Watch the video I posted above!

So any software that allows to just drag and drop such an .MTS file onto the timeline is cheating you into thinking that this is the way it is supposed to work. No professional software will do this. The hope is that the mess that is AVCHD will go away in the near future, when the upcoming high bitrates and resolutions will not fit into the container specifications anymore. Then all camcorders will record into an easier container. But until then: Just use AVCHD the way it is supposed to be used: Import from the card/backup into your editing software! It's actually quite simple if you don't think "file based" but "clip based".

Thanks for the info!

I tried this morning to simply drag the .MTS files to the imovie (latest mavericks version) timeline and it works fine.

In the future i will for sure import the material directly from my Panasonic X810 to final cut pro - however im not sure what to do with my old ADCHD files where i simply copied them to my pictures folder and play them with VLC.

I assume i would need to convert them to an final cut pro friendly format first.

 

[floh]

I tried this morning to simply drag the .MTS files to the imovie (latest mavericks version) timeline and it works fine.

Then maybe they actually implemented such a crazy guessing tool into the newest iMovie? Then this might arrive in FCPX as well... or did this already work with iMovie'09?

However, you should always import the footage the proper way unless you have lost the original AVCHD folder structure. If only to keep the proper timecode and later sort all your videos for recording date.

In the future i will for sure import the material directly from my Panasonic X810 to final cut pro - however im not sure what to do with my old ADCHD files where i simply copied them to my pictures folder and play them with VLC.

I assume i would need to convert them to an final cut pro friendly format first.

Yes, you can rewrap the container into something more useful (I suggest .mp4). As mentioned earlier in this thread, this software and also this little tool I programmed will do that for free, also for a list of multiple files. It's just a rewrap, so it should go about as quickly as copying the files and without quality loss, there is no reencoding. If it doesn't work, you can always pay $50 for ClipWrap. Which I have done before I programmed my own tool.

 

[lamerica80]

I have imported some video straight from the camera (1080 50p) and it works great.

However, I notice the video in the preview window is not as smooth compared to playing the individual files in VLC. Its kinda choppy. Is this normal? Any settings i should apply? Will the final render be smooth and nice?

 

[floh]

I have imported some video straight from the camera (1080 50p) and it works great.

However, I notice the video in the preview window is not as smooth compared to playing the individual files in VLC. Its kinda choppy. Is this normal? Any settings i should apply? Will the final render be smooth and nice?

I guess (but am not sure) that this is just a stuttering playback within your editing software. 50p is a pretty high framerate if you are not slowing down your footage (you remember people complaining about the 48fps Hobbit movie?). So my guess is that either the bandwidth from your hard drive or your CPU is a bottleneck and the program discards some frames.

If you tell us what software you are talking about, we can help you. If it is FCPX (and not iMovie, which I see you are using too), the easiest way to check is to render a part of your video and see if it still stutters. If it does, it is your hard drive. Are you using a seperate drive for editing or is your footage on the same drive as your system? That could help...

I never had problems with 50p on FCPX.

 

[gregnugget]

Issue in FCP X - avchd

I also am having problems with the video from a 2nd camera, with AVCHD. The playback in FCP X is fine, but when I do a multicam clip, the video from this camera is choppy; the video from the HDV camera is fine. Would an external drive help this (I have about 80GB free at the moment) or do I need to perform some tricks with the AVCHD video?

thanks for any help

 

[floh]

I also am having problems with the video from a 2nd camera, with AVCHD. The playback in FCP X is fine, but when I do a multicam clip, the video from this camera is choppy; the video from the HDV camera is fine. Would an external drive help this (I have about 80GB free at the moment) or do I need to perform some tricks with the AVCHD video?

thanks for any help

The choppy video can (to my knowledge) stem from two things:

1. The hard drive with the video files is too slow and frames are lost.
2. Your CPU is too slow to decode the video quickly enough and frames are lost.

Since this seems to affect the AVCHD but not the HDV files, I am guessing that your CPU performance is the problem. You can affirm that by looking at your CPU and GPU load during playback.

If this is indeed the case, you seem to have a slower computer and the solution is to just convert the video files on import. You can do this by simply checking the box "create optimized media" when importing your footage. If the problem is hard drive speed, you best guess is to also check "create proxy media".

Be aware however that this will use huge amounts of disk space in comparison. If you can afford it in any way, it is a great idea to edit on external drives, for speed and space reasons.

Good luck!

 

[gregnugget]

Thanks Floh for the quick response. I have a 1TB drive ready to use. What specifically should I be looking for in the CPU and GPU load?

 

[floh]

Thanks Floh for the quick response. I have a 1TB drive ready to use. What specifically should I be looking for in the CPU and GPU load?

Well, if they are peaking. Meaning if your CPU and/or GPU are working a lot to show the video.

You can either do that in the "Activity Monitor" program that ships with Mac OS X, or with something nicer if you want to do it more often. The nicest (free) program I have seen is atMonitor, which will show you the load in the menu bar.

 

[Madmic23]

AVCHD hurts my brain, but the quality is just so good!

I'm just upset that iMovie wrecks it for me when I export it. I had a video where someone was wearing black pants standing next to black furniture. There legs and the cabinet mashed together into one dark, pixelated mass of black pixels. It made me sad.

 

[PWeaver]

Converting AVCHD for use by FCP 6.6

desmotesta, first thank you for a great video. Do I understand correctly that if I input AVCHD clips from my Canon XA20 to an external drive that I should just bring them in to the timeline and let FCP do the work? Or should they be converted using what I currently have which is Wondershare Video Converter Pro for Mac Version: 3.7.1, converting same to .mov and then import into FCP? We are using 2 different cameras for an upcoming shoot (Canon XA20 and PANASONIC HVX 200 which uses P2cards. I'm somewhat confused on the various blogs as saying it all should be converted to AppleProRes for editing as opposed to h264. Delivery would be in a couple of different formats for use by web for teasers, but also as feature film delivery.

I remember having to convert a feature film to AppleProRes for use by iTunes but never could get it to work properly and in fact after rendering it killed my Mac.

Pamela

 

[pertusis1]

I want to clearly state: An ".MTS" file is not a complete video, it is just a very raw stream! Tons of information is missing. You could compare it to a bunch of wood from IKEA without any screws or instructions how to assemble it. Sure you can write clever programs that try to guess how it works, but this is not the purpose. Anyone who gets their eyes on such a file has been digging withing the AVCHD folder structure, which you just shouldn't do and which is much harder to do since Mountain Lion.

I just tried dragging an MTS file into iMovie and, as expected, it doesn't work at all and shouldn't. Whatever files you had must have been strange and very specific.

Everyone who reads this: .MTS files are not video files! They are raw stream data! AVCHD is complicated! Watch the video I posted above!

So any software that allows to just drag and drop such an .MTS file onto the timeline is cheating you into thinking that this is the way it is supposed to work. No professional software will do this. The hope is that the mess that is AVCHD will go away in the near future, when the upcoming high bitrates and resolutions will not fit into the container specifications anymore. Then all camcorders will record into an easier container. But until then: Just use AVCHD the way it is supposed to be used: Import from the card/backup into your editing software! It's actually quite simple if you don't think "file based" but "clip based".

Just for your entertainment, I thought I would record my experiences here. I have about 24 hours of 1080p home video recorded on a Sony video camera. Before I was aware of any of this, I copied and pasted all of my .MTS files (without the appropriate attached file structure) into folders on my hard drive. Thus, my nightmare began.

Over the last several years, I attempted on several occasions to convert the files, without any success. On 12/7/13, I decided to record my efforts in a journal:

1) direct import to FCPX impossible due to file structure not being built
2) 'MTS wrapper' bought for $3.99, converts file to .mov, but the file had all sorts of color and interlacing disruption
3) tried Handbrake, which works reasonably well, but loses a moderate amount of image quality
4) in the past, used Quicktime (worked great), but this function is now disabled????
5) tried Brorsoft - seemed to retain quality

Will burn Bluray with 3 types for comparison (original, handbrake, Brorsoft, each with 2" video)

Burned it to BluRay. Won't load to DVD Player (program). Downloaded VLC, which views the BluRay well.

Both handbrake and Brorsoft work well for the conversion. I guess I can go to work on converting the family videos.

Plan:
1) edit video to 1-hr segments
2) make BluRay disks *6
3) make MP4 backups to a hard drive

Workflow:
a) gather 1 hr of MTS files
b) convert using handbrake -> scratch disk
c) import to FCPX and output to BluRay, then 3 TB HDD
d) catalog by dates

12/8/13 - I started the project today, but noticed that Handbrake can only bring in one MTS files at a time to transcode. Since I have hundreds to do, I may use Brorsoft if it works better.

I also noticed that I am maxing out the RAM all the time. Will need to upgrade from 12 GB, sadly. ** note that I did not realize that OSX always maxes out the RAM. I bumped my RAM to 48 GB, then realized my mistake **

Brorsoft makes batch conversions easier. Plan is to convert files and place on a temp HD attached through Voyager Q.

Just ordered 48 GB ram (6*8 GB) Hynix 1333 GHz from MacRamDirect (actually, it wasn't Hynix after-all, but some other brand).

I notice that while importing and transcoding video, the hard disk speed is definitely a bottleneck.

I bought a Brorsoft video converter for $40. When converting from .MTS to Prores 422 HD, by far the limiting factor was the RAM (I may have been wrong here). When importing the media from an external 7,200 drive on FW800, both memory and data transfer (read) seems to be maxed out, while the CPU does almost nothing (12-core MP).

Uh oh. I have had FCPX stop in the middle of transcoding the video to BluRay, each time with some sub-program (seen in activity monitor) not responding. I guess I'll wait to see whether the RAM fixes this problem.

----------

12/14/13 - I installed Micron RAM today, but FCPX still crashed while transcoding. An online search suggested I turn off 'App Nap', which at least allowed me to burn a DVD. I am in the middle of burning a BluRay. We'll see how that works.

Epilogue: In the end, once I turned off 'App nap', the above workflow worked well, with very little degradation in video quality.

What a royal hassle! I hope this post was humorous if not helpful

 

[northernmunky]

I want to clearly state: An ".MTS" file is not a complete video, it is just a very raw stream! Tons of information is missing. You could compare it to a bunch of wood from IKEA without any screws or instructions how to assemble it. Sure you can write clever programs that try to guess how it works, but this is not the purpose. Anyone who gets their eyes on such a file has been digging withing the AVCHD folder structure, which you just shouldn't do and which is much harder to do since Mountain Lion.

I just tried dragging an MTS file into iMovie and, as expected, it doesn't work at all and shouldn't. Whatever files you had must have been strange and very specific.

Everyone who reads this: .MTS files are not video files! They are raw stream data! AVCHD is complicated! Watch the video I posted above!

So any software that allows to just drag and drop such an .MTS file onto the timeline is cheating you into thinking that this is the way it is supposed to work. No professional software will do this. The hope is that the mess that is AVCHD will go away in the near future, when the upcoming high bitrates and resolutions will not fit into the container specifications anymore. Then all camcorders will record into an easier container. But until then: Just use AVCHD the way it is supposed to be used: Import from the card/backup into your editing software! It's actually quite simple if you don't think "file based" but "clip based".

I work for a big broadcaster and this is something I deal with every single day, no matter how many times you tell people to make a card image and NOT JUST COPY THE RAW FILES, I still get given a hard drive at the end of the day only containing the biggest files they could find assuming thats all I needed!

Once someone did this with an XDCAM camera, folder structure destroyed the only way I could fix it was by having a camera regenerate the appropriate structure on a SxS card, manually copy the .m2ts files in the correct folder on the card, insert the card back into the camera and let the cam re-create all the lost metadata. The card still wasn't repaired enough for it to be recognised and import through our system but I could play it back in camera. So, I connected it camera via a HD-SDI link into our router and re-ingested in real-time every single clip one by one straight through an AJA Kona card on a Mac Pro straight into ProRes saving the day!

 

[macfilm]

I've saved JUST the raw .MTS files to Blu-ray data discs and I've imported the files into FCPX just fine with all timecode, date info etc.
I can edit them natively or transcode them on import, no problem.

So I'm not sure what's wrong really with saving just the raw .MTS files.

 

[helloshirosan]

Here's my question...

is lossless conversion of AVCHD to MP4 possible? Stated another way how do you convert AVCHD to MP4 without losing any quality? I need to do this because it's easier for me to edit in FCPX and upload to youtube.... Anyone who can give me the easiest possible solution would be very much appreciated. I'm shooting with a Canon Vixia HF G20 and unfortunately it only records AVCHD files. I don't want to purchase the HF G30 just because it has MP4 capability. There has to be a less expensive way. I just can't figure out the easiest way yet. Thanks in advance.

 

[floh]

is lossless conversion of AVCHD to MP4 possible?

Yes. You should read the thread you are commenting on. I answered your question already...

You can rewatch the video I posted to see how AVCHD and MP4 are really just a difference in container, and there are easy ways to convert one into the other without ever touching the actual video stream, so without quality loss.

Here is the answer I posted earlier, and it will apply to you just as it is:

Just to be clear: Clipwrap will cost you $50. If you are a professional editor, this is worth it, but if not, it is overpriced in my opinion. It does keep some of the metadata from AVCHD, but not all of it.

The free tool Free AVCHD to Mov Converter on the Mac App Store keeps just as much of the metadata and doesn't cost you anything. And it's fine for converting and then getting rid of your AVCHD data. The information that is lost (timecode) is not of interest to you unless you do some dual system sound recording and fancy stuff. If you lost your folder structure and are only left with the .MTS files, I programmed a little tool myself that will rewrap the clips for you, ignoring all the missing metadata. But that might not work for very long clips that span over several stream files.

If you just want to do a few trims and edits, you will be better off buying the Adobe Premiere Elements Quick Editor for $30. It will import and rewrap your AVCHD, and allow for some simple edits. For $70, you will already get the pretty extensive Adobe Premiere Elements Editor. That's just 20 more bucks than Clipwrap, but it can do so much more.

So, what I want to say: It sounds like Clipwrap is not worth the money for you. That's just my two cents.

 

[ColdCase]

I found the Free AVCHD to Mov Converter has a tendency to lose audio sync, like it drops out the audio while the video continues causing the audio before corresponding video effect. Perhaps my video source is not pristine. If I run the same video through HandBrake and then Compressor to get to ProRes, I don't see the same sync issue.

I don't think Adobe currently offers the elements packages.

 

[Dave Braine]

Just to be clear: Clipwrap will cost you $50.

RewrapAVCHD works for me, and it's free.
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/39800/rewrapavchd

It produces a .m4v file, but for an mp4, you usually just change the extension to mp4.