Panasonic AVCHD in to iMovie09 or Final Cut Express 4.0?

dubcat · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:49

Hello

I have been digging for information on how feasible it will be to edit the high def AVCHD video produced by my Panasonic HDC-SD200 camcorder on my Mac (Snow Leopard). I read that the files can not be edited natively in FCE4 or iMovie09? I read that they must first be converted and that the converted files will be MUCH bigger

Is this true? If so that really sucks.

Thanks,
Dub

feriso · 19 Oct 2009 at 12:37

IIRC FCE4 can do AVCHD :confused:

edit see linky

Lowe · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:01

Yes and yes - it does convert before working.

dubcat · 19 Oct 2009 at 19:31

well i copied all of the .mts files from my SD card on to my hard drive. I then went to FCE4 and selected import. The MTS files are greyed out. It won't even let me select them for conversion to aic.

J1234 · 19 Oct 2009 at 20:24

You need to plug the camera in and import from the camera within Final Cut to use the AVCHD clips.

dubcat · 19 Oct 2009 at 21:17

that's the problem - i just copied the .mts files off the camcroder. In future i will plug the camera in but for now i need to find a way to get these files in to imovie. I tried using voltaichd to convert to hd quicktime movies. This allowed me to import in to final cut express 4.. but not imovie. I really want to get them in to imovie to take advantage of the automated intro generation and ease of use.

Kawolski · 19 Oct 2009 at 22:39

Try opening them in MPEG Streamclip. Export them to Apple Intermediate Codec. Take those files into iMovie.

www.squared5.com

You need QuickTime Pro and the QuickTime MPEG2 Playback component. MPEG Streamclip is free

dubcat · 20 Oct 2009 at 00:35

I'll try it.. problem is i already tried moving them in to Apple Intermediate Codec format and they only load in to FCE4.. iMovie won't take them

I used VoltaicHD for the conversion.

Lowe · 21 Oct 2009 at 08:27

If memory serves (and it is memory) with Final Cut you still need to log and capture the files - that's when it converts them.

dubcat · 21 Oct 2009 at 09:33

Ok i got lucky - turns out I dumped my entire SD card contents in to a directory each time i emptied it and i kept those directories archived. I am guessing that imovie and fce use some of the other files in the directory in conjunction with the .mts files when doing the conversion.

I have actually decided to go down the adobe premiere elements route as this seems to allow me to work with the files natively (i.e. no conversion required) and also seems to allow me to work at 1080. The output options in imovie max out at 720 - if i'm going to pass it on to fce i might as well just work with adobe premiere since i would lose the titles i like so much anyway. One interesting point to note by the way is that if you use the media browser in premiere the files are not recognised as avchd unless all those other files apart from the mts files are present too.

Moral of the story - archive your entire card not just the mts files!