Premiere and AVCHDLight (.MTS Files)

thx for posting this..

i'm using a sony HDR-XR200 which streams .MTS AVCHD files to its internal 120 GB hard disk in 1920x1080i -- and you're right.. the bit rate is too low and it shows in HD playback on a large screen.. boo, sony

anyways, i backed up the hard disk when it got full and the only application that can read the raw archive is... imovie09.. final cut express a barfs on the import, even though the previewer can play the raw .MTS file.. curious.. and yes, i even bothered with the 4.01 upgrade that supposed to fix this.. no joy

so i tried this both ways today.. using your method of HandBrake-->MPEG Streamclip first.. it looks ok i guess, but the interlacing really shows up badly on playback, at least to my eyes.. it works, but i don't quite like how it looks

then i played around with imovie09.. imported from camera archive at the highest resolution (full original size), then exported using Share-->Export Using QuickTime.. i had to play around with the settings for awhile, but i find i like the result of the .mp4 output better (using H.264 at 3200kbs in best quality).. the interlacing lines don't show up as badly (not at all, really)

finally, i used imovie09 to export the .MTS clip to a quicktime movie (again using the share-->export using quicktime selection) using photoJPEG in best mode, and deinterlaced.. voila! it looks pretty good.. maybe even good enough for istockphoto, but that will take 5 to 7 weeks to find out, apparently :P

worth noting here is that i've purchased the QuickTime upgrade.. not sure if that's required to use those export functions within imovie09

i think it's pretty ironic that imovie09 has better .MTS support than final cut express/pro, or even a lot of pay-for-it converters one can find on the internets these days

just my 2 cents.. thx again for this post.. you certainly steered me in a productive direction

=)

Clinton, thanks so much for the .MTS/AVCHD workflow suggestion! It's a great recording codec, but lousy editing codec. I have upgraded QT as well as iMovie 09 so I'm definitely looking into this one!

I use Streamclip for most of my transcoding/ripping. But wasn't happy with what it did with the AVCHD file. Best I could come up with at the time. I'm taking an AVCHD camera with me to Asia again in October so I'll play around with iMovie.

If you have FCP, you can ingest it via ProRes4.22 (win for Final Cut). As far as I know, you can't do this unless you have Final Cut Pro.

That workflow sounds very nice actually. The one downside to working with Premiere (I've used both extensively) is that you can convert to ProRes. Premiere so far, handles HDV natively but only on PC. The amount streamclip errors you get when editing on a Mac in Premiere makes the format unusable so I transcode. The transcoded files look better, are easier on the system, and I lose the long GOP issues when editing.

That said, I discovered that recording to CF on my Z7U that I don't get timecode. This was an issue when doing the two camera shoot to DVCAM for our latest resource production. This left me having to line up all my clips and sync all my clips by hand because I couldn't rely on the non-existent TC. We did our best to name files in consequetive order, but that didn't always work. (this was also the case as well on the Firestore we used on the HVX200). To me, with this production, it was unnacceptable not to have TC. I was rather pissed to be honest, but I couldn't do anything about it from that point foward.

Premiere also won't let you play back and capture tapeless files like you would a tape unless you did in fact, play back in real time from the CF card. If I could, I could manually enter captured TC. I can do that via HDMI and pretty sure I can get a QT file out of it at 1920 vs. 1440. Either way, source TC still doesn't come out when going to CF. Problem being there also that if I change the TC for a given clip after the clips are in the project. Those TC's don't save to the next project open (also gave me a big WTF?! moment).

I will admit, for most of my work or 95% of it anyway, I'm producing shorts, interviews, short docs, etc. so timecode for the most part, is not necessary for what I'm doing. I'm also a one man show so I don't have to rely on some things like TC for directions to team members.

I'm still looking into maintaining the effeciency of the drag and drop tapeless workflow which, flat out kicks serious ass but get timecode and proper logging out of it.

Until then, AVCHD has to be transcoded to something else because it's not natively supported and HDV on Mac in Premiere sucks so that has to be transcoded as well.

I really, really, really want to get TC and metadata embedded on my tapeless files that I can then edit via Bridge as I log. Or I can bring in the files via the log and capture option in Pr and write data there. That would be most epic and I don't care which.

I'm always so hesitant to convert video before editing, because I don't want to lose embedded timecode data. That's probably becoming less and less important with tapeless workflows.

I ingest everything into CatDV (tapes via Live Capture), where it's tagged and marked up (notes) by me & producers. Once I have a handle on all the footage I want, I send batch lists to FCP for recapture, or if it's a file, a reconnect. I might have FCP do a media manage to convert to ProRes at that point (we're getting more stuff that's prores natively, which is nice). AVCHD from cams like the Sonys is converted to ProRes using their tools, which are actually kind of nice.

I really wish metadata could be embedded like photos can. It would solve so many problems I have.