[Martti Ekstrand]

I use Toast to convert the AVCHD files from my PAL GH1. Works really well, fast with good quality and unlike Log & Transfer or Cineform NeoScene it can output to any Quicktime codec installed on the system. However for those with a NTSC GH1 it can’t remove the pulldown from the 1080 24 fps in 60i stream so that has to be done in a secondary step.

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[Martti Ekstrand]

Toast 10 transcodes very well AVCHD files to any Quicktime codec you’ve got installed. It’s one of the fastest as well. And includes a video player that plays the AVCHD files from my Lumix GH1 flawlessly without transcoding for quick previewing.

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[Martti Ekstrand]

You’re welcome! What version of FCP you got? AVCHD import through Log & Transfer didn’t get support until 6.0.5.

check out my shorts: https://vimeo.com/marttiekstrand

Oh, I see now you have 7, never mind.

[Martti Ekstrand]

The trick with L&T and Lumix GH1 footage is that it absolutely positively needs the file structure in the ‘PRIVATE’ folder intact. So don’t delete a single thing in there from the computer – if you want to remove clips you must do it from the camera. And when doing back-ups to a harddrive, copy the entire PRIVATE folder and again, don’t change anything in there once it’s on the harddrive. Then L&T can still access the clips, you don’t have to do it from the SDHC card. Personally I prefer transcoding with Toast 10, it allows transcoding to any Quicktime codec I have installed. Toast also comes with a video player that handles playback of the .mts files straight in Finder without image bugs. It’s inside the Toast.app bundle, use ‘Show Package Contents’ to find it. VLC can also play .mts files but has a lot of macro-blocking errors which can make you think your clips are damaged.

In my sig link you can find a couple of short films I’ve made with the GH1 during the summer, it’s a great little camera. There’s a insanely active forum for the GH1 chok’ful of tips here: https://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=177

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[Martti Ekstrand]

It’s a artificial limitation in the RT Software Enabler.txt file. I use this old tip from the Blackmagic Design section to get PhotoJPEG to work in real time with my Decklink HD Extreme:

==============================================================================

“RT Effects for PhotoJPEG
by Sean ONeil on Aug 31, 2005 at 9:46:53 am

I figured out a VERY simple tweak to give you RT effects for the Blackmagic – JPEG Easy Setups.

Contents>Resources>Non-Localized Settings>FXScripts>Enablers

Without giving away too many details, there’s an RT Software Enabler txt file somewhere inside the Final Cut application file. Back it up to another folder so you can always restore it later if need be. Now open it up (the real one, not the backup) in TextEdit. Inside there’s a section for OfflineRT (PhotoJPEG) surrounded in astericks. Below this are several self-explainatory lines for max width and max height allowed, which are currently set to 320×240 and such. Change these to 1920 and 1080 (or 720 and 486 – whatever). Change the max spatial quality to 800 or so.

=======================================
Contents>Resources>Non-Localized Settings>FXScripts>Enablers

SEARCH for:

jpeg settings. Settings specific to jpeg go below here.

preferredSpatialQuality

=======================================

That’s it. It just works. The only prob is that FCP gives you a warning whenever you start up. Just make sure you have “Report Dropped Frames on ETT/PTV” checked.

I can’t stress how great this is. I have a regular gig that requires only simple dissolves. I had been capturing everything at DV and later re-capturing at Uncompressed. Now I can skip the re-capture process and just take the footage in at PhotoJPEG for offline and online.

==============================================================================

I don’t know why PhotoJPEG is still limited in FCP. It’s Apple’s own codec and current hardware has zero problems dealing with it.

cheers

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[Martti Ekstrand]

PhotoJPEG – hands down best 8 bit codec to file size ratio that’s out there. Any Blackmagic card can capture to it but I’m sure there are other card brands that work with it.

You can find info about PhotoJPEG here under 4:2:2 C here.
https://www.onerivermedia.com/codecs/

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[Martti Ekstrand]

AVCHD is designed by Sony and Panasonic primarily for camera acquisition, Canon joined pretty quick and now most video camera manufacturers have models using it. A basic native editing of AVCHD material is in rising demand, even for pros. I’m actually somewhat surprised that it wasn’t added to FCP with this release. Isn’t Apple supposed to be on the forefront of things? Nvidia supports it with CUDA. Per example through this realtime plug-in for Premiere and Vegas: https://www.divideframe.com/

This is a policy decision, not true technical limitations. Or Apple engineers are really lagging behind in tech know-how.

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[Martti Ekstrand]

First of all let me repeat: AVCHD shouldn’t be that hard to edit with if tapping into modern video cards GPU power.

Then I never said “editing realtime multiple tracks of video”, don’t put words in my mouth – just basic selection editing cuts-only, then converting to codec of choice for further work. I’ve seen several people using this way with Premiere CS4 on OSX and apps like EDIUS Neo 2 or Sony Vegas on PCs. So yup, a policy decision. Obviously I better get looking into Premiere now, I do most of my work in AE anyway after base edits.

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[Martti Ekstrand]

Well the proxy addition is nice but that can be one very long conversion session for me before even starting to edit the AVCHD footage as I can have upwards of 40-20:1 ratios. I don’t worry about harddisk space but time can be of essence. AVCHD shouldn’t be that hard to edit with if tapping into modern video cards GPU power. After all my little battery powered $1500 Lumix GH1 camera can encode 50 fps AVCHD in real-time to SDHC cards but my $5000 MacPro can’t decode it well enough for basic editing from a RAID? That’s a policy decision, not a technical issue. Plus this way seem to lock me into ProRes which is not my preferred codec or have Apple added more codecs to chose from in Log & Transfer now?

check out my shorts: https://vimeo.com/marttiekstrand

[Martti Ekstrand]

He is asking about .mts files, not .ts ones. The .mts files comes from cameras using AVCHD compression and for FCP’s Log & Transfer to work they need to be still in the camera’s “PRIVATE” folder and it has to be unaltered by a computer or L&T refuses to recognize them. Just delete one file in “PRIVATE” and the entire content of it is ignored by Log & Transfer. One good workaround is converting with Toast 10 which reads naked .mts files and can convert to any Quicktime codec you have installed. This is actually my preferred method of converting. Toast also includes a video player that plays .mts files very well without conversion.

VLC can convert but only to a limited set of codecs and not with good quality. MPEG Streamclip does not read .mts file, hopefully that will be added. There’s is a shareware app called Voltaic that also handles .mts files as they are but it’s slower and transcodes somewhat softer than Toast and very much slower. It has handled some clips that Toast has not coped with though. Cineform’s NeoScene also handles .mts files, outputs to it’s own pretty good codec but costs more.

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