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Dealing with AVCHD/h.264/.mts when editing in Premiere CS6/Workflow
Hello all,
I searched the forum and found some old topics on this from 2011 but thought
I’d ask for some updated opinions.I currently use a Panasonic AF-100 at work, which shoots AVCHD. From my understanding AVCHD is h.264 and this particular camera puts it in a .mts wrapper (not sure if that’s standard or not)? My final product/export goes on Youtube (h.264) and some broadcast for commercials, PSAs, etc (MPEG2). I do some minor color correction/grading but nothing on a cinematography-like level.
For about a year I’ve been drilling down into AVCHD’s good’ol filing structure and pulling out my .mts files, encoding them to MPEG2, batch renaming and organizing in Bridge and, finally, importing into Premiere CS6.
I haven’t had any problems with this workflow, but I’m always looking for ways to improve and, recently, I began to question why I encode to MPEG2 for editing in Premiere. I originally encoded to MPEG2 because I assumed it would be easier (processing wise) on my MacPro (stats below) but I wonder if I should just edit AVCHD files in Premiere?
Do any of you see a quality difference between AVCHD and MPEG2? Does MPEG2 become lossy if I’m encoding AVCHD/h.264 to it? I always assumed h.264 was more lossy than MPEG2 but maybe I’m wasting my time encoding to it if my camera shoots h.264 natively (aka, encoding to MPEG2 is essentially making a bigger bucket for the same amount of data?). I know ProRes is a favorite on Macs; I have FCP7 and you would think I’d have the ProRes codec option in Encoder but I can’t find it. My basic question is which format will give me the most data going into Premiere to edit on -AVCHD or encoding to MPEG2, or something else?
Current MacPro:
2×2.4Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
12GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB
OSX 10.9.4Thanks in advance!
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8 Replies
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Use the Media Browser in PPro to see right through the folder structure to only the clips. I edit AVCHD just as it is all the time.
Or use Prelude to see only the clips and transcode them to whatever you want right from there.
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Thanks for the quick reply Paul,
Yeah, I think I always underestimate the Media Browser, but I’m practically OCD when it comes to organizing my footage and I don’t think I can batch rename or move the clips via Media Browser, no?
So my workflow would be something like: Bridge to batch rename and move clips to their proper drives, then use Media Browser to import footage to Premiere?
I’m glad to hear you don’t have a problem with editing in AVCHD. I think I’ll do this workflow on my next project in the coming days.
Thanks so much!
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Do all that in Prelude. Pick only the shots you want, batch rename and Transfer to a New Destination and you’ll get a rebuild of the AVCHD file structure that only contains your selects. When you import them through Media Browser in PPro they’ll come in with the names you gave them but will retain their original names when viewed any other way.
It’s a much more OCD friendly way to work.
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As a general rule, if you don’t have to I would avoid transcoding. If your system can handle playing back AVCHD codec, I would not transcode. If you are just editing without any heavy compositing and effects, I would not transcode. In terms of quality, if you transcode from one compressed codec to another compressed codec, you will loose some quality. How much? it will depends…
If you need to transcode your AVCHD footage, I would use an intra-frame codec with the least compression as possible. Apple ProRes, or Avid DNxHD are good candidates.
As far as the difference between MPEG-2 and H.264 (which is a subset of MPEG-4), H.264 should be a much more efficient codec than MPEG-2 (it was introduced later, higher bit rate and improved algorithms). Both are based on long-GOP compression.
My final thought: we all have different needs and goals, therefore we need to create a workflow that makes sense with our particular project. I would recommend to test first before getting into a big project.
David Baud
Post & VFX
KOSMOS PRODUCTIONS
Denver – Paris
http://www.kosmos-productions.com -
Ahhh, I see.
Apparently I’ve underestimated Media Browser and overlooked Prelude haha.
I’ll get on that right away. Thanks Paul!
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Thanks for the info on proper codecs/transcoding David,
You highlighted a hunch I had all along that it was best to just leave it in AVCHD and edit it that way. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – right, haha?
I guess I had it backwards about h.264 being lesser than MPEG2. Thanks again on that clarification!
Wise words about testing ahead of time. I’m definitely going to attempt both you and Paul’s suggestions and find what works best for me.
Many thanks!
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key items to ask on the native .mts edit topic includes: “how long is your timeline” and “whether you’re multicam editing”. if you’re editing a longer program in multicam mode, you might want to look at this before you start: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/3/961003
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Can I transfer select clips and create a new rebuilt AVCHD file structure within Premiere or must it be done in Prelude?
Also, if I have separate .mts files that were extracted from an AVCHD file, is there a way to rebuild those into a proper AVCHD structure?
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