There must be a better way. Edit AVCHD.

[sqiddster]

I have recently purchased an AVCHD camera. About an hour of playing around, and I found the mysterious .MTS files, which were not recognised by my computer. So I researched a bit more, and decided to get a converter. This works okay, it just results in files of low quality and strange distortions when moving. What's the point of an HD camera that doesn't do HD?
I thought... there must be an easier way. Surely the video manufacturer must have thought a bit about the people who actually want to edit their videos, and upload them to video sites.
Surely.
There must be an easier way.

[Baldrick]

Get an editor that supports avchd. Like Vegas Movie Studio or VideoStudio Pro.

[sqiddster]

Unfortunately, I don't have 1 hundred dollars lying around. And my computer isn't too hot, anyway.

[yoda313]

Editing hd takes a stronger computer - dual core at least. You can do it on slower computers it will just take a long time.

If you don't have a bluray burner you can't keep hd intact. EXCEPT as avchd on a dvdr. But those are only playable on bluray players and a ps3 (and some are more strict on the requirements for avchd than others are).

Check the tools sections for editing software. There are always trial ware to test out. If all you need for editing is simple cutting there should be freeware available for trimming mt2 files - I can't name it right now.

[Baldrick]

Sell the HD camera and buy the software then....or wait...


There aren't that many free or cheaper editors that has good avchd/m2ts support yet. I can't name one... You can do very basic editing using TSSniper, Smart Cutter Ps/Ts. Then convert to a single mp4,mkv with tools like ripbot264, xmedia recode, handbrake.

[greymalkin]

I have recently purchased an AVCHD camera. About an hour of playing around, and I found the mysterious .MTS files, which were not recognised by my computer.

Try Splash media player. MTS/M2TS are not mysterious, but your computer needs the right software to play it. Just like a Word Document would be mysterious to your computer if you didn't have MS Office/Open Office installed.

So I researched a bit more, and decided to get a converter. This works okay, it just results in files of low quality and strange distortions when moving. What's the point of an HD camera that doesn't do HD?

your logic is flawed. you can't blame the camera for whatever the software converter did to the video. hook the camera directly to your TV and playback there.

I thought... there must be an easier way. Surely the video manufacturer must have thought a bit about the people who actually want to edit their videos, and upload them to video sites.
Surely.
There must be an easier way.

The manufacturer thought about how to get you to buy their camera..anything past that is up to you .
it would be helpful if you posted your computer specs. "isn't that hot" doesn't give us much to work with.

If your computer can't play back the .mts files smoothly using Splash media player then you'll have to convert it to an intermediate format...If it is strong enough the best thing I've found for editing is neo 2.5 (neo 2 "booster") It's got a 30 day trial and it's $200 after that.

But more details about exactly what sort of editing you plan on doing would be helpful. Programs like TS Sniper will do simple cuts/etc. in no time without needing a high end PC. If you want to do multiple layers, color correction/etc. then you're going to need more computer or a lot of patience.

[filmboss80]

This thread provides some helpful insights for those looking to buy a new camcorder and move up into the HD realm. Many people make the mistake of limiting their research to camera features alone, without thinking far enough ahead to ask the question: "What sort of computer hardware and software will be required to edit the footage and put it in a final presentation format?"

If funds are limited right now, you can always acquire and store your footage for the present and wait until more editing options avail themselves in the future, or you can return just the camera for a refund.

To other potential camcorder buyers wanting to move up to HD without having to encounter the demands of AVCHD, be aware that there are still cameras being sold in the more edit-friendly HDV format.

[sqiddster]

Thanks for all your replies.
Ok. So I don't exactly want HD. The videos will NOT be shown on a TV, only youtube. Anything with good quality for youtube full-screen is great. unfortunately, I'm not getting that at the moment.

By now you're thinking that I was a bit dumb in buying the HD camera, well, I didn't have any say in buying it, the school I work for bought it. So it's all I have to work with. I need to do fairly complex editing.

Computer specs:
laptop
Intel Celeron
2 GB RAM
Intel Celeron CPU
Some sort of Chipset Family for gfx card.

[lenti_75]

The cheapest and easiest way are corel ex ulead products, like Video Studio Pro. I guess they can pay another $70 for software.

your laptop is really really low for HD, good luck with that.

[pippas]

I'm afraid you stand no chance of editing AVCHD with that computer.
Try converting the footage to SD before you edit. The freeware 'HD Converter 1.7' from the menu on the left of this page: http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html will let you convert the footage to SD, which will be easier to deal with on that laptop.
Should allow you keep the quality reasonable for you tube.

[rumplestiltskin]

Once most of the camcorder mfrs agree upon a standard (which is not in their selfish competitive interest to do), then the codec chip used in the camcorders could be incorporated into computer motherboards and the editing issue becomes a non-issue (albeit frame-accurate edits may not be possible without re-encoding those sections). Until that day (which should happen right after pigs fly out of Queen Elizabeth's ass), the way to edit HD video is to transcode it into something less compressed (ProRes or AIC if you're a Mac user), do your editing (which now can be done on average hardware), and re-compress upon completion into whatever format you need.

[yoda313]

Have you checked to see if the camera has a youtube shooting mode? Lots of cameras (point and click with video included) are now touting a "direct to youtube" mode.

I don't know if those modes allow you to automatically convert already shot material to a youtube friendly format in-camera or not.

But if your camera does have this feature it would make it a whole lot easier for future recording sessions.

Sorry if this is stating the obvious but it never hurts to ask if it does have that mode.

Also please feel free to ignore my post if this was the first thing you checked on the camera before posting here - just like to cover all the basics here.

[pepegot1]

Stay with SD, unless you like frustration.

[Steve Stepoway]

A basic question that doesn't appear to have been asked or answered: what is the camera?? That will determine the best way to proceed.

Steve