Blackmagic Forum

Hi. I am new to Resolve, and I'm trying to determine which software to go with for movie editing. If someone can help me I would appreciate it very much.

The Resolve version is the most recent (installed on the date of this post). I have all the requisite hardware/software requirements.

When I attempt to load .MTS files into resolve the video runs fine but there is no audio. I have adjusted the settings within Resolve and I have installed Quicktime (something I saw recommended). There are videos I can load that do work and have full audio, but not the ones in the format I shoot.

Is there any way to fix this? Any assistance offered would be greatly appreciated.

MTS files (MPEG Transport Stream) files are intended as delivery formats, not as editing formats. They use Long-GOP compression, which is bad news for post. My advice would be to transcode to an easier format to deal with, like DNxHD for Windows or ProRes for Mac.

What format is the audio inside those .mts files?

DOHintensityshuttle2013 wrote:Hi. I am new to Resolve, and I'm trying to determine which software to go with for movie editing. If someone can help me I would appreciate it very much.

The Resolve version is the most recent (installed on the date of this post). I have all the requisite hardware/software requirements.

When I attempt to load .MTS files into resolve the video runs fine but there is no audio. I have adjusted the settings within Resolve and I have installed Quicktime (something I saw recommended). There are videos I can load that do work and have full audio, but not the ones in the format I shoot.

Is there any way to fix this? Any assistance offered would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure you don't have AC3 audio. That's not going to work.

There are good converters, like Convert 3 for the PC or EditReady for the Mac. Just don't waste your time with difficult delivery formats.

I find the .mts vision is reasonably OK in Resolve but it won't take that 5.1 audio. You can get Audacity to convert the audio to .wav. It's a slightly less digital real estate intensive approach.

First, thank you for all the replies. I appreciate the information.

The only program I have found to have this issue is Resolve. The others allow me to simply access the file and edit. If Resolve has this limitation it is a genuine concern and consideration from my perspective; when you're looking at converting several hundred shots, that translates practically into a huge number of hours spent dealing with an additional step.

Just to clarify - this is something Resolve cannot do, not something that I can fix? There is no setup option or other cure that would allow me use Resolve?

Other questions -

* Are there any other common formats with which Resolve does not function?

* Should I want to check to see what the process would be like, what format would be ideal? And would Audigy be a good conversion program? I would not be interested in paying for a program to convert the .MTS files.

Thank you all, this really helps.

You might need to appreciate Resolve for what it is: an extremely powerful grading system with an emerging editing system that is quickly achieving broad popularity. .mts is really a domestic format for home movies. My system handles .mts quite comfortably but without the audio. I have to say that my system is quite well resourced. Resolve is resource hungry. It is possible that a less powerful system might struggle more with .mts and other mpg based compression formats.

I have just read in another thread on this forum that a free app called cliptoolz v2 is capable of converting your files. Audacity is free too (I am fairly sure) and would convert your audio to wav files for marrying up with the vision later.

Blackmagic publish a comprehensive list of codecs/file formats that can be imported.

I am not aware of any free editing programs that offer what Resolve does. You could get Premiere Pro for about $20 per month but you have to take a 1 year agreement. It takes .mts and keeps the audio.

as roen points out:

a. FIRST check resolve will handle your cameras codec before using it - the more consumer orientated the codec the less likely it is to work in resolve, especially so if it has compressed audio.

b. if you want to use resolve (and who doesn't), simply transcode footage to a suitable resolve friendly format - dnxhd, prores, (i've started using xavc-i) and this is something that can be batched overnight.

c don't complain about something you're getting for free

personally, i prefer that bm works on keeping resolve bug free and reliable than adding endless, ever changing non-professional codecs.

AC-3 is a proprietary codec by Dolby. So for every program you sell you'd need to pay a license fee. Even if it's small, what does it mean if you give away your program for free, and if it is used by millions?

And it would not only be about the fee, but probably Dolby is expecting that you track every single installation to get the numbers. That can cost more than the fee itself. As it is, you can download Resolve once and install it on as many machines as you like.

If you answer: but there is free software handling AC3 out there! Well, it comes from hacker communities that obviously are not considered significant enough by Dolby to go after them. Blackmagic definitely would be significant enough.

So, if you buy a camera with proprietary codecs, buy the software you need for it. If you don't like that business model, buy a camera with open codecs.

BTW, I can open .MTS files with other audio formats just fine.

Asking a question is not complaining, and the intent was to purchase so the product would not be free.

We will buy something else.

I'd recommend Premiere then. Adobe is fast with integration of new codecs and with Lumetri you can get pretty good grading capabilities now. Not as deep and flexible as grading in Resolve, but workable. Other than Speedgrade, which has an awful tracker, you can even do secondaries with the help of Mocha.

Resolve's biggest drawback as an editing program is the formats it does not support - which include Dolby audio in MTS files, most Avid files, loads of Mov files with different codecs, and quite a lot more. It is also limited on export codecs compared to other.

It has lots of advantages too - such as obvious things like great grading, and in the full version nice noise reduction and many other things. The biggest advantage is the fact that there is a free version which anyone can use. The link with Fusion is also nice - although I have not used it too much myself because I don't know Fusion too well.

Just like everything there are good things and bad things about it.

Another method is to convert MTS files to a more compatible video format with the right video and audio codec with the help of iDealshare VideoGo.

No AC-3/AC3 Audio in DaVinci Resolve 16.2.0.005 (free and Studio) macOS Mojave when playing MTS file format - RESOLVED

PROBLEM
- DaVinci Resolve 16.2 no audio/sound/waveforms in Media Pool, Video Display or Timeline when playing .MTS video files.

SOLUTION, Short answer
- Delete/“unable“ this file: [MACINTOSH HD]/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/A52Codec.component]

From version 14.1 DaVinci Resolve (free and Studio) had support for AC-3/AC3 audio codec.

Did not work om my MacBook Pro 2015 15-inch Retina with macOS Mojave, but worked on MacBook Pro 2013 13-inch macOS Catalina 10.15.4.
Still not working when installing macOS Catalina 10.15.4 on MacBook Pro 2015.

When opening DaVinci Resolve 16.2 after having installed macOS Catalina I got this error message:

“A52Codec.component” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified.
macOS cannot verify that this app is free from malware.
Firefox downloaded this file on 21 August 2013.

File info:
File name: A52Codec.component
Version 1.8, CoreAudio A/52 and AC-3 Codec Component
Created 23 July 2011

Fount the file her: [MACINTOSH HD]/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/A52Codec.component

New error message when trying to select “Move to Bin”:

“A52Codec.component” could not be moved to Bin.
Please move this item to the Bin manually.
S:)

Simen Tobiassen wrote:No AC-3/AC3 Audio in DaVinci Resolve 16.2.0.005 (free and Studio) macOS Mojave when playing MTS file format - RESOLVED

PROBLEM
- DaVinci Resolve 16.2 no audio/sound/waveforms in Media Pool, Video Display or Timeline when playing .MTS video files.

SOLUTION, Short answer
- Delete/“unable“ this file: [MACINTOSH HD]/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/A52Codec.component]

From version 14.1 DaVinci Resolve (free and Studio) had support for AC-3/AC3 audio codec.

THANK YOU! I'm relatively new to DR but had had some success editing video and audio, until I tried to use a .mp4 clip with ac3 audio. Blam. No audio. Nothing was muted. It was set to use system audio. ac3 was supposedly supported. I read thread after thread, article after article. Nothing helped. Then this. I was not getting any error message, but removing that A52Codec.component file and relaunching DR fixed the problem. I can't thank you enough. It was driving me nuts!

I have used AVCHD video in the past and Resolve has no issues with opening .mts files here. The pic here shows the file info from MediaInfo. It shows the audio as being AC3 which plays fine. So 2 track AC3 appears to be fine. This clip was shot in 2016 with a Canon R 606 camcorder.