Canon HG20 Trouble Importing

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Level 1

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Canon HG20 Trouble Importing

Hello Mac Community!

I have an older camcorder (HG20). I used to use it a lot, but have not used it in some time. Anywho, I used it the other day for the first time in a year (or two?) and I am unable to import video from the camcorder into iMovie. I did a couple of different things, but had no luck.

First, I just dragged and dropped the files (AVCHD) from the camcorder onto my desktop. Even though they kind of open, they take forever to import into iMovie. I gave it at least 2 hours the other day (and the status bar did not change) before I gave up.

Second, I tried directly importing from the camera to iMovie. I let it run overnight, with no change in the status bar before quitting iMovie. (Even though the movie did appear, I could not edit it, and it was very choppy).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Mac OS is MacOS High Sierra (10.13.3). MBP 17 inch, late 2011.

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), null

Posted on Mar 6, 2018 6:59 AM

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Answer 1

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Rich839

Level 8

47,250 points

Mar 6, 2018 11:31 AM in response to manji156

If you open the MTS file with Handbrake, and then click on File/Start Encoding, it will convert the file to an Mp4/AAC file. I did a test with an MTS file and the conversion worked per the above. Then you drag the converted file into iMovie.

-- Rich

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Answer 2

Rich839

Level 8

47,250 points

Mar 6, 2018 7:37 AM in response to manji156

Hi, manji,

Others have reported difficulties with importing AVCHD files with High Sierra.

Try moving the AVCHD folder to your desktop and Contro-clicking on it and selecting Show Package Contents. Find the BDMV file and do the same. You will see a STREAMING folder. Open that and all of your MTS movies will be in there. You can copy (not move) them to a folder on your desk top. Then, either open them in Quicktime Player and save them as a .mov file, or use the free download Handbrake to convert them to Mp4/AAC that Handbrake will do by default. See if the converted files will import into iMovie. You can just drag them in.

Here's a link to a video that describes the procedure:

https://bronami.video/avchd-files-extract-files/

-- Rich

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Answer 3

manji156 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 6, 2018 8:38 AM in response to Rich839

Rich,

Thanks so much for your help. I went through all the steps, but unfortunately it still does not work. I get the error "The document “00002.MTS” could not be opened. An unknown error occurred (1718449215)"

I did have luck opening my AVCHD file with VLC! Yay! Buuuuut I have no way of exporting it .mov. Any further insight would be greatly appreciated!

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