Importing from a Panasonic HDC TM700

What on Earth is this Aunsoft ??? If you try and Google answers to how best to deal with 1080p footage for a Mac, you get bombarded with 'helpful' websites directing you to software called Aunsoft - And I see its managed to get onto this discussion forum now.

Is it some sort of Viral Ad campaign ??

From everything I've read, it still seems the favoured methods of handling the mts video files from the Panasonic TM700 range are .........

1) Clipwrap - Which I gather very quickly repackages with no loss of quality into a format IM or FC can edit

2) Votaic HD which I assume does much the same.

3) I believe there are a couple of free Automator workflows floating about that would do much the same thing as the above

Any theories on which is better or the most appropriate ??

Ta

Message was edited by: GuyHolmes

GuyHolmes wrote:
What on Earth is this Aunsoft ??? If you try and Google answers to how best to deal with 1080p footage for a Mac, you get bombarded with 'helpful' websites directing you to software called Aunsoft - And I see its managed to get onto this discussion forum now.

Is it some sort of Viral Ad campaign ??

It's spam and I have reported it.

Couple of questions before I embark on the SD600 / TM700 ............

1) Understand ClipWrap and the Rewrap2m4v utility from Alan Sommers will do pretty much the same job, namely repackaging the 1080p AVCHD mts files into a mp4 file that can be read by pretty much all mac applications ?? If so, what is the generally accepted minimum spec for a Mac to play these files fluidly ??

2) Read lots of comments regarding AVCHD needing to be archived, ie you can't just take out the mts files and store them in a folder, you have to keep the whole file structure. Is this still an issue or more or a historical throw back ??

3) Is the Panasonic 28mbps 1080p a propriety format or 'open' ?? It sounds as if it is a natural progression of AVCHD so if it is open, then hopefully it will be adopted by other manufacturers and software.

4) Slightly off the Mac forum, but does anyone know if any Panasonic Blu-Ray players will play this max rate footage off an SD card or has this file format not quite worked its way through to other hardware yet.

5) Some say you can only keep one file format on a single SD Card - ie AVCHD or 1080p but don't the two on the same card - Is this the case?

Many thanks

PANASONIC HDC-TM700 & Using " Clipwrap" to Transcode 1080/60p Files for "Final Cut Pro 7"

1 min. 2 sec. (1:02) .MTS file = 189.6 MB.
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1a) Using ClipWrap 2.2 convert to Apple ProRes 422 HQ .mov = 3.49 GB (2.12 minutes to convert)

Convert Audio to LPCM - YES

1920x1080 (1888x1062) Millions 24-bit integer, mono, 48.000 kHz
451.24 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HDTV 1080i (16x9)
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1b) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to Apple ProRes 422 HQ .mov = 3.39 GB (2.14 minutes to convert)

Convert Audio to LPCM - NO

1920x1080 (1888x1062) Millions AC3, 6 channels, 48.000 kHz
445.04 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HDTV 1080i (16x9)
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2) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to Apple ProRes 422 .mov = 2.23 GB. (1.91 minutes to convert)

1920x1080 (1888x1062) Millions 24-bit integer, mono, 48.000 kHz
286.12 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HDTV 1080i (16x9)
________________________________________________________________________________ _________________
3) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to Apple ProRes 422 LT .mov = 1.62 GB (1.57 minutes to convert)

1920x1080 (1888x1062) Millions 24-bit integer, mono, 48.000 kHz
203.98 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HDTV 1080i (16x9)
________________________________________________________________________________ _________________
4) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to Apple ProRes 422 Proxy .mov = 758.9 MB (1.32 minutes to convert)

1920x1080 (1888x1062) Millions 24-bit integer, mono, 48.000 kHz
91.75 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HDTV 1080i (16x9)
________________________________________________________________________________ _________________
5) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to DVCProHD .mov = 991.6 MB (1.60 minutes to convert)

DVCProHD 720p60, 960x720 (1248x702), Millions 24-bit integer, Mono, 48.000 kHz
122.01 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HD 960x720 (16x9)
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6) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to DV .mov = 549 MB (1.49 minutes to convert)

DV 720x480 (640x480) Millions 24-bit integer, Mono, 48.000 kHz
64.46 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ NTSC DV (3:2)
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7) Using ClipWrap 2.2 to convert to “Rewrap” .mov = 282.7 MB (5 seconds to convert)

H.264 1920x1080 Millions Linear PCM, 24-bit little-endian signed integer,
6 channels, 48.000 kHz
29.85 Mbit/s & Final Cut Pro 7 @ HDTV 1080i (16x9)
________________________________________________________________________________ _________________

There was no discernible difference in image quality with the static clip used for these tests. It is possible that different conversions will work better than others for clips that contain fast movement. At present, it appears that Final Cut Pro 7 cannot handle 1080/60p; the clips appear to be converted to 1080i, but retain their 59.94 frame rate. However, if you open the transcoded 1080/60p ProRes 422 clips in Compressor, under “AV Attributes” > “Field Dominance”, it is displayed as “Progressive”.

Alan Somers wrote:
I have started working on a self-contained Cocoa app. I hope to have it done within a week.

Has there been any progress on this?

No, I got sidetracked. I was also having some issues getting the open-source ffmpeg software to compile. I just need to set aside some time and do it.

Just like to say thanks Alan all works well with my GH1 footage now that i have Perian installed.

Cheers
Paul

Thanks for the share Alan.
Some frames end up totally and solid green in the conversion. Anyone have any idea why?

Would appreciate some help with the best way to play 1080 60p quality onto a HDTV, other than hooking up the camcorder directly to it via the HDMI port. Family members may want to watch 1080 60p video when the camera is at my house or otherwise unavailable. I called Panasonic and they told me that video could be played directly from the SD card when inserted into the SD slot of their newer televisions. It tried this--only still pictures showed up; the movies were not found or read. Hooking up a portable hard drive to the USB slot of the Panasonic TV also was of no help. So far, the 1080 60p video has looked the best when played back on an iMac from an external hard drive--it looks even better this way than when played back directly from the camcorder to a HDMI port on a Panasonic HDTV (which according to Panasonic should be playing it back in all of its 1080 60p glory). Still would like to be able to play back directly onto an HDTV without the camcorder, preferably directly from a large hard drive where 2 TB of clips could be stored, selected and played back on the HDTV. Any ideas? Thanks.

I've been looking for a set-top box to handle 1080p60 video and all of them have disappointed. It's possible the Boxee Box will handle it; it supposedly has the necessary horsepower, but I've gotten no confirmation from any of the queries I've put out thus far.

The latest Panasonic Blu Ray players are supposedly able to play the 60p files - So I guess your talking the BD65 and BD85 and upwards. I've never actually seen it done.

I gather that the Panasonic 3D Blu-Ray players have more brain power to deal with the increase in 3D data, so I imagine thats a better sure-fire bet to playing full 1080p60 footage off an SD card. Depending on how good Santa is to me this year, I may have an answer for you in about 25 days!!

Alan,

Thank you so much. Your workflow works like a champ with 1080p-60 video from the TM700.

In fact, interestingly, the output from your conversion looks considerably better than output (unconverted, just rewrapped) from clipwrap, or Toast. I had some footage that I shot at night, through a car window. ugly, high gain, noisy footage. The video from your conversion trick, is noticeably more clear than any other software I've tried. I can't explain why, particularly if there is no video conversion going on and it's just a conversion process.

I found that I had to UNINSTALL Perian to make things work right with the TM700. Otherwise the M4V, and Apple Intermediate Codec, 1080p-60 clips were unplayable on my Core2Duo MacBookPro, due to stuttering, and frame loss. (No matter what my machine can't seem to handle Apple ProRes 1080p-60)

The catch is, when I uninstalled Perian, I lose audio when playing back the M4V clips created from this rewrapping process. (Although FinalCutPro can understand the audio, though it wants to render the audio once placed in the timeline)

I'd love to see your Coco version you mentioned. I hope you have time to complete it. It would be quite a great thing to ease the workflow for owners of this interesting camcorder.

Thanks again!

Ok
So I tried the rewrap2m4 workflow and it didn't work (I pretty sure its because I am still on a ppc, sorry I am one to get the most out of a system and not throw it away every month.) But I am running fcp6 and able to edit after converting to aic. Color correction is slow but I just hit render and go to bed.
Now;

Has anybody figured out good output settings in compressor for smugmug or vimeo coming from a 1920x1080 60p timeline. I have tried some tweaking but it seems to be a little jumpy after the ingest.
Love the camera. Has a white balance shift problem in auto mode but since I use it in manual mode it isn't a problem.

Read lots of comments regarding AVCHD needing to be archived, ie you can't just take out the mts files and store them in a folder, you have to keep the whole file structure. Is this still an issue or more or a historical throw back ?? --------------------

Well. I just purchased my camera from B&H last week. So far able to take files ( Standalone MTS files ) off internal memory and store on external drive. Dragged one mts stand alone today and loaded it into clipwrap and converted to aic. so far so good. I convert to aic or prores because if I just rewrap the file I only have limited scrub in the timeline and playback is very jumpy.

I've read a lot of this thread and basically i'm out of my depth and new to video work.

I have a G1 that records 720p MTS files. I've copied these to my imac and converted them with the script from the first page. It converts them to mp4 files that I can use in imovie but they are much worse quality and pixelate badly at full screen and there is no sound. I have clipgrab installed but assume I'm doing something wrong. Can anyone help?

I think its crazy we have to go to these lengths just to get video files into imovie.....