Convert .MTS through Clipwrap or Log & Transfer?

Hi Molly,

I did tests recently to compare Log & transfer on FCP7 to ClipWrap, I hope it will help you.

I work on a macbook snow leopard (10.6.8). I normally use FCP7's log and transfer to transcode my AVCHD (.mts) footage in ProRes, and ClipWrap 2.4.2 to transcode footage that didn't keep the original folder structure, since I sometimes do editing for people that give me their own footage (and didn't know how it works). After a lot of research, ClipWrap is the only option I found to convert .mts files that don't have the original folder structure (the folder "AVCHD" or "BDMV" with all their contents). If you just have the .mts files, then you'll have to use ClipWrap, since L&T doesn't recognize them.

But I use to work with very long files (like ted talks) and L&T is REALLY slow to convert avchd into ProRes. According to this guy : https://adamwelznxcam.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/ingesting-nxcam-footage-problems- with-final-cut-pros-log-and-transfer-tool/

log and transfer on FCP7 (without the upgrade that he talks about) seems to have an issue with AVCHD footage that has LCPM audio tracks, and that's why it's so slow. L&T is also sometimes unstable, i.e has a tendency to crash or fail to transcode.

ClipWrap is more stable and definitly faster. For example, L&T took 55min to convert an avchd clip of 13min21 (with Firewire 800 connection), while ClipWrap took 24 min for the same clip in the same conditions. Last month, I transcoded 30,26Go of avchd footage in ProRes LT via L&T and it took me 30,5h, while 34,56Go of the same type of footage the week after took me 7,75h of transcoding in Clipwrap!

Clips transcoded in ClipWrap have the exact same quality (i.e the same data rate) than clips converted in L&T. But ClipWrap has also important limits. Here is a summary of all my observations about ClipWrap 2.4.2 :

Pros :

- It is much more faster than L&T for long clips with LCPM audio ;

- ClipWrap does transcode directly .mts files when L&T need the original folder structure ;

- It's really more stable than L&T ;

- You can transcode in background while continue working on FCP (if you computer can take it!).

- The moustache is really funny

Cons :

- L&T recreates the original cuts of your shooting, while ClipWrap convert the original 12min mts clips created by the camera. It wouldn't be a big deal if it didn't come for me with a big problem : when I rebuilt the file on the timeline (for example a 30min conference with 3 clips), I can observe that I lost a few frames in the image, and about 1 sec of sound, which most of the time creates a big hole in the middle of a sentence. I don't know if it's the camera I use (Sony PXW-X70), but in these cases, I have to choice than to use L&T. If I recorded the sound separatly, I can handle it with Clipwrap because the few frames I lost don't really create a visible jump cut, but then it's a little more complicated for the audio syncronization.

- Sometimes it's helpful to transcode only a part of a clip with an in and out, a option that is only possible with L&T.

Interesting but not working for me :

- Clipwrap has the option to "rewrap" your mts files into mov files instead of transcoding. It would be really cool to work directly with native files when I don't have a lot of manipulations to do on them, but it just don't work for me. FCP7 can read the files, but as soon as I try to put them on the timeline, the beachball make its appearance and don't disappear until I force FCP to quit.

Well that's it, I hope it will be useful for you in the future!

PS : I don't know the option of "optimizing for FCP7".