Pinnacle Studio 12 frame rate error for Panasonic AVCHD Lite mts files

[dewispew]

Hi,

I just got my new Panasonic DMC-FT1 (in the US this is know as DMC-TS1).
It captures AVCHD Lite video to an SD memory card as .MTS files.
The AVCHD Lite format is H.264 720p25.

Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate recognized the files and imports them, but when they are played in the preview window or from the time line the video is played at double speed.
Audio is played correctly. Thus the video already stops halfway in the clip, while audio continues until the end of the clip.

When checking the properties of the clip in the album, it displays the correct lenght, but a frame rate of 50fps. This should be 25fps through as this is AVCHD Lite (US versions will do 30fps)

Does anybody know how I can configure studio 12 to play at the correct frame rate?
Or is there a way to remux the MTS stream in another stream without quality loss to fix the frame rate.

By the way, playing these .mts files in media player classic with the ffdshow video decoder plays the clips at correct frame rate, thus this must be a pinnacle issue.

Thanks,

Wim

[dewispew]

Panasonic confirms that the same issue exists in apple iMovie:

http://avc-cs.panasonic.co.jp/faq/1033/app/servlet/qadoc?QID=002038
"It is confirmed that AVCHD Lite movies are played back in double speed in both Apple's iMovie'09 and iMovie'08"

Still, no hint for a solution. Anybody an idea?

Thanks,

Wim

[poisondeathray]

You can try swapping containers with tsmuxer (put in .m2ts or .ts) , or maybe try putting in .mp4 with mp4box (yamb is the GUI) or ffmpeg. Or even .mov with ffmpeg, which most editors should accept

Or you can try forcing the video into avi container with tsmuxer to extract raw streams, avc2avi to put video into avi, then avimux-gui to add in audio

Or you can try frameserving in with avisynth, or vfapi, or makeavis

Or you can re-encode using a lossless avi intermediate for import (e.g. huffyuv or lagarith). This should work for any editor, but you're left with a huge intermediate file

Best idea is probably to switch editors

[dewispew]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have been playing around with the tsmuxer.
One thing I noticed is that the mts files are actually m2ts containers. tsmuxer gives a warning about that.

Muxing the streams in a .ts container gives the same incorrect frame rate.

Changing the frame rate to 25 fps resulted in video that was playing at correct speed, but the reported length of the clip in the editor was double. When scrubbing through it audio got completely out of sync again.

I also found that removing the pulldown results in an error. This makes me believe that Panasonic uses some proprietary pulldown method to put 25fps captured video in a 720p50 stream with a pulldown code to instruct the player to play every encoded frame twice.

You were right about finding another editor; I downloaded avs video editor which allowed me to edit the clips correctly.
But then, that lacks functionality. So I guess I will have to wait for Panasonic to release an AVCHD Lite patch.

[dewispew]

Now it is confirmed by Pinnacle as well: current version of Studio 12 does not support AVCHD Lite format

http://pinnacle.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/pinnacle.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1875...i=&p_topview=1

[Hubert Chalas]

Use Vegas Movie Studio Platinium from Sony, it woks with AVCHD Lite !

[maxwell1950]

Pinnacle will work correctly for the first half of a clip if you add the 'video effect' for speed, using 100%.



bit of useless info, but it may trigger a solution???

when will Pinnacle issue a fix??

[Persistence]

The latest and best Vegas product does support AVCHD lite, but the topic is not well known or documented.

Don't mess with AVCHD lite in any of the competing packages, unless you transcode first, which usually entails IQ loss and a long wait.

The story with MOV h.264 60p is pretty much the same thing.

Adobe has been sluggish to accomodate AVCHD at all. Pinnacle, Ulead, and Roxio are not making money and find it hard to invest in upgrades or patches that won't make money either. Cyberlink does not offer AVCHD lite support now, but PD 8 (to appear in 3-QTR-09?) just may.

Panasonic mis-labeled AVCHD "lite," since only one of the NLEs that support the supposedly heavier 1440x1080 or 1920x1080 versions can hack it. As for the 1920x1080 60p stuff shot by Sanyo and Casio devices, heaven only knows.

[Ventolin]

Hi folks,

In case you didn't know, the Full version of TSPE will edit AVCHD non destructively. If anyone can give me a sample I will make sure TSPE will edit AVCHD Lite also.

Regards,

Vent

[Hubert Chalas]

Thanks,
But to create a film with titles, transitions, and so on, I do not find a program like Studio 12 from Pinnacle (it does not work with avchd lite), only Vegas studio 9 platinium fron Sony is acceptable but simple, do you know another program for AVCHD LITE? Bye.

[paulus]

As far as I know, Vegas 9 will edit successfully, but then cannot produce ACVHD disks (certainly no option at 720p and Blu-ray 1080p has a bug so that the disks are unreadable on my Panasonic player). Magix Video Pro x 1.5 also will edit successfully, AND produce AVCHD disks BUT only at 1080p - so you still have an eternity of rendering. If you (as I do) just want to edit AVCHDlite and produce AVCHD disks at 720p (maintaining original quality) I think we are still awaiting a product!!

paulus