Importing .MTS on a MAC -- Do I always have to reformat?

S

Sippie911

New member
I just started filming with my Panasonic AG-HMC150p and figured out that I cannot just drag/import my recent footage (.MTS) directly into Final Cut Pro on my Mac.

After looking through this forum have figured out that I need to use some type of converter to put the footage into a readable format for FCP. I have used Handbrake for these first few shoots but I am frustrated that I have to convert the footage from .MTS into .MP4 and then convert the .MP4 into .MOV just to import the footage into FCP.

That's a lot of compressing/reformatting and time to utilize the SD card - which is suppose to be easier to use than a tape deck.

Am I missing something?

Thanks!
S

_______
FCP 7.0
MacBook Pro 10.5.8
Panasonic AG-HCM150p
 
I edit .mts directly in Vegas.

You have to log & transfer in pro rez... I believe people are using the light version? Search the forum as this has been covered many times.
 
The program you're using won't allow you to directly import the .MTS files. Instead, use the "Log & Transfer" function, point it at the SD card (or the directory where you copied the SD cards to) and import the footage that way. You don't have to use external programs (like Handbrake) to do this, although you can if you want to -- people use programs like Voltaic, Roxio Toast, Cineform, or others.

But the easiest way is to just use Log & Transfer.

That's a lot of compressing/reformatting and time to utilize the SD card - which is suppose to be easier to use than a tape deck.
Click to expand...
Agreed -- and it should be entirely unnecessary; as Zaza said, most other editors do allow you to work with the .MTS file right from the card, such as Vegas, Premiere Pro, EDIUS, etc. But that is not, and likely never will be, an option for those who use the Apple editing programs.
 
Premiere CS4 will facilitate native mts editing, albeit with a pretty powerful Mac.

Otherwise, it's transcode on a Mac.

On my MacPro it is two times RT, so much faster than tape.
 
Rather than every one smugly saying they edit natively, which won't help this user at all, let's try to help him :)

With FCP you would need to either :
1) Import via Log & Transfer directly from the card
or
2) Copy the ENTIRE card to a folder on your hard disk, then point FCP at that folder and use Log & Transfer in the same was as if you were importing directly from the card.

FCP uses the card's directory structure to validate the footage more completely than dragging the MTS files, and at the same time joins the source files (that the camera splits once they exceed a certain size) where appropriate in a completely transparent way.

If you've already copied just the MTS files then you will have to find a converter this time - but it's a mistake you'll only want to make once. Use the FCP Log & Transfer function from here on.

On my MacPro (8 core) it's about twice as fast as real time or faster to log & transfer (so 8 hours of footage only takes me 4 hours or less to transcode). On my MacBookPro it's a little slower than real time so 8 hours of footage takes 9-11 hours to transcode. Obviously I use the MacPro more often than not.
 
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ww927bin said:
I also have this problem.Right now I have to convert to h.264 MP4 HD first, and then convert again using Compressor. I would like to use Apple's PrORes 422 codec.
Click to expand...

Why? Just transcode to Pro Res directly from the card using Log and Transfer

And to the original poster...Transcoding on my mac pro to final cut is much faster and easier than digitizing tape (it transcodes in half of realtime). So, it actually streamlines the process quite a bit.
 
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