AVCHD workflow

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

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.

Hey, thanx a lot Andrew! I made a bat file for batch converting which works flawlessly!

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

smartffmpeg works well for me

Thanks!

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 (211.43 KiB) Viewed 20761 times

ffmpeg 02.jpg (49.39 KiB) Viewed 20761 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 (360.12 KiB) Viewed 20761 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

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

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.