MacVideo Forums

Finally took the plunge and scrapped my sony laptop for a mac book pro!!

After spending ages in the apple store i was happy that all my saved HD camcorder movies (on external /hd) would import no problem into imovie.... Wrong!

PLEASE can someone recommend some quality conversion software to convert my files which are .mts file to something imovie can recognise. Maybe then i can start making movies!!

One more thing, what is the best and highest quality file i should convert my mts files to??? i have tried a free trial conversion tool to convert the file to mpeg4 HD and i am really disappointed with the quality i am left with.
Thanks in advance
Andrew

stantheman1432,


On Apple Discussions Voltaic
http://shedworx.com/voltaichd
is suggested. There's a free trial

stantheman1432,
Pavtube Converter was recommended to me by a local woman who specializes in Mac computers as I was having problems downloading from my new video camera to my software program. The conversion speed and quality are very good.
http://camcordervideoshare.com/how-to/how-to-convert-avchd-mts-to-mov-for-editing-on-mac/

ferbctg,
You should be able to import the files into iMovie. You don't give details of what camera, bit rate etc. you are using. This makes it impossible to give specific help. However, a common mistake is just to copy the .mts files from the camera. You need to copy the entire folder structure across. Normally, there is a folder called AVCHD with other folders underneath it( one of which has the clips in). If you point iMovie at this it should recognise it as AVCHD and offer to import the files. If you are using Final Cut then you need to use the log and transfer function

stantheman1432,
Go with HD and HQ

stantheman1432,

I think it's mainly a matter of what rick-uk said about you copying your files properly. I've never had a problem with iMovie.

rick-uk,

ferbtcg was a spammer. Post has been deleted.

stantheman1432,

.mts in HD format is not recognised by iMovie/FCP; regardless of how you copy the file structure. I bought a Panasonic HS900 full HD camcorder, recorded hours of 1080P footage, only to be unable to edit it

I have had to use Clipwrap [http://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap], to make it readable and importable into iMovie. Works very well and you can wrap with no conversion or convert it to Pro Res etc. Makes life easy!

If you can record in AVCHD, that will be usable but not Full HD (at least without converting it first)

Hope that helps

stantheman1432,

for all the hassle, you might aswell go out and buy final cut pro, the two latest versions have stable support for the format you are using and the interface is very simple, almost as intuitive as iMovie

stantheman1432,
MTS, MP4 or MKV etc video format.

MPEG2 has high quality but it takes up a lot of space.
For MPEG4, I find H.264 to be the best quality for compression although some argue XVID to be better.

stantheman1432,
Go with HD and HQ