Importing with Canon Vixia HFS10 Question

[tilleyand]

So I just got a new Canon Vixia HFS10 and I'm wondering about importing onto my macbook pro. I tried using Imovie '09, and it worked, but it was no longer HD quality. I have final cut pro, but there didn't seem to be a way to import it with that. I talked to someone else who had the same problem and they said that what they ended up doing was uploading to their PC and then converting the mts file to mp4 with Adobe Media Encoder, then transferring to mac and they were able to keep the HD quality with fcp. I do have access to a pc, so i can upload it with canon's software and get the mts files, but when i use their built-in convert function, this also reduces the quality considerably. I would use Adobe Media Encoder, but I don't have it and so I'm wondering if anyone has any alternate solutions for how I can keep the HD quality and edit with fcp on a mac.

 

[Resist]

I am thinking about getting a Canon Vixia HF20 and a Mac but if the Mac won't import the HD video then I may have to rethink my purchases. I thought Mac's did just about everything.

 

[bairda]

So I just got a new Canon Vixia HFS10 and I'm wondering about importing onto my macbook pro. I tried using Imovie '09, and it worked, but it was no longer HD quality. I have final cut pro, but there didn't seem to be a way to import it with that. I talked to someone else who had the same problem and they said that what they ended up doing was uploading to their PC and then converting the mts file to mp4 with Adobe Media Encoder, then transferring to mac and they were able to keep the HD quality with fcp. I do have access to a pc, so i can upload it with canon's software and get the mts files, but when i use their built-in convert function, this also reduces the quality considerably. I would use Adobe Media Encoder, but I don't have it and so I'm wondering if anyone has any alternate solutions for how I can keep the HD quality and edit with fcp on a mac.

Doesn't sound like the AVCHD from the canon is being transcoded correctly. Neither FCP or IMovie can ingest and edit AVCHD without first transcoding to an editable format. The preferred format for the transcode for maintaining HD quality would be ProRes. Have you setup the "easy setup" in FCP to capture to prores? This should maintain the HD quality and color space. However the transcode will be slower than real time (much slower depending on the speed of your machine) and the transcoded prores will be about 10 times the size of the AVCHD file.

The other alternative is to use a hardware accelerated AVCHD tool such as the Elgato Turbo HD usb stick. Or you could use a breakout box like the Matrox MXO2 series to injest the video from the HDMI output of your camcorder. This would bypass the need to transcode at all.

-Alex-

 

[tilleyand]

The preferred format for the transcode for maintaining HD quality would be ProRes. Have you setup the "easy setup" in FCP to capture to prores?

Thank you! But I'm not sure if I know what you mean. The version of fcp i have is 5, so I'm not sure if it has prores, because when i looked through the easy setup options i didn't see it there.

 

[nuggy101]

I'm in the same boat as you, i bought the VIXIA HF S10 and it imports into imovie 09 in great quality but not HD, and not into FCP or FCE. So i need to know of some way to keep the HD format all the way until it's in FCP or FCE.

This is the first problem I've had with and i really hope it can be fixed