.MTS

I'm hosting cliptools here if you can't find it elsewhere:
http://www.mudgee.net/ClipToolz-Convert-V2.msi

+7 to MTS support.

Also, thanks so much for the link to ClipToolz, David!

I've just tried a converted mts into mov or mp4 containers with ffmpeg -y -vcodec copy -acodec copy and it doesn't work. The mov or mp4 files are imported in Resolve, but it displays a red icon with an exclamation mark on most frames.

You are on the right track with the FFMPEG command. .MTS is not a codec it is a container. The Video is AVCHD and the audio is AC3. On PC you can get a windows AC3 codec free online, not sure about the MAC. Once you have the AC3 decoder the audio will play as normal.

The FFMPEG command to rewrap the codec is:

ffmpeg -i <input-mts-filename>.mts -vcodec copy -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -ac 2 <output-filename>.avi/.mov

This will copy the AVCHD codec as is, and covert the audio to PCM16bit@48Khz with 2 channels inside a .AVI or .MOV container.

Change pcm_s16le to pcm_s24le for 24-bit audio.


You could also convert right to ProRes with this command.

ffmpeg -i <input-filename>.mts -vcodec prores -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -ac 2 <output-Filename>.mov

Add -profile 2 or 3 to the command to get Normal or HQ



You can convert straight to DNxHD @ 45Mbs with this command:

ffmpeg -i <input_filename>.mts -vcodec dnxhd -s 1920x1080 -b:v 45M -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -ac 2 <output-filename>.mxf or .mov

Bump up the bit rate to the DNxHD profile bitrate you use.

ffplay <file_name> will play the file.

ffprobe <file_name> will give internal stats on the video file.

Just downloaded Beta4 and tested ever hoping that they would have implemented full MTS support - but I'm afraid not in this release!

Despite MTS being not a professional codec many camcorders output is MTS, therefore you can not discard or disregard MTS support natively. Although the process of converting/transcoding/re-wrapping the footage is NOT complex IS time consuming, and yet another step(s) in the workflow. Blackmagic should implement, the least, such steps into Resolve, thus becoming extremely competitive piece of software. After all, as experienced colorist, or anyone learning Color Correction, many times is not your choice what footage you have/receive to work.

now my .MTS files are working in beta4, but without sound. Is only the video imported?

now my .MTS files are working in beta4, but without sound. Is only the video imported?

http://www.ac3filter.net/ - I would try that on Pc and see if it allows the audio playback on the mts imports.

BM needs to license the AC-3 codec from Dolby, which is an additional expense. I am sure that is making it a hard call for such low end footage from prosumer gear.


Using the FFMPEG process with the Video copy and transforming the audio to PCM should be very fast on any i7 Gen1 or later. You can wildcard the process and convert entire directories.

...Using the FFMPEG process with the Video copy and transforming the audio to PCM should be very fast on any i7 Gen1 or later. You can wildcard the process and convert entire directories.

Which is exactly what ClipToolz does without you needing to run the ffmpeg/ffmbc routines manually so get it while you can.

BM needs to license the AC-3 codec from Dolby, which is an additional expense. I am sure that is making it a hard call for such low end footage from prosumer gear.

If that were true, then free software like vlc Media Player -- which plays .mts files with sound without difficulty -- and even standalone blu-ray players which play .mts files would have to license ac-3. And what are the chances of that?

A simple matter -- support for .mts files -- is getting needlessly confusing.

I'd argue that you lose time using .mts files natively rather than transcoding them.

I have ClipToolz on my PC now, thanks very much for posting the installer. I can envision having it batch away sometime while I'm editing something else on the mac

For the odd quickfix (what what I had to do today when a coworker brought me an iPhone video for editing) I found that Free AVCHD to MOV (from the App store) does the job just fine. Zapped the file to MOV, and it imported into Resolve 'with sound', quick enough workaround.

BM needs to license the AC-3 codec from Dolby, which is an additional expense. I am sure that is making it a hard call for such low end footage from prosumer gear.

If that were true, then free software like vlc Media Player -- which plays .mts files with sound without difficulty -- and even standalone blu-ray players which play .mts files would have to license ac-3. And what are the chances of that?

A simple matter -- support for .mts files -- is getting needlessly confusing.

AC-3 on VLC is against Dolby's licensing agreements and against their wishes, as they reverse engineered the codec and created it themselves. (Note, it still uses the Dolby proprietary format)

You'll notice that VLC for the iPhone/iPad was removed from the App Store a while back with no explanation, until just recently when it was placed back on the App Store -- without AC-3 support.
Dolby contacted Apple saying that they were essentially using the codec without the rights to do it, so Apple pulled it till it was sorted out. (Have you seen VLC available in the Mac App Store? No, for that exact reason).

For other blu-ray player programs, they would've either licensed it to only play the audio (more about that below), or they would have used the same "free"* codec as VLC.

For someone like BM to put Dolby support into their program would require a hefty licensing fee as they would need to add support to read (one licence), add support to edit the audio (another licence fee) and to export (because people would get pissy if they couldn't export in it either, adding another fee on top).

*By free, I mean they use the same reverse engineered codec that VLC use that's been released as open source.

Edit: I found this response from a VLC developer regarding having AC-3 support being removed

There doesn't appear to be plans to re-add it in an update. I emailed them and got this response....
"We had to remove it due to a legal threat from Dolby Laboratories asking us $8,000,000 per year for it."

I'm not having a go at anyone, just saying it's a lot harder than you think to get permission to put it in. There's a whole lot of licensing restrictions that prevent them from putting more stuff in.

Well, then, what about other NLEs which support .mts natively? PP? Edius? FCPX? It's hard to believe these companies are paying Dolby $8,000,000.

BMD documentation specifically claims support for "Decoding of Panasonic MTS video." If using the word "video" is a way of saying audio isn't supported, and will likely never be supported, it might help if BMD clarified the matter once and for all. In any case, it would end the speculation on this thread.

@Sebastian
Many thanks for explaining the issue. Looks like switching to Resolve will mean transcoding as part of any workflow if we use .MTS files, or limit the footage we accept from third parties.

So what you are saying is that Adobe, Avid and Grass Valley (Edius) + others are all paying the royalties required to Dolby for licencing their AC-3 and thus enabling them to offer native ingest of AVCHD sound/vision in whatever wrapper?

Well, then, what about other NLEs which support .mts natively? PP? Edius? FCPX? It's hard to believe these companies are paying Dolby $8,000,000.

That $8,000,000 figure was plucked out of the air by a single developer of VLC. I believe it was to show that it's quite out of the price range for a software company who makes next to bupkis

BMD documentation specifically claims support for "Decoding of Panasonic MTS video." If using the word "video" is a way of saying audio isn't supported, and will likely never be supported, it might help if BMD clarified the matter once and for all. In any case, it would end the speculation on this thread.

It only states video and I cannot see any detail of audio, so I would assume that there is no audio support.

There's no point in getting angry over something that BMD might not be able to support. After all, there are plenty of other methods people have said before as to get support for native ProRes (or equivalent) conversion with LPCM audio for editing.

@Sebastian
Many thanks for explaining the issue. Looks like switching to Resolve will mean transcoding as part of any workflow if we use .MTS files, or limit the footage we accept from third parties.

Transcoding to a codec like DNxHD or ProRes means that there's very very little to no generation loss, and gives you a relatively high quality codec for future purposes.
AVCHD is quite a nasty codec (in my own experience) and different manufacturers sometimes like to add their own flavour to it making it incompatible across platforms.

So what you are saying is that Adobe, Avid and Grass Valley (Edius) + others are all paying the royalties required to Dolby for licencing their AC-3 and thus enabling them to offer native ingest of AVCHD sound/vision in whatever wrapper?

I don't know all the details per NLE creators, but yes, they would have to pay a license. As I said above, it wouldn't be $8,000,000 per year, but they would need to pay a agreed amount.
FCPX state in their acknowledgements that they have a license to Dolby Digital for a decoder and encoder and if you check all the other NLEs, they would have one too.
They would then get official code on how to decode/encode their stuff.

"Transcoding to a codec like DNxHD or ProRes means that there's very very little to no generation loss, and gives you a relatively high quality codec for future purposes.
AVCHD is quite a nasty codec (in my own experience) and different manufacturers sometimes like to add their own flavour to it making it incompatible across platforms."

Well that was our experience on the 3 cams we tested - 2 had sound & vision the other (a Panny) had vision only. Clearly it's an ongoing issue and one unlikely to be resolved within Davince Resolve - so it's really up to users to decide whether or not they stop using or taking in material in MTS format, or expect to pre-transcode the material then cut in DR, or stick to the NLE's they have that work - end of!

Thanks to all for the helpful info and advice they have supplied on this thread...

There's no point in getting angry over something that BMD might not be able to support.

If there's "anger", it's over the dearth of information.

As detailed in another thread, R12 apparently cannot link existing files in the Browser to differently named files -- relinking is only available when clips have gone off-line for some reason and have identical file names.

So, if you're dealing with xml imported projects created with .mts files, manual replacement of every clip on the time-line with the transcoded version may be the only remedy.

There are possible workarounds -- renaming folders, reel names, changing the settings on the xml dialogue with respect to extensions, etc. -- but before undertaking them, or attempting to undertake them, a word from BMD would be helpful, particularly given the level of interest on this topic.

We had this same conversation on the Lightworks forum two years ago. I shot AVCHD at the time but always transocode to 'visually lossless' codecs like ProRes or DNxHD if only to enjoy the benefit of individually timecoded and reel numbered I-frames.

Editshare UK (Lightworks) eventually buckled to the press of opinion from new users and paid the licence fees but I for one would have preferred they spent their resources and energy on furture long term development strategies.

With the info supplied in this thread regards Dolby I don't see BMD buckling in any time soon on any 'expensive' licencing deal for their R12 product - which is offered free in it's basic form - and 'basic' is for most people effectively a fully blown NLE. Albeit you need to own or buy some BMD hardware.

Just look at the ongoing saga on their switchers with continuous requests from their users for scalers on the inputs (or even just a few of them) - they have never flinched from their stance that it would add too much to their pricing structure...

DaVinci Resolve is $0.
Clipwrap is $50. I'm not sure if that is 'insanely expensive' for some people.

I just tried cliptoolz to convert some C100 mark ii mts files into prores hd files. An 18mb mts file converted into 443bm! Is that normal?

Yes, that sounds logical. It's the trade-off between compressed media and true I frame codecs. As a reference, I shoot native ProRes 422 HQ 25P at a bitrate of 200Mbps. A 64GB CFast card fills in 30 minutes.

I just tried cliptoolz to convert some C100 mark ii mts files into prores hd files. An 18mb mts file converted into 443bm! Is that normal?

Cliptoolz gives you other options, including lower data rate ProRes options, as well as conversions to .mp4 with audio which R12 can play. But you'll need to experiment. If the files are too compressed, you may have problems in R12

If you learn how to use ffmpeg, you can also rewrap your files to .mov or .avi containers, while only converting the AC-3 audio to PCM, and leaving the video unchanged. R12 should be able to play these files as well as it plays the original .mts video material. But, again, there's no substitute for testing.

BMD could choose to support it, and pay the fees and spend the development time making it work, and the ongoing headache of some not working natively etc.

I would prefer them focus resources and investment on other things, I still find that the time taken to convert everything into a proper format is more than repaid, i.e. that it is a 'false economy' to use .MTS natively anyway, i.e. the convenience is outweighed by the hassles of using MTS.

Others disagree, but I believe they just don't have good procedures setup for bringing in their footage when it arrives from the client.

Anyway, it is pretty clear it isn't supported in R12, and that is a fair indication that support isn't likely. I can understand wanting to be able to just load any format straight in, it sounds good in theory, but it has a lot of downsides as well, and a good footage logging and import structure is important if you want to run your business properly anyway, so even when I get a few TBs and hundreds of files delivered to me as .AVI or MTS, they are immediately fed through the logging and transcoding system anyway, and I then work with fully logged, correctly timecoded footage, and the original files remain untouched, and the workflow is faster and trouble free.

If you really want .MTS, keep officially requesting it from BMD I guess.

BMD could choose to support it, and pay the fees and spend the development time making it work, and the ongoing headache of some not working natively etc.

I would prefer them focus resources and investment on other things, I still find that the time taken to convert everything into a proper format is more than repaid, i.e. that it is a 'false economy' to use .MTS natively anyway, i.e. the convenience is outweighed by the hassles of using MTS.

Others disagree, but I believe they just don't have good procedures setup for bringing in their footage when it arrives from the client...

I agree wholeheartedly and I'll go so far as to state that the recent development of the 'swiss army knife' style of NLE which will ingest and edit everything from a 'wet piece of string' without any knowledge or prep. from the editor, has bred a population of 'creative' film makers who often come totally unstuck when it comes to handing off an edit to a colourist for example, A sound understanding of the conform process and the role of accurate timecode and reel numbering conventions, can save money and prevent all sorts of headaches for those further down the line.

Why some should feel obliged to urge BMD to forgo a feature common to competing NLEs on imagined fiscal, educational or moralistic grounds is puzzling.

The development of Resolve and the practice of filmmaking will probably not collapse if R12 offers what PP, Edius and FCPX have offered for years. Note also that the licensing requirements, whatever they are, apparently don't prevent PP and Edius (don't know about Lightworks or FCPX) from offering full .mts support in their free trials.

Of course, if we wanted true virtue in filmmaking, we'd eliminate digital and NLEs altogether -- they make filmmaking and editing too easy and thoughtless. But since we're not likely to revert to film and flatbeds, some of us look to NLEs to handle a large body of digital cameras and footage already out there.

Just for the record Resolve 12 beta 4 supports .mts files. Just ran a bunch of transcodes from a FS700. Ploughed through them really quick.

Yes, that sounds logical. It's the trade-off between compressed media and true I frame codecs. As a reference, I shoot native ProRes 422 HQ 25P at a bitrate of 200Mbps. A 64GB CFast card fills in 30 minutes.

It's still extreme difference in file size. There must be something "slimmer" and more efficient.

Cliptoolz gives you other options, including lower data rate ProRes options, as well as conversions to .mp4 with audio which R12 can play. But you'll need to experiment. If the files are too compressed, you may have problems in R12

If you learn how to use ffmpeg, you can also rewrap your files to .mov or .avi containers, while only converting the AC-3 audio to PCM, and leaving the video unchanged. R12 should be able to play these files as well as it plays the original .mts video material. But, again, there's no substitute for testing.

I tried cliptoolz just now to convert the 66mb MTS file with the following settings: prores hd, proxy, full, 48k 24-bit. The resulting file is 222mb, still much bigger than the 66mb MTS, but at least it's half the size of the full prores version. I don't understand how a 66mb mts can balloon to over 400mb prores out of thin air?

As for using FFMPEG, Ill have to look into it. Would you be willing to offer some steps to do this?

This has become a nightmare now 2nd day trying to transcode these mts files into reasonably sized MOV's that will work in Davinci Resolve. Help!

Don't waste your time with FFMPEG/FFMBC command lines as this is the engine already inside ClipToolz. When converting heavily compressed, 8 bit AVCHD .MTS LongGOP 4:2:0 streams of data into 10bit I frame 4:2:2 codecs such as ProRes or DNxHD, where every frame is an individual and timecoded entity, disk space is the trade-off. Disk space is cheap so you'll need to deal with it. There is a half sized proxy option but image quality will suffer as this format was designed for the typical proxy/intermediate editing workflow on low powered PCs or field laptops.

Did you try 're-wrapping to .MOV' in ClipToolz instead of transcoding? I'm not at my workstation now so cannot test it but it may work.

Don't waste your time with FFMPEG/FFMBC command lines as this is the engine already inside ClipToolz. When converting heavily compressed, 8 bit AVCHD .MTS LongGOP 4:2:0 streams of data into 10bit I frame 4:2:2 codecs such as ProRes or DNxHD, where every frame is an individual and timecoded entity, disk space is the trade-off. Disk space is cheap so you'll need to deal with it. There is a half sized proxy option but image quality will suffer as this format was designed for the typical proxy/intermediate editing workflow on low powered PCs or field laptops.

Did you try 're-wrapping to .MOV' in ClipToolz instead of transcoding? I'm not at my workstation now so cannot test it but it may work.

Thanks Craig. I'm travelling and my portable drive doesn't have enough space to transcode all the files so I'm screwed until I return. I tried wrap to mov option but it doesnt include the sound with the file. The nightmare continues.

Can't remember if I wrote this previously but I travel with a 2TB portable USB 3 drive and a tiny laptop with ClipToolz installed. My Camera records both 4:2:0 .MTS and 4:2:2 ProRes simultaneously but it does not generate timecode. When I transcode the AVCHD to ProRes, TC and reel Numbers are auto generated by ClipToolz using the file's time of day stamp.

The ProRes files contain a 00:00:00 TC so I use ClipToolz included 'Timecode Tool' app which will 're-stripe' the I Frame codec's TC with a useful 'user' number without performing any transcode. User generated Reel Numbers are then added using the ClipToolz non destructive 'batch re-wrap' to .MOV feature.

in case cliptoolz is gone, we can also use AnotherGUI: http://www.stuudio.ee/AnotherGUI/
it uses ffmpeg to batch convert the files.
The UI may not be as pretty, but it does the job done and it can support many presets and make your own too.

There's also EyeFrame, originally developed for Lightworks when it would not import some native LongGOP codecs like AVCHD/.MTS.

https://eyeframeconverter.wordpress.com/additional-presets/

... Note also that the licensing requirements, whatever they are, apparently don't prevent PP and Edius (don't know about Lightworks or FCPX) from offering full .mts support in their free trials ...

You'll notice these are 30-day trials, and DaVinci Resolve is a free program.

I tried cliptoolz just now to convert the 66mb MTS file with the following settings: prores hd, proxy, full, 48k 24-bit. The resulting file is 222mb, still much bigger than the 66mb MTS, but at least it's half the size of the full prores version. I don't understand how a 66mb mts can balloon to over 400mb prores out of thin air?

As Craig said, it converts the bit rate from something like 28Mbps to 220Mbps. (Think of it as converting an MP3 to a Wave. The Wave file will be many times larger than the MP3, but Wave won't have generation loss if you save the same file over and over again like MP3 will)
You can use ProRes LT which will reduce the bitrate to around 100Mbps. The only tradeoff is quality. (There's a video that highlights the quality differences though it's a bit silly considering it's been compressed for the web)
Experiment by testing different qualities and seeing how they visually look to your eye.

Depending on what you need the ProRes files for, you could convert them to Proxy and keep the originals till you can obtain a larger hard drive to put the higher quality stuff onto.

Note that ClipToolz allows more than one instance to be opened simultaneously so one can be set up for making proxies whilst a second one is run at the same time for intermediate file conversion. Conversion Folders should be different but timecode and reel names should be identical so as not to cause conformation issues.

WinREwrap v0.4 (64bit) - £0.00
It re-wraps from .MTS to .MOV without touching the data inside
- works on my fs700 Internal 8bit footage
- worked on my GH2 footage

The time it takes to rewrap is the time it takes to copy & Paste your video file on your
Laptop, PC ect...some will be quicker than others.

I choose to convert audio to PCM, but thats just me.
Then taking the .MOVs into resolve is faultless.
I too was a AVCHD snob when i had a GH2, but on the fs700 i have been surprised
at how far i can push the grade in resolve, even in very low light. I find it better to grade
AVCHD than my H264.mov from my old Canon 7D, Same goes for 5Dmk2.

...I too was a AVCHD snob when i had a GH2, but on the fs700 i have been surprised at how far i can push the grade in resolve, even in very low light. I find it better to grade
AVCHD than my H264.mov from my old Canon 7D, Same goes for 5Dmk2.

Sony's implementation of AVCHD was always very good and people forget that even Sony's four year old 'consumer' S-35/APS-C NEX VG-20 'video' form factor camera could record 50/60P internally at 28Mbps and it offered a 'clean' uncompressed 4:2:2 HDMI output well before the competition even saw the need.

I still use one professionally but 'pimped' with a modern ProRes HDMI recorder, Metabones CY>NEX Speed Booster and $25K of classic Zeiss 'Contax' glass.

Zeiss 28-85mm Zoom adapted to E-Mount for original Field of View

28-85-VG20.JPG (492.88 KiB) Viewed 46325 times

Sony S35 camera with Atomos HDMI recorder offers simultaneous AVCHD and ProRes file recording

DSC02018.JPG (467.18 KiB) Viewed 46325 times

Today sees Resolve 12 out of Beta and released to the market - no further upgrade support appears to have materialised on these pesky MTS files I'm afraid - so it looks like it's ClipToolz time!

Or use your Adobe Premiere or Edius or Avid MC - who all natively support them...

La Vida!

Personally, I fully support Blackmagic - we own lots of their products - a truly great forward thinking Company IMHO and today, as always with any major trade show launch we see lots of new announcements from them at IBC 2015...

Hi I'm new to Resolve so please bear with me.
My Sony records AVCHD MTS which is a poor format for editing (1080p HD).
At the moment I import MTS clips into the bin and output clips to Cineform (I'm a big Cineform fan) with Resolve 12.
I then import the Cineform 10 bit color depth clips into the bin, edit, and then Deliver.
The problem is I can't find a decent compressed delivery codec like H.264 MP4 which is common in most NLEs for a good quality, compressed, small file size delivery codec.
The output options seem very limited and support for Intel Quick Sync would speed up the render.
Please help.
Thanks
Al

Are you on Mac OSX or Windows?

Are you on Mac OSX or Windows?

Latest Resolve 12
Win 8.1 64bit

Thanks
Al

I am using a Sony A99 for video. At 60fps it records at 28M.
I am trying to transcode it to DNxHD using ffmpeg
Here is the command used. I am wondering about the -b:v parameter. Since my camera records at 28M, does it mean that there's no point setting -b:v to a supported rate higher than that? ie 185M?
ffmpeg.exe -i 00002.MTS -vcodec dnxhd -b:v 45M -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -ac 2 "00002.dnxhd.MOV"

Or try MP4toQT. It has some support for .MTS already and if there's enough demand, the author may improve it. Other than EditReady it can add TC and reel names (very important for XML workflow) and costs less than 10 bucks.