Clipwrap versus Mpeg Streamclip

Question

Clipwrap versus Mpeg Streamclip

Hi,

I am the director of a student-made film that is beginning post-pro. We shot our movie on a Panasonic HDC-HS900 camera. Unfortunately, I didn't know that I had to preserve the wrap on the file to import the .mts into FCP. I now need to convert the files before putting them in FCP7. So.....which is better to use, Mpeg or Clipwrap??? I hear that they will both work, and I tested Clipwrap and like how it works.

Also....is converting the .mts files to ProRes 422 the best way to go?

Thanks in advance!

The Director

Final Cut Pro 7, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 22, 2012 2:51 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nick Holmes

Level 7

30,018 points

Oct 22, 2012 3:09 PM in response to EpicSummerMovie

MPEG Streamclip doesn't work with .mts at all unless you install the Panasonic AVCCAM Importer

Reply

Answer 2

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Oct 22, 2012 7:24 PM in response to EpicSummerMovie

Not a huge fan of Mpeg streamclip and have used Clipwrap for all sorts of input without issues. Clipwrap2 gets my vote (even though it is not free).

And yes, ProRes422 or ProRes422 LT will be fine.

x

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 23, 2012 6:50 AM in response to EpicSummerMovie

You can also try BlueXFree which is works just like ClipWrap, but it's free.

Reply

Answer 4

Oct 23, 2012 4:31 PM in response to Studio X

Thank you for your reply! Why would you recommend Clipwrap over Streamclip?

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 23, 2012 4:33 PM in response to Brad Wright2

I downloaded it, but the problems are that it takes forever, and that it only converts one clip at a time. I know that you can convert more than one clip in BlueX, but is it any faster??? Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Reply

Answer 6

RatVega™

Level 4

2,005 points

Oct 23, 2012 5:27 PM in response to EpicSummerMovie

I've used MPEG Streamclip casually for years, but last year on a large project it was giving me fits with quality and audio drift. I went a sibling product of BlueX (it was a SD project) and my problems were over.

Moral: All transcoders are not equal.

If Brad's product takes a bit longer, it's probably working a lot harder to get you the best possible clip. In my modest experience, higher quality conversion usually translates to better (more correctable) color.

If your system is slow, onsider borrowing (or otherwise gaining) a "render hog" to run on processor-intensive tasks. I was able to cut a feature a couple of years ago on my "old faithful" G5 dualie by borrowing a 8X Mac Pro to handle the Color and sequence rendering.

Good luck

Reply

Answer 7

Oct 24, 2012 4:10 PM in response to EpicSummerMovie

Ok, thanks for all your input, guys! I've done some clicking around and think that the program Compressor, which I have on my computer will work. Any thoughts on this? I've started working some with it and am having trouble getting large amounts of clips into it. It will freeze up and I have a LOT of clips to convert, so if I have to bring them in a few at a time it will take forever...does anyone have a way to fix this? Again, thank you for all the input you have already given.

Reply

Answer 8

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Oct 24, 2012 7:34 PM in response to EpicSummerMovie

To be sure, Compressor will work. But coming late to the thread, I'm curious whether you even tried MPEG STreamclip. which is generally faster than Compressor. (Which is not to say that I think Streamclip is better, because I don't…only that it's typically faster and does have good batch features.)

Russ

Reply

Answer 9

Oct 25, 2012 5:55 PM in response to Russ H

I have done a bit with Mpeg Streamclip. I think to do what I needed, though, I needed the MPEG 2 plug-in, which appears to cost money. Compressor seems to work well (the images are wonderfully crisp!) but it does take a LONG time. My biggest problem with Compressor is that it is difficult to put a large amount of files into it at once.

Reply

Answer 10

Nick Holmes

Level 7

30,018 points

Oct 25, 2012 6:12 PM in response to EpicSummerMovie

You have FCS, so you already have the MPEG2 QuickTime component.

Compressor can be sped up by assigning multiple processors to it: http://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/using_compressor_with_multiple_cores. html

Reply

Answer 11

Dec 17, 2012 12:36 AM in response to EpicSummerMovie

Use Clipwrap to re-wrap to Pro Res. Import those Pro Res files into FCP as 1080p 59.94fps files. Edit them and render them as Pro Res files. Then use MTS to FCP Converter to make a compressed movie as H264 such a .m4v file for Apple TV3.

I tried some of the free programs but had problems, Clipwrap did the trick.

Reply

Answer 12

Dec 17, 2012 1:10 PM in response to Zaman13965

Clipwrap will CONVERT the files if you choose to export as ProRes. It's only if you choose "rewrap" that it'll just add a wrapper so the file will play in quicktime and you'll be able to use compressor and other programs to convert the file. It will not be editable in fcp. You may be able to load it in fcp, but you'll have a barrel of pain down the road.

Reply