M2TS to Premier

[Mylriahd]

I've searched through the archives and learned quite a bit, but am not having much luck with what I want. I have (with this site's help) finally gotten a good conversion from my Panasonic HDC-SD5's M2TS files to MPG. Looks sharp, very happy with the results. But I want to EDIT the footage. I dont like ULead's editor; so far my favorite has been Premier (and I even liked the older Premier Elements.) I intend to move up to Premier CS3 because Elements is getting a bit too candy coated, so I downloaded the trial.

Problem 1) It doesn't understand M2TS. I suspect this will be fixed at some point in the future, for now I'm using Elecard to convert to MPG.

Problem 2) The TRIAL at least does not import ANY MPG file I've exported from Elecard. I get "File Format not Supported." Can someone confirm that the full product can import MPG's?

Problem 3) I understand that MPG is not really ideal for editing, Premier REALLY wants AVI. I have tried exporting to AVI, but it ALWAYS comes out looking horrible. I can not find ANY way or any setting to out put an AVI that looks like the beautiful MPG file I get. Is it possible?

I did try using AviSynth, but theres quite a learning curve, and Premier CS3 Trial always crashes as soon as I import a valid AVS script.

All I want is to be able to edit my footage in HD in Premier AND output HD. If the trial is wholly incapable of doing this, I guess that's the way it is, but I did want to make sure Premier can do it before I paid the money for it. If someone out there says "Yup, I do this every day" then I'll be happy. I already like the app, I just dont want to buy it if it can't do anything with my HD footage. Can it read the MPG files?

Any rumors on when Premier will support AVCHD?

Thanks!
-Dan

[Soopafresh]

Vegas 8.0 can support AVCHD, although I don't know if it can support files from a Panasonic camera at the moment.

If you purchase the $15 CoreAVC decoder, you'll have many more options.

[Mylriahd]

Vegas 8.0 can support AVCHD, although I don't know if it can support files from a Panasonic camera at the moment.

If you purchase the $15 CoreAVC decoder, you'll have many more options.

I'll try Vegas, so far though I've been pretty happy with Premier and would prefer to use that as thats the tooset I've gotten comfortable with.

What kind of options would I have with CoreAVC? I'm not against buying it, I've seen lots of rave things about it here on the site. But the only thing I know of to use it with would be AviSynth, which so far I've not had any luck with.

Thanks for your reply!
-Dan

[Soopafresh]

CoreAVC can act as your "gateway" to other applications. As it is a DirectShow Decoder, it is compatible with many applications, such as TmpgencXpress - and can provide you with a simple method to convert to AVI.

You'll need to purchase the PRO version, which is $15

BTW - Are you using elecard Converter Studio AVCHD edition ? They have 2 products - that one and the AVCHD to DV product (which isn't very good). This one IS good - https://forum.videohelp.com/topic339672.html

The only disadvantage to the Elecard AVCHD product is that it transcodes to Uncompressed AVI, which will require lots of space. An 80MB M2TS file will create a 3GB uncompressed AVI file.

[racer-x]

If you have CoreAVC installed or any directshow AVCHD compatible codec. You can use Avisynth with "Directshowsource", then use VFAPI to make a dummy AVI for it that Premiere, Vegas or any good NLE will open easily enough. The clip will show up as 1440 x 1080 Square Pixels by default. You can Right-Click on the clip and choose to Interpret to Anamorphic 1440 x 1080.

I don't have an AVCHD camera, I went with the HDV format, but I did experiment editing a few AVCHD m2ts files.

[Soopafresh]

Also, there's a Premiere-Avisynth import filter which should bypass the need for Vfapi.


http://urchin.earth.li/~tomford/avisynth/index.html


The steps would be

1) Install Plugin from Page Above

2) Install CoreAVC Pro

3) Install Haali Media Splitter

4) Create FILE.AVS script - like this:

SetMemoryMax(768)
DirectShowSource("YourFile.M2TS")
ConverttoRGB()

5) As racer-x mentioned, change aspect ratio in Premiere

[Mylriahd]

Also, there's a Premiere-Avisynth import filter which should bypass the need for Vfapi.


http://urchin.earth.li/~tomford/avisynth/index.html


The steps would be

1) Install Plugin from Page Above

2) Install CoreAVC Pro

3) Install Haali Media Splitter

4) Create FILE.AVS script - like this:

SetMemoryMax(768)
DirectShowSource("YourFile.M2TS")
ConverttoRGB()

5) As racer-x mentioned, change aspect ratio in Premiere

Boy this is frustrating. So, I purchased CoreAVC, installed the plugin and CoreAVC and Haali. I made the script, pointing it to my M2TS file, and imported the AVS file into Premier. It immediately, as before, stops responding. "Native win32 exception".

I'm thinking it's an issue with the CS3 trial... I hope anyway, I haven't seen any real complaints from people saying this doesn't work.

Thanks again for all the help!

[Soopafresh]

try loading the AVS file you created into VirtualDub. Does that work ?

[mmxxiii]

I had been having the same issue. CoreAVC seems to crash AviSynth no matter what program it is called from (Vdubmod, AVSedit, Premiere), although the codec works fine outside of AVISynth (WMP, gspot).
I have had some success by limiting the available output formats to only 1 format (just uncheck all of them except the one you want to use in the CoreAVC configuration utility). I've noticed that the RGB modes will result in upside-down video, so I'm using yv12. Of course, I'm also running Premiere Pro 2, not CS3, so I can't say for sure it will work in cs3. Playback is a bit choppy on my 3.2GHz P4-HT with 2GB of ram, so I have to render each clip in the timeline for smooth playback. Dual core or dual processor setups may be smoother.

good luck.

Oh, and my avs file is a simple 1-liner: DirectShowSource("MyAVC.m2ts")

[Safesurfer]

You might find some of the info at this link useful, particularly the Video Editors Toolkit -

A collection of cross-platform utilities to assist the video editing process including a lossless video codec and enhanced Premiere plug support for AviSynth.

"

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?p=26655

[Mylriahd]

Man this is frustrating. I just got my full copy of CS3 and installed Premier Pro.

I note that MPG files play fine now, so it was definitely just an issue wit the trial. So I do have an undesireable workaround if I can't get the preferred method of using AviSynth to work. Here is what I did:

1) I installed CoreAVC w/ Haali Splitter.
2) I confirmed the codec works by loading one of my M2T files in Media Player. Beautiful.
3) I installed AVISynth
4) I installed the Premier Plugin from the site linked above
5) I made an AVS script:

SetMemoryMax(768)
DirectShowSource("uvs071113-010_200129~0.m2t")
ConverttoRGB()

6) I tried to import the AVS file into Premier, it immediate crashes.
7) I singled down the output options to YV12 as suggested in a previous post, and tried again: Same crash
8) I edited my script to point to an MPG file, STILL crashes.
9) I took out all but the DirectShowSource line in the script: Still crashes.

"Adobe Premier Pro.exe has stopped working." No details.

Does ANYONE have this working with Premier Pro CS3? Or even CS2, and if so, can you tell me how you got this to work? What settings should I have in AviSynth, the Plugin, and CoreAVC?

Thank you all for your time!

-Dan


Edit: I just tried the AVS script in VirtualDub -- no problems, it opens right up (the M2T file AND MPG file.)

[Soopafresh]

Open up the AVS file you've created with VirtualDub. Does it load?

You might also want to specify a more descriptive path to your source file, like:

DirectShowSource("c:\myfile.m2t")

It's going to take some experimenting. Don't get discouraged...yet

[Mylriahd]

Wow, you're fast. Yes, I was trying VirtualDub while you replied. It works great. So I'm pretty sure that means everything is working the way it should.. except Premier.

[Soopafresh]

A worst case scenario would be to render the file with a Lossless Codec, such as Lagarith or Huffyuv to AVI within VirtualDub, then opening the AVI for editing in Premiere. Unfortunately, that's gonna take some disk space to do.

[racer-x]

It works fine in Premiere Pro 2.0........maybe you installed the avsplugin in the wrong folder. For Premiere 2.0 it's:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_US

Alternatively, you can use VFAPI to create a dummy avi that you can open in Premiere or any NLE.

[Mylriahd]

* I'll check the plugin folder, I remember it was the same path, except there was like a "MediaCore" at the end that it dumped the plugin file into by default.

* I note that Elecard is having a "Christmas Discount" right now, AVCHD Edition is currently $56 (25% off). It has a great UI & Workflow, and once I get the settings right it seems to make a great MPG file. Has anyone been able to get HD AVI out of this? I tried before, but it always squishes the video to SD resolution, and looks like trash for a gigs large file. (If I convert to MPG though, I'm fine, and at least I know Premier can open it now.)

[Soopafresh]

I like the Elecard product a lot for AVCHD to MPEG2 conversion, but you're right, the AVCHD to AVI conversion options are very limited. Your compression choices are either Uncompressed AVI (youch!) or noisy looking DV.

[Mylriahd]

Am I getting worked up about this for nothing -- is there a real problem with me just giving in and converting all my stuff to MPEG2 and editing those directly? I understand I might have problems hitting a specific frame while editing MPEG files, but are there any other real concerns?

Should I take the "easy" route with Elecard, or is it worth the effort to try and get fake AVI stuff going in Premier?

I'm an ignorant enthusiest to be sure, but I don't have a whole lot of time to sit in front of my system geeking out as much as I want to.

[Soopafresh]

If you're satisfied with the quality of the Mpeg conversions and it works for you, by all means, do it. The only thing that matters is your perception. You do lose some quality, as you're adding another conversion into the mix, but if it doesn't bother you, so what ?

Just save your source MTS files. As you get more proficient and as new products are introduced, you might want to revisit your work. I see stuff that I encoded several years ago and cringe, just because I wish I knew then what I know now. As long as you have the source files to go back to, you're golden.

[Mylriahd]

That's the problem, I don't know what I'm satisfied with. MPEG is all I can see at this point, I haven't gotten anything else out of these files yet to be able to see how good it is.

Actually, I CAN play the files using CoreAVC; I should compare and see how close it looks. If its close enough, this may be a "good enough" solution until there is more support for the format.

[Soopafresh]

The cool part is you're working with video that's effectively 1920x1080 in dimension (although it's technically 1440x1080). Either way, that's a lot of resolution to begin with. If you decide to make standard Def DVDs at 720x480 res, it's going to look pretty good regardless.

[Ollie6431]

...

Should I take the "easy" route with Elecard, or is it worth the effort to try and get fake AVI stuff going in Premier? ...

My understanding is that high-def video comes in two main formats: HDV (MPG-2), and AVCHD (h.264). MPG-2 enjoys more support from editing softwares than AVCHD. It also requires less CPU power and processing time. I do not believe that AVI for high-def exists (as for standard-def). If AVI for high-def existed, it would take a ridiculously high amount of storage space.

I own a Panasonic SD1 and have tried Nero 8 to edit footage and burned (1) AVCHD disc, using DVD-R, to play on BD player/PS3 , (2) DVD, down-graded to standard def. It also allows you to burn HD-DVD if you have a burner (a rare entity these days). This may be a viable option for your need. Keep in mind that it takes a long time to encode h.264 video. A trial version for Nero 8 is available online. I do not know anything about Premier to compare it to Nero.

AVCHD is relatively more difficult for editing with current hardware/software (HDV is also not that easy!). Things may change in a few years. I found the SDHC format so convenient that for now, I just use it as the main storage medium to play back directly to HDTV via HDMI (a 4GB SDHC card now costs only $25 and holds one hour of video, it would be $5 in 2-3 years?). One can play back/delete any clips instantly (without cueing the tape, I hate that!). When the card is full, just pop in another one and keep on shooting. One can keep all the SDHC cards as "master medium" for future editing/burning (once the Bluray/HD DVD battle settles down and high-def burners/players are more affordable). I only take 1-2 hrs of video/yr but this would not work if one shoots lots of video. Cost of SDHC cards would become expensive.

[malagem]

That's the problem, I don't know what I'm satisfied with. MPEG is all I can see at this point, I haven't gotten anything else out of these files yet to be able to see how good it is.

I may have a clue for you: you should try VoltaicHD. Althrough the PC version is still a bit buggy, it works anyway, and I was able to convert a bunch of .M2TS I shot with my HDC-SD5 into .AVI segments that Premiere can handle like a charm.

Also, I recently tried Elecard Convertor Studio AVC HD Edition, and using the profile called "HDV-2 1080i MPEG-2" I was also able to transcode my .M2TS files into .MPG sequences I could successfully import in Premiere.

(FYI, I'm using Premiere Pro 2.0)

[Soopafresh]

Here's a really easy way to do it (finally). Read the posts in the thread, as there are some enhancements to the basic script. This method doesn't need CoreAVC.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic346331.html

[addu]

I HAD ALL THE SOLUTIONS FOR THIS KIND OF PROBLEMS BUT I AM TOTAL PROFESSIONAL AND MY SOLUTION IS THE FASTEST MORE COMPATIBLE AND EASIER TO LEARN. I AM ABLE TO DEFEAT EVEN NEWTEK SPEED EDIT. BUT I AM NOT GOING TO SHOW IT HERE. GUESS HOW I WOULD HAVE TO TELL . AND EVEN I HAD COMPLIANCY FOR BLUERAY DVD WHICH WILL SMART RENDER IN ENCORE AND SCENARIST. AND ALSO NERO VISION AVCHD.