[Jeff Nesmith]

It’s all about “organizing media”, otherwise you end up with reference files everywhere but media still ends up disconnected. I wrote a blog post about consolidating and organizing all your media within FCPX, using Finder to see behind the scenes, but not as a way to do the job. Hope someone finds it helpful: https://www.gypsycreative.com/organizing-horribly-disfigured-final-cut-pro-x-project/

[Jeff Nesmith]

Well, I can’t answer that one completely, since I haven’t made the switch (yet) to Premiere.

But one disadvantage to having only the .mts file is that Mac OS won’t read .MTS—or AVCHD files—natively with Quicktime. Of course, another problem is that most of the metadata is not contained within the .MTS file, such as timecode.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that even when using Premiere Pro, the ideal workflow is to import and convert all of the footage and associated data from the original file structure on the card.

[Jeff Nesmith]

Sure thing. Sorry about the bad link. Try this:
https://www.gypsycreative.com/mts-files-boy-they-suck-but-heres-one-solution/
Also, and this is somewhat unrelated, make sure you’re using “log and transfer” instead of “log and capture” unless you’re taking footage from HDV.
Hope it’s helpful.

[Jeff Nesmith]

In fact, I created a post with more detail, just to address this issue. Hope it helps:

https://www.gypsycreative.com/mts-files-boy-they-suck-but-heres-a-solution/

Jeff

[Jeff Nesmith]

Man, what a useless thread. Egos, people, egos!

The MTS format is bullshit. It’s not that AVCHD is a problem, it’s just that it deserves to be encoded natively with all the metadata and such included—for example, with “log and transfer” within FCP. But often clients are in Indonesia or some shit and email you MTS files and that’s just the way it is.

I’m going to offer up my solution, ugly as it may be. Go ahead and use AME to encode the .mts file. Set it to export at the resolution and codec you want. So now you have a perfectly good video file with no audio.

Next, open the original .mts file in the VLC player (which I’m assuming you have.) Run a program like WireTap Pro or Audio Hijack to capture the audio from the VLC player. I assume your MTS file is not the most hi resolution audio, so don’t get all cringy. Now save your audio as something decent (aif or aac) and then open both files up in a video editor. I chose not to use FCP, but instead FCPX, because it works like iMovie—quick and dirty—no setting scratch disks, etc. and I’m not keeping this project file anyway.

Now just import your silent video and drop it in the timeline. Import your audio file and do the same. Sync it up, export to ProRes and you’re good to go in FCP. Does that make sense?

It’s not pretty, but we’re talking about either saving the file, and making it editable, or complaining to the client that their footage sucks. Up to you.