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AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:32 pm
by Andrew Taran
Man, AVCHD workflow with Resolve is such a pain. I'm wondering if anyone can share how they do it, because I'm so close to giving it up...

Dear Blackmagic Design folks, If you're reading this, PLEASE consider adding native AVCHD support in Resolve, you would make life of people with FS100/700 and newly announced Canon C100 so much easier :roll:

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:14 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
You can re-wrap (with ffmpeg, ffmbc) m2ts files to MOV container during copying to your HDDs. No additional time/quality loss etc. and MOV files should work straight away in Resolve.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:59 pm
by Andrew Taran
Hey, thanx a lot Andrew! I made a bat file for batch converting which works flawlessly! 8-)

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:10 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
You can also use GUI for ffmpeg- simple, but efficient for batch conversions.
It's called smartffmpeg:

http://freeware.satria.de/SmartFFmpeg/index.php?lang=EN

By default it converts to the same folder, with the same name, but with new extension. Just use Copy Stream option.

Andrew

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:34 pm
by Andrew Taran
The best solution for me so far is a .bat file with this :

DO (
md mts
md mp4
)

for %%f IN (*.mts) DO (
"C:\Program Files\ffmbc\ffmbc.exe" -i %%f -vcodec copy -acodec aac -strict experimental -ab 512k %%~nf.mp4
)

DO (
move *.mp4 "mp4\"
move *.mts "mts\"

Just put it in your folder with .mts files and it converts all of them to .mp4 and sorts them in 2 subfolders : mp4 and mts. Super handy!

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 8:02 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
If you're happy if your bat file than no problem :)
At the end it does the same thing.

Another thing- you may want to convert audio to PCM for better compatibility with Resolve.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 4:21 am
by David Patterson
Does anyone here have a solution/suggestion for Mac users? I am curious about DaVinci Lite, but need to convert my .MTS files, and I'm not sure what my options are. Any thoughts about Mac-friendly conversion utilities and which file formats to convert to would be appreciated.

cheers, Dave

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:50 pm
by adamroberts
ClipWrap is a good companion to the FS100/FS700. Lets you re-wrap the .mts files in a QT wrapper. Also lets you reconform slomo footage (playback 60p as 24p / 50p as 25p, etc)

It can also transcode to ProRes which I've found to be better for Resolve than just rewarpping the .h264 footage.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 12:36 am
by David Patterson
Adam - Thanks for the tip! The ClipWrap web site says they support .MTS files from my (unhacked) Panasonic GH2. They also indicate that I will need Compressor to encode to ProRes. Thus, $50 for ClipWrap and another $50 for Compressor, to encode to ProRes.

I'm new to editing video, but I've read that ProRes'd files handle color grading better than the heavily compressed .MTS files. I typically edit my videos with CS6 Premiere Pro or After Effects; both of which can handle native .MTS files. In general, how much larger should I expect ProRes files to become from my .MTS files?

Would you, or anyone else on this forum, know if hacked GH2 files can also be encoded with ClipWrap? The higher bit rate and shorter GOP produces better quality videos, albeit larger files, but I don't know if the hacked files pose issues for encoding.

cheers,
Dave

adamroberts wrote:ClipWrap is a good companion to the FS100/FS700. Lets you re-wrap the .mts files in a QT wrapper. Also lets you reconform slomo footage (playback 60p as 24p / 50p as 25p, etc)

It can also transcode to ProRes which I've found to be better for Resolve than just rewarpping the .h264 footage.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 1:34 am
by adamroberts
A 100MB MTS from from a Sony NEX5 decompresses to:
ProRes 422 = 535MB
ProRes HQ = 844MB

I mostly use ProRes 422 as the source is a compressed file and you are not getting that much of a benefit from the extra headroom in ProRes HQ. The higher bit rate of the hacked GH2 might benefit from ProRes HQ.

If you can share a small test file from your hacked GH2 I can run it through ClipWrap for you.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 2:52 am
by David Patterson
Adam - Thanks for the info and offer to run a test conversion. The demo version of ClipWrap will allow me to convert a 60 second .MTS file, which should tell me a lot. At the moment, my GH2 isn't hacked, so the best I could provide are the native .MTS files. I do intend to test some of the hacks when I can get access to a friend's PC (there isn't a Mac app that can do the GH2 hacks).

The ProRes 422 sounds like a good option for the .MTS files, and the file size is reasonable. Am I correct in assuming that CS6 Premiere Pro will perform better with ProRes files as it won't have to decompress the .MTS files when editing? I usually preview files in 1/2 to 1/4 resolution, but full rez would be nice.

I'll respond with results if/when I get around to hacking my GH2 and testing the demo version of ClipWrap. Thanks again for your offer!

cheers, Dave

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:54 am
by adamroberts
No problem Dave.

ProRes is a codec designed for editing with. It's much easier on the system than compressed files.

I don't use Premier Pro (tho I have it installed) as I edit in FCPX. FCPX transcodes AVCHD in the background to ProRes Proxy and ProRes HQ. It responds much quicker once all the footage has been transcoded and it is using the ProRes Proxy files.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Sun Sep 29, 2013 8:16 am
by kaylawang
AVCDH files could not be read by many devices, before you can using, you will need the convert the format. Aunsoft Video Converter for Mac is a good choice. It could easily convert AVCHD/MTS/M2TS files to various video/audio formats for different usages. You can convert AVCDH to mp4 for portable devices or to ProRes 422 for FCP or AIC mov for iMovie.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 1:37 am
by Elliott Balsley
What is the maximum speed you have seen when using ClipWrap to rewrap files (no transcoding)? I've been trying out the demo, and so far it doesn't come close to ffmpeg in terms of speed. ClipWrap writes to my destination drive at about 60MBps, and ffmpeg writes at 200MBps doing the exact same thing.

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 9:54 am
by Troy Turner
smartffmpeg works well for me

Thanks!

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 8:05 pm
by Vincent Peugnet
Andrew Taran wrote:The best solution for me so far is a .bat file with this :

DO (
md mts
md mp4
)

for %%f IN (*.mts) DO (
"C:\Program Files\ffmbc\ffmbc.exe" -i %%f -vcodec copy -acodec aac -strict experimental -ab 512k %%~nf.mp4
)

DO (
move *.mp4 "mp4\"
move *.mts "mts\"

Just put it in your folder with .mts files and it converts all of them to .mp4 and sorts them in 2 subfolders : mp4 and mts. Super handy!


Hello

Thank you all for this topic.

That is just what I'm looking for to grade my gh2 files in resolve 10.

I just started using and understand how ffmpeg does work.

But there is still a little problem.

I have put the ffmpeg.exe file in my Program Files folder and created the .bat file in the same folder as my .mts files.

ffmpeg 03.jpg
ffmpeg 03.jpg (211.43 KiB) Viewed 20787 times


ffmpeg 02.jpg
ffmpeg 02.jpg (49.39 KiB) Viewed 20787 times


When I start the command, I have a message from windows and a white on black command message as you can see on the screenshot.

ffmpeg.jpg
ffmpeg.jpg (360.12 KiB) Viewed 20787 times


It's wroten in french on the first line that : the "DO" is not recognize as a internal or external command, an executable program or command file.

The windows message explain that ffmpeg crashed.

The mp4 and mts folders ares well created anyway but with nothing inside of them.

I hope it just need a little code modification in the bat file.

Thank you for helping me and sorry for my bad english.

Vincent

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:37 am
by Paul J. Bates
Very Odd - ffmpeg GUI works for me with AVCHD files but causes a Quicktime decoder crash when trying to import to Resolve (10 lite) This is doing a straight re wrap to .mov using copy stream in both audio and video - I wonder if the audio is messing things up?

Paul :-)

Re: AVCHD workflow

PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 8:05 am
by Elliott Balsley
I have found that certain audio codecs, namely pcm_bluray from a Sony FS700, are not supported in an mov container. So while ffmpeg will try to create that if you tell it to, the files will not work in Resolve or some other apps. You can work around it by either removing the audio or using -acodec pcm_s16le.