Assembling long-form AVCHD without gaps between files

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pwelander

New member
I'm sorry to see so little activity on this AF100 forum. Obviously this camera is past it's shelf date but I'm still working with it, for better or worse. Sigh...

I usually use a Blackmagic Video Assist and record in ProRes, but recently I had to shoot a couple long events. Since these would need minimal work in post, I decided just to use the native AVCHD and shot in PH1080-30p. Of course that forced the camera to break up the long shots into multiple sequential clips. Back with my P2 cameras these reassembled flawlessly but I'm finding weird audio drop-outs and video glitches when I put them in the timeline. I thought maybe it left a little extra on the end so they would need to be overlapped rather than butted, but that doesn't seem to be the case either. Is this just an annoying characteristic or am I missing something? BTW I'm working with Premiere if it matters.

Thanks.
 
You need to use an AVCHD import tool that many NLEs have that will read the meta-data on your SD card and stitch all of the file-segments into one large MP4 file on your hard-drive. ( I use Vegas Pro, but most of the major NLEs have this import feature too )
 
Yep. Hopefully you didn't go into the PRIVATE folder and copy out individual .mts files. If you still have the footage on the SD card (or copied the entire directory structure over) then you should enjoy a similar-to-P2 import process where the clips will be stitched back together into one big long seamless clip.
 
Yeah copy the entire PRIVATE folder from your SD card and then in premiere don't use the regular import file method, otherwise you can end up with the drop out every time one clip ends and the next starts. You import using the media browser inside premier. It will see the spanned clips as one clip and import it correctly as a long clip instead of broken up ones. If I were at my computer id show a screen cap but I can't. Sorry.
 
The AF100 is not a bad camera. I was stunned to learn last year that the biggest production house in town still used some of the original AF100s (not "A" version) on most of their work.

Here is a screen shot to helpimport help.jpg
First make sure you have copied the entire contents off the SDHC card to your computer. Then in Premiere go to media browser and find the folder where your footage is. Then right click on the clip and Import.
Even if it is a 2 hr long clip that is made up of 3 .mts files it will show up as 1 clip in the media browser because it reads the meta data to know it is supposed to be stitched as one long continuous clip.
Done! :)
 
Yes, I do still have the files on the card.
Yes, I did to into the PRIVATE file and copy over the individual MTS files... I'll try that again.

Actually I'm planning on moving from Premiere to FCPX for my AVCHD work so I'll have to learn it again.

Thanks for the advice!
 
And I do like the AF100. It's noisy, but I understand it is a characteristic of the sensor. I'm interested in any methods for reducing it.

I particularly like having the capability to use so many lenses. I've shot with all sorts of optics.

Thanks.
 
By golly, it worked exactly as y'all said. Woohoo. Copy the whole card and go into the PRIVATE folder via the media browser.

Thanks.
 
Can you import the whole file folder into Vegas 13/14/15 and not get the audio drop out. I import the individual files and always get the audio drop out when I stitch them together. Tried importing the "Private" folder but it doesn't import. Anything I am doing wrong?

Thank you
 
Yes! I did as you directed and imported the clips with no audio drop out as they stitch together into one long file. Thank You.
 
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