MTS files - how to deal with them ....

[adrianvas12]

Hello everyone - I will need your suggestion on how to deal with the mts files.Just like almost everyone I have a Cannon HD camera that saves files in mts format - supposedly HD format, etc, etc
The issue that I have is that I cannot play that format on my laptop due to small hardware, small CPU, etc - I also have a Synology NAS that has some built in media players and sharing but due to the file format the playback is saggy or bad.


I know I can covert the files to a different format and that may help.... but my question is .... how do we deal with this problem? Should we keep a copy of the original files in mts and then convert to any other format that is playable by Synology, Windows, MAC, Roku, etc - wouldn't this create duplicates, extra work, etc?


Or should I keep them in mts in the hope that eventually one day I will have time to edit them and make a pretty movie - my ultimate goal is to have a collection of home movies that is stored in a safe format ( to be compatible down the road) and easily playable with most common devices.




Thank you.
Adrian

[_Al_]

Synology should stream Blu-Ray copy to a device over working network without a problem, that is its purpose, to stream data, there is some problem with device you are streaming to. Synology just streams data. For BD you need to transfer something like 50Mbit/s. Your video most probably does not have higher bitrate.

You actually did not say anything concrete, ...., what device are you streaming to, what model (year) is that Synology, what camera are you using, specs for video using MediaInfo?

You need some NLE, PC with more power, edit your video save as mp4 (H.264, AAC or AC3). That should be ok and original most probably too, but post properties of your video ...

[sanlyn]

mts isn't BluRay. It's AVCHD.

[_Al_]

Obviously, but is it avchd?
anyway, specs are similar just to compare if it is avchd ... trying to say that Synology and network (properly set) are not a problem, but receiving device is

[adrianvas12]

Hello _AI_ and thank you for your reply.For right now the end device is a laptop; I mean, several members of my family will use their own, average power to stream those movies...
So I think the format of the media is still the issue....
So should I convert everything?

[_Al_]

So I think the format of the media is still the issue....
So should I convert everything?

I thing Canon's mts is most probably not an issue, just your laptop is not powerful enough, there is no concrete info in your post to start some troubleshooting ...

You must convert your video to watch it without having proper device and powerful enough to watch it with.

Using Synology and some media player like WDTV Live most probably will play your video without re-encoding. If it is 50p or 60p it might give you problems, stuttering, you can re-encode. Always keep originals though.

But you say you need to edit your video, that you can do only with hardware powerful enough. Export to some mp4, nice settings.

Synology is not playing video, it just streams it. Device that receives video does decoding.

[adrianvas12]

If you were to archive your library how would you do it? mts or some other format?Thank you again.

[neomaine]

You haven't metioned what (software) you're using to play the files with.

[adrianvas12]

neomaine thank you for your help.
That is the issue here - I may be using different things that my family has ... iPad, Roku, Windows Media Player, Vlan, etc
What I am trying is to find a way to have my library easily accessible / playable by most of the common devices without going through shooting in HD, converting, etc

[_Al_]

You archive originals, if you have problems now playing it now, doesn't mean to transcode them and archive them. You archive originals.

If I edit video, then I'd encode it out of editing software to mp4 container, H.264 video and AAC audio (or AC3 audio). I'd use software eport modules to export clips, home movies.

[racer-x]

Roku player doesn't support ac3 playback via usb. It supports mkv or mp4 if you use aac audio. Your best bet in my opinion is archive originals and encode copies to h.264 + aac mp4 for best playback support using various devices........

I would recommend you try VidCoder as an easy to use transcoder for your purposes.

[adrianvas12]

I think I have enough information - I will go with a 2 step process; archive the original and create a home view from each shot using software tools.If I ever need to go back and redo something the originals should be able to help...


Thank you all for your help!
Adrian

[_Al_]

there is a device and there is a device, assuming you render some fullHD mp4 (3ref frames, High@L 4.1). Number of frames per second is important too. 50p or 60p you need more power to decode it. (3 ref frames, High@L4.2)

-Roku might have problem with it, or not playing it even easy profile, it is dedicated streamer , users will tell you more, that AC3 problem, as Racer-X says but I'm sure there might be more to it with Roku, and again I guess it depends what model.
- Ipad perhaps will not handle that, I just assume that because it is Apple, so even for that price. It might play it but perhaps depends on model, for sure IPad first generation will not play it..
-Android tablet , you have $500 tablet good processor, it will handle it, but you have cheap $60 tablet it will not, it will choke on it
-Dedicate media player boxes like WDTV Live are dedicated players for this, it should not be a problem

But again, do you have resources? You can get some new Synology , perhaps next year or later year that will transcode your video live so you can store just that MTS. Even for this year they have some sort of consumer Synology NAS play model that has stronger processor and it is using HW to transcode video. Not sure how well this is working. But HW is getting stronger every year.

[racer-x]

-Android tablet , you have $500 tablet good processor, it will handle it, but you have cheap $60 tablet it will not, it will choke on it

I have an older ASUS 7 inch tablet (ME172V) I bought for $80. It has a dual-core 1 GHZ CPU w/ 1GB RAM and it handles full 1080p x264 + aac mkv or mp4 @ 30 fps. It can do 720p @ 60fps with ease. In fact this is a great way to show your clips to family and friends......

I use VidCoder to encode most of the clips I play on the tablet and it works just fine.

[_Al_]

nice, it progresses faster than one would have thought I meant something more like pulling data over wi-fi + playback as oppose to just playback.
I'm focusing myself to ideas to stream everything out of NAS, originals or HD renders, skipping all these kinds of encodings, to get rid of it for good, hopefully it will work soon with HW getting stronger, and that it would not cost fortune

just one thing, they should send all those HVEC developers to some deserted area without any contact to others, say, Antarctic posts etc., let them develop their HVEC and just show up in 5 years not earlier, so they prevent any need to re-encode anything around us yet again ..

[racer-x]

just one thing, they should send all those HVEC developers to some deserted area without any contact to others, say, Antarctic posts etc., let them develop their HVEC and just show up in 5 years not earlier, so they prevent any need to re-encode anything around us yet again ..

I here ya man.........I'm all for progress, but not at the expense of my hard earned dollars in H/W upgrades for incremental (at best) improvements. For me x264 is plenty good enough, hell Mpeg-2 is plenty good enough. All this new crap is designed for one thing, and that's make you waste more money trying to keep up..........

If you were to tell me 20 years ago what I would be paying for cable today, I'd say you are F'n crazy..............

[DoctorK]

I think that the issue hereis that quite a lot of newbies are starting to use synology dusk stations as a way to back up files/stream over dlna.

The issue people are having, like myself, is that we can't stream myself files to our tvs! I used to be able to, but it's stopped and is now jerky.

My tv is a sony bravia, nas is synology ds211j+

I've a repository of over a thousand home videos stored as mets or m2ts files.
They used to play fine on the tv and ps3. They no longer do. So it's not a case if not having compatible kit.

Does anyone know if there is a way to make them play? They used to and now they don't- it's that simple. I haven't changed any settings.

I hope that this rephrases the question everyone seems to be asking in the wrong way lol