Best way to transcoding

[dojoman]

Is there the best way to transcode AVCHD from MTS without loosing quality (bitrate)? I assume that importing to iMovie will lose the bitrate correct? iMovie basically transcode to .mov with heavily compressed file.

[John Caballero]

http://www.videoguys.com/Item/CineForm+Neo+Scene+PC/54E4543435F454E4.aspx

[dojoman]

Knew someone will point to either Neoscene or VoltaicHD. I was thinking of free way to do it but Neoscene isn't that expensive.

[John Caballero]

Neoscene is a bit cheaper with Videoguys. VoltaicHD is even cheaper. I haven't decided which one to get myself as my GH1 isn't even built yet!

[Martti Ekstrand]

Said it before, will say it again: Toast 10, good transcoding to any Quicktime codec you have installed and includes a very good video player that plays back .mts files without weird blocking errors unlike VLC for good previewing. And you can select multiple parts of the .mts clips in one go, no need to transcode parts you don't want. Only thing it didn't handle so far were the 1/2 sec shutter speed clips I did on "A Kindling Light". There Voltaic worked.

[Ben_B]

Final Cut Pro log and transfer seems to work great for me. It won't work with .mts you have to keep the card structure intact but it's not like that's a hard thing to do.

[Mike@AF]

I use FCP logo and transfer and then Compressor and Cinema Tools, both of which come with Final Cut Studio. I thought about buying NeoScene, but I'm pretty happy with the updated ProRes 422 in FCP 7.

[dojoman]

Ok. I did some test yesterday with iMovie and Neoscene. The video quality from iMovie transcoded and Neoscene are identical except Neoscene's file sizes are much larger. There's no need to transcode first with Neoscene if you plan on iMovie workflow. You'll just be wasting $99 plus you'd be doing another pass of transcoding again whenever clips are importing to iMovie. My first impression was that iMovie will accept .mov files from Neoscene directly, but it still tries to transcode again.

[Martti Ekstrand]

Ahh right! iMovie only uses Apple Intermediate Codec and transcodes anything else to that. Never really used it since it came after I got FCP. Toast might still be useful unless you can select parts of the camera clips when importing in iMovie.

[dojoman]

I'm gonna try out Toast but I'm pretty happy with iMovie and MTS files so far.

[Ben_B]

I've been logging to AIC with FCP. No need to remove pulldown cause shooting 720p and just dropping in 24p timeline...looks fine to me.

Anyway I then edit in AIC which works well for HDD space on the go and is faster on my hardware.

Then I relog all the footage to ProRes 422 and reconnect, do color correction on my desktop, then render.

Or if I don't want to edit on my laptop I'll just log to ProRes from the start.

[dojoman]

I've been logging to AIC with FCP. No need to remove pulldown cause shooting 720p and just dropping in 24p timeline...looks fine to me.

Anyway I then edit in AIC which works well for HDD space on the go and is faster on my hardware.

Then I relog all the footage to ProRes 422 and reconnect, do color correction on my desktop, then render.

Or if I don't want to edit on my laptop I'll just log to ProRes from the start.

I understand you use log and transfer for importing mts files with FCP. What FCP version you're using? I can't do that with my FCP version 5 which is kind of old and I thought log and transfer only works with Firewire connection, not USB?

[Ben_B]

Final Cut Pro 6 is required. You might be getting Log and Transfer confused with Log and Capture, I was referring to the former. It does not work with .mts files but rather with the complete PRIVATE folder, which I copy over to my computer. It can then be logged from there, not just from the card.

[dojoman]

Final Cut Pro 6 is required. You might be getting Log and Transfer confused with Log and Capture, I was referring to the former. It does not work with .mts files but rather with the complete PRIVATE folder, which I copy over to my computer. It can then be logged from there, not just from the card.

Got it. Yeah i was referring to log and capture. I've tried Vegas, iMovie and now FCP to see if I like the flow. I like Vegas but it's windows, I prefer to use Mac.