GH2 AVCHD player on Mac?

[Phenixone]

Hi,

I am looking for a player to view the files straight from the camera's card without going through Final Cut Pro X of using a video converter.
So far I've been using VLC, but it has some terrible flaws.
- You have to dig all the way into the folders to get the files and play them.
- it is not very good at skimming.
- the beginning of the shots are sometimes cut (especially with the VK files, I don't see the blurred images when I see them in FCPX)

The alternative I've found is putting the card in my PS3 which does the job perfectly (Just select the memory card, press play and it plays all the files in a row, perfect for reviewing the dailies), but it's not on my computer.
This is crazy! This format seems to be used more and more and still no player.
I've heard of Splash for PC, but nothing else on the mac.

Anyone?

 

[bdegazio]

Try MPlayerX - it's free, open-sourcen and works much better than VLC. You can get it on the AppStore.

 

[Phenixone]

Wow! MplayerX is so much better! I made an automator to open the first 00000.MTS from the memory card to quickly review the footage.
Only issue is that I have a watermark of the shooting date on the video that does not want to go no matter how I tweak the settings. Any ideas?

 

[bdegazio]

re: watermark of the shooting date:

I can't figure that out either. It only appears on some files. There is a Wiki that might be worth exploring:
https://github.com/niltsh/MPlayerX/wiki

 

[Lake Films]

I like toast for viewing the files... but it is not free. I just click on the mts file and it automatically opens in toasts player....

 

[rambex]

I use Movist, it's a really fast player for OS X that handles a bunch of media formats, including MTS.
http://code.google.com/p/movist/

 

[peripatew]

VLC definitely isn't perfect. I'll check out the other recommendations here. But check out this post at eoshd: http://www.eoshd.com/content/3576/re-wrap-avchd-clips-to-quicktime-in-no-time

His argument for thumbnail support and quick previewing and playback in Preview and QuickTime. The conversion time is quick, and it can handle batch conversion. Not ideal for a quick scan through right off the card, or freshly imported. But longterm, I find the .mts files annoying especially for family videos or small projects.

 

[fargee]

i also use movist with my powerpc g5 but i got no sound ; does any1 have the same problem or knows how to solve it ?

thanks

 

[reygun]

I like toast for viewing the files... but it is not free. I just click on the mts file and it automatically opens in toasts player....

Toast works perfectly. But just to be clear, are you looking for a "free" player?

 

[Phenixone]

@peripatew This is an amazing tool! It even work with Kae's hack settings 65mbps.

@fargee Have you tried with vlc or mplayerx, do you get any sound? can you get sound with another video file on moist (an avi or mov for ex). <joke> Are your speakers plugged in? </joke>

 

[fargee]

@phenixone thanks dude ; the funny thing is that with vlc and mplayerx i got sound but no picture.

 

[BrandonT]

Just tried mplayerx. Looks great, other than the timestamp overlay.

 

[iTurk]

movist works perfectly for me!

 

[Phenixone]

Yes I think I'll go for Movist. It is simple and effective and gets the work done. (movist - Movie Player for Mac OS X based on QuickTime & FFmpeg - Google Project Hosting http://goo.gl/fXGjw)
I'll also keep the other option from @peripatew for the Quicktime encapsulation. Looks really promising. (Re-wrap AVCHD clips to Quicktime in no-time | EOSHD.com http://goo.gl/wA1Je)

What I did is created a small Automator script to automatically open the videos when the memory card is inserted. Just have to click on the Automator's app icon and it opens all the crazy and ridiculous series of folders to reach the video.

@reygun I'm not necessarily looking for a free solution, I am looking for the best solution. In this case, it looks that the free one seems to be the best one as well which only makes it better.

 

[bgundu]

Movist and HD Quicklook are a nice mac solution:

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/HD-Quick-Look.shtml
http://mac.softpedia.com/progClean/Movist-Clean-30183.html