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Avid new comer
Please forgive me if I sound like a complete idiot….So my company bought me a Sony handycam HDR-XR500V and hooked up one of my Macs with Avid Media Composer. The Sony shoots in an AVCHD format but I can’t seem to got the footage into AVID. When I pull the information from the camera and save it to the computer’s hard drive there are files that are .MTS and files that are .CPI. Is AVID not compatible with this/these format(s)? Is there some sort of converting program that would bypass this problem? Does the fact that it’s a mac have anything to do with it?
-D.F.
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2 Replies
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Avid at this stage has no direct support for AVCHD.
The AVCHD format is frustrating. It was jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic, but each company’s implementation is just different enough so as not to be compatible with the other.
For Panasonic AVCHD there is a tool that Panasonic make available that converts the material to P2 media that Avid can work with. But I don’t believe it will work with Sony’s version.
Most people using AVCHD now use some third-party tool to convert the footage into something that Avid will support. I can’t offer any specific suggestions, but I believe that FFMpeg encoders can provide the necessary support.
In the early days of XDCAM EX people were using FFMpeg to create DNxHD footage from EX clips. A similar process may work for AVCHD – check out this post for a starting point perhaps? https://www.bolanski.com/ex/home/ffmpeg-is-your-friend/
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I use Sorenson Squeeze 5.1. It does convert the files to .mov that Avid can use, but the resulting files don’t look as clean as the original footage, and the encoding takes FOREVER.
I’m looking for a real solution as well.
Regards,
Joe Womble
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