Importing from a Panasonic HDC TM700

Well, I finally got it to work.
I purchased Adobe Premiere Pro.
I now upload .mts files directly from my camera to my desktop and then import them directly into Premiere Pro and then edit as usual. No Toast, no clip wrap, no converting, no compressing, just raw .mts files.
I realize that there is cost here, but it was well worth it to me so that I could get the most out of my HD camera. I think Final Cut Pro will allow you to do the same thing.
Good luck.

I apologize in advance, but I am really, really a plug and play type novice. Just bought my iMac this weekend. When I plug in my Canon Vixia, it don't play. iMovie '09 doesn't recognize the .mts files. So are you saying that if I buy Adobe Premiere Pro, it will recognize those files? I'm concerned about my very valuable family videos. They were copied over from my pc to the new iMac. But as I said, iMovie doesn't know they are there.

No Rick....he was speaking in reference to the panasonic camera which produces a higher res type of file than your canon. Your canon shouldn't be a problem. You definitely do not have to have Premier.

Thank you.

Guys,

i don't have the TM700 model, but the HDC SD600, which is pretty much the same camera, with less features.
Unfortunately this model(European one) is not supported native by iMovie, so I need to use the rewrap methods described here.
I've tested with 1080x50p clips and the results are great, but the problem comes when trying to export 1080x50i clips. iMovie does not offer any output settings to export interlaced videos, only progressive ones. This is making the exported clips to look very ugly, with the image trembling (I'm sure it's because the framerate)

Anyone can give me some ideas how to export the interlaced clips, so that the output will play smooth like before the export?

Many thanks.

I too am using the SD600. Finding things work pretty well with the Rewrap2m4v automater script so I only really work with 1080p50 footage.

I'm not entirely sure what your issue is. Can you explain a bit more. iMovie should 'import' 1080i fine through the camera although it is well documented that the quality will be reduced as iMovie only deals with progressive as you say.

In absence of an exact description and diagnosis of your problem, have you tried MPEG Streamclip? This won't deal directly with the MTS clips, but will take the rewrapped m4v clips and turn them into pretty much whatever you want, including making them progressive before you import into iMovie. Can be quite a time consuming process, but you can batch them together and run it overnight - I often use MPEG STreamclip to turn my m4v files (which are a bit too compressed to run smoothly on my 2006 iMac) into AIC at 1080p50. And iMovie 11 (£8.99 from the App Store) handles and plays full quality footage at 50fps even better than iMovie 06, Final Cut Express and even Pro.

I may have to start accepting iMovie as a credible piece of software !!

I've tried also Mpeg Streamclip to convert my 1080i clips, but the results were not good. (all videos made from i to p are not smooth)
That's pretty much the hole issue, that iMovie will export the video into p only and the output files will not be at all as smooth as before editing.
With progressive videos all is good, but with interlaced...not working at all with iMovie or Final Cut.
So far I've been able to export some good quality movies (keeping them as interlaced) with Adobe Premiere.

If I could do that also with iMovie, it will be awesome.

Just tried some 1080i clips. As you say, there were a few quality issues. Looking at the original captured movie clip with Quicktime, it did look quite stuttery. Imported it into iMovie 11 and it looked fine, but exporting to 1080p didn't look good.

I guess as you know, iMovie only works with progressive so it captures the 1920x1080 interlaced and drops every other line to make it progressive thereby reducing the quality. Then if you ask iMovie to export to 1080p it has to upscale again and bingo, more quality lost. Thats why people hate the new iMovie Trilogy. Unless you stick with progressive throughout (which fortunately you have the ability to) I think iMovie will potentially not be a good option.

I did however change the export settings - Have you played with these ? Instead of Export Movie, I tried Export Using Quicktime, and in the settings went for Apple Intermediate Codec, 25fps and 720p (as the captured video is no longer 1080 horizontal lines) and I found the quality of the exported file pretty good. Give it a go maybe

Yes, I believe you can export interlaced video using apple intermediate codec, but this is something that I don't want to use. I mean, it's going to be very time consuming...and I'm trying to avoid that.
I tried to use Adobe Premiere the trial edition and it worked like a charm, import and export much much faster than with iMovie.
iMovie works though with progressive material, but again you have to transcode first the mts file into an mp4.

dear everybody,

I own a Panasonic HDC SD-700, and use Rewrap2M4V in order to convert my files with Mpegstreamclip before editing in Final Cut (apple pro res 422).

BUT : the .m4v generated by rewrap2m4v, when shot in 25p, seem to be corrupted : only VLC is able to read them well, when reading and editing with MPEGstreamclip, quicktime, FinalCut... there are frames missing (every few seconds, the same image is repeated 6 or more times...). When using 50p video from the camcorder, no problem.

Have you an idea why this problem ? I cannot edit my files well with this tools (there are saccades...) Any idea welcome.

Thank you very much
Nicolas

Hi, i have the new panny hdc-tm900, recording in 1080p and using this script... however when i use the script it changes the creation and modification dates... is there any way the script can keep the original dates?

Hello to Alan Somers,

Thank you for your script. It is a lifesaver.

Just out of interest, there is a recently released open-source app called Media Converter:
http://media-converter.sourceforge.net/

It runs scripts. If you download Media Converter, go to preferences, you can download extra scripts to add to it. There is a script to rewrap AVCHD without re-encoding or recompressing.

I recently bought a new Panasonic HDC-SD900 camera (very similar to last year's 700 series camcorders). For files shot in 50p, this Media Converter AVCHD script transcodes it very well. However, for interlaced clips, or 25p clips, it fails (Panasonic's 25p 'Digital Cinema' movies are apparently stored as an interlaced stream).

Because I always shoot 25p, I could not use Media Converter. After that, I Googled the subject and found Alan's great script.

I write this in the hope that someone might be able to find why the Media Converter script does not work on 25p and interlaced files. If that could be corrected, then Media Converter would then be a 1-stop application, which would be easier than installing multiple apps and codecs.

Until then, Alan's Automator script is the only usable way to rewrap AVCHD.

Mike Jasinski wrote:
Hi, i have the new panny hdc-tm900, recording in 1080p and using this script... however when i use the script it changes the creation and modification dates... is there any way the script can keep the original dates?

I have uploaded a new version that will take the modification time on the MTS file and apply it to the resultant m4v file.

Thats brilliant. Nice one Alan. That was my only issue with the script, and I thought it wasn't working as the resulting file seemed to have a new date and time - Then suddenly it changed to match the original file.

The only trouble is, I now feel the need to go back and convert all my original mts files again !!

Thanks for all your work on this

GuyHolmes wrote:
Thats brilliant. Nice one Alan. That was my only issue with the script, and I thought it wasn't working as the resulting file seemed to have a new date and time - Then suddenly it changed to match the original file.

The times on the converted file cannot be changed until the file has completed writing. It has to be done as a separate operation within the script.