Intro:

I have been in video filming, as an amateur, for more then a decade and moved gradually from filming in 4:3 DV format on tape to 19:6 DV and HDV on tape to AVCHD on hard disk.

As most of you, I came across the challenge of editing AVCHD-files on my computer. As Adobe Premiere does not support AVCHD (yet), I figured out a (hopefully) temporary workflow to deal with AVCHD-files. I discovered that AVCHD-files use the .m2ts extension, but the CONTENT of the files will decide whether they can be used with the soft- and hardware.

I have discovered, you can generate 3 types of .m2ts-files:

-          Sony Compatible .m2ts-files

-          Nero Compatible .m2ts-files

-          Pinnacle Studio 11 Compatible .m2ts-files

And you need to generate all 3 for a complete workflow.

What you need:

-          An AVCHD camera (I use Sony HDR-SR12E with 120 GB hard disk)

-          Sony Picture Motion Browser (PMB) that came with the camera

-          Pinnacle Studio 11 plus with latest patches (11.1.2 I guess)

-          Nero Vision 8

"One time" preparations:

-          On the pc, create three folders called

o        "HDR-SR12 Captures"

o        "Studio 11 AVCHD Disk image"

o        “Nero 8 AVCHD files” (of course folder names can be chosen different)

-          Register all three folders in PMB (Picture Motion Browser from Sony) so that they show up in PMB.

 The workflow I use:

1.      Import Video from camera to PC hard disk (use folder "HDR-SR12 Captures") using Sony's Picture Motion Browser (PMB). Videos will be stored as .m2ts-files. If you want, you can also copy the files without PMB by copying the files directly from the camera disk using Windows explorer (look for .MTS-files, they are the same as the .m2ts-files PMB create)

2.      Start Pinnacle Studio Plus 11.1.2 and import the (Sony compatible) .m2ts-video files into your project. Edit the files in the usual way with titles, transitions, music,etc

3.      Select what you want to do with the edited video file:

o        A) Create a (Sony compatible) .m2ts-video file to export back to your Sony HDR-SR12 camera (or copy to your Sony Play station 3 hard disk) or

o        B) Burn on a AVCHD DVD that you can play on a compatible DVD or BD-player (including Sony Play station 3)

4.      For option A),

o        export the completed video in Studio 11 by using "Make Movie" -> "Disk" -> "AVCHD" -> "Custom" -> "Settings" -> "Create disc content but don't burn" -> "ok"-> "Create Image" -> Select folder "Studio 11 AVCHD Disc image" -> "ok". This will create a folder structure in the specified output folder. One of the subfolders is called "Stream". In that "Stream"-subfolder, you will find a Studio 11 compatible .m2ts-file of your video. This file will show up in PMB (after a refresh) and can be played back, but it will be jerky and will give errors if you want to do anything else with it.

o        Next step is to create a Nero compatible .m2ts-file out of this. Start Nero Vision, create an AVCHD disk. Select the Studio 11 plus created before in the “Stream”-subfolder of folder "Studio 11 AVCHD Disc image" and select “export” (button at the bottom of the window). Select “Export video to file” -> Format AVC -> High quality  -> Output folder “Nero 8 AVCHD files”. The exported file will then created in the output folder. It will be of type .MP4. After the file is created, rename the file to a .m2ts-file. Now we have a Nero compatible .m2ts-file.

o        Check PMB (refresh may be needed) and the Nero compatible .m2ts-file will show up.

o        Next step is to create a Sony compatible .m2ts-file out of this. This can easily be done by selecting the nero-compatible file in PMB and right-click and select the “trim”-option. In the “trim”-window, just do a save file (no need to trim) and the give the Sony compatible .m2ts-file a final name. This file can now be exported back to the camera (right click on the file, select export to camera hard disk) or copied to the hard disk of your Playstation 3.

5.      For option B),

o        Do all the steps for option A). When you have created the Sony compatible .m2ts-file, right click and chose “Create AVCHD”. This will allow you to create a DVD (with simple menus) in AVCHD format.

Slot

I know, this seems to be quiet a hustle,  but it works for me (until Adobe premiere comes out with their AVCHD support). There may be better and shorter ways, but I have not discovered them yet (after spending many, many hours on the internet and trying things out).

Please let me know, if you have any comments or suggestions, so we can struggle through this period of “back-to-the-HD-NLE-stone-age” all together

Thanks

Best regards

Ronny (from Belgium)

rs012@telenet.be

Marc P.   This definitely deserves a sticky

Kero 

Ronny,

 If I understand, this is the workaround because the Sony camcorder does not import Pinnacle .m2ts files yet?  So, essentially it is - import raw footage into Studio, make an AVCHD disc, and then essentially use Nero to convert the AVCHD to Sony AVCHD for camera playback?

I really hope Pinnacle is using Studio 12 to fix up their AVCHD support and perhaps offer proxy editing and better compatibility.

You are right. Currently, Premiere Elements does not support AVCHD (or even a DD5.1 attempt!), Vegas Movie Studio reads AVCHD, but only the pro ($$$) version exports AVCHD. Ulead does offer read and export capabilities, but at least to me, it seems even more simple (and full of bugs for AVCHD) than Pinnacle's product.

Ronny,

The information contained in your post below has solved my original problem - thank you.

 I followed your instructions and came up with only one small difference. You described the playback of the Studio compatible file (first dot point under 4) as jerky.  Mine played smoothly so I looked at what might have been different between our two files.

There are two differences.  I note you have the SR12, which can produce in full HD 1920 x 1080, whereas my SR7 does 1440 x 1080.  The other video parameter which may have been dfiferent is the bitrate.  As you know we have a choice of HD or SD, then a range a quality (bitrates) within each.   I used a lower quality 7mbs for my test file.  I will check again with an XP (15mbs) file

I think the more likely cause of the juddering is the resolution (1920 vs 1440). One only has to look at the minimum system spec in Studio for each - 1440 only requires a core 2, while 1920 has a significant Quad Core requirement.

Thanks again for your help.

Kero

Hi Mark,

 no, Studio 11 Plus import the Sony .m2ts-files without problems, the issue is with the output (make file)......for some reason Studio 11 Plus create a different wrapper around the MPEG-4/H264 content that makes the generated .m2ts-files imcompatible for camera re-import......so therefore the need to re-wrap the files using Nero...

 Br

Ronny

Yes, Kero, you are right.

I use full 1920x1080 resolution at 17Mbps......so I guess the requirements for the PC are uplifted for that...

...But the files playbacks very,very smooth with "Nero Showtime", so I guess the jerkness comes from an heavier "unwrapping" of the "container" .m2ts file....

Glad my post did help you out.

Cheers

Ronny

Good work Ronny, thanks for sharing this with us.

Pinned in the Edit section. 

I never noticed that the Studio .m2ts files are not Sony .m2ts compatible as I never tried to play them back to my Camcorder or never used them for anything else then viewing. I use the Studio files to play them back on another PC (with a connected HD Beamer) using PMB and that's works fine, I thought...

But after your very interesting and complete description, I'm in doubt if it would work even better (in terms of output quality), using your procedure ?

You know about my post about the Studio AVCHD quality, do you know or think that the final Sony compatible .m2ts file has really a better visual quality than the Studio .m2ts file ?

Is there no quality loss, converting the Studio file with the Nero MP4 Encoder ?

I noticed that only the AVCHD files from Studio 11.1.2 are jerky, instead with 11.1.1 they are OK, in fact I do not use 11.1.2. Did you notice the same problem ?

are you sure that Vegas pro export AVCHD files ?

I testet the trial versions of Vegas Movie Studio and Vegas Pro 8 last week and of course there are differences but even Pro 8 is not able to generate AVCHD files.

It does not even create an AVCHD Image which allows to copy later the .m2ts file.

The only possibility was to create a Blu-Ray disk or Blu-Ray ISO Image, thus you can not read back the .m2ts files or did I understood wrong ?

Hi Franzie,

I think (hope) the visual video quality is not effected as the actual video content is not changed once the file is rendered in Studio Plus. Only the "wrapper" around the video content will be changed by the procedure (adding/deleting some header or footer bytes AROUND the video bytes).

I believe this (but not 100% sure) because the recoding by Nero is happing much too quickly for a complete "video content" re-render....so I guess it is only recoding the "wrapper info"......

Br

Ronny

ps: I 'm planning to do some more test to optimize this workflow and also experiment with "progressive output" to see if this change/improve the Playstation 3 playback 

I've done some testing with Studio 11.1.1 and noticed that these AVCHD output files, played back with Sony PMB are not jerky at all, instead they are smooth as the original clips. Your procedure seems to be therefore not necessary, if someone (like me) uses the 11.1.1 Version and want only to playback the files with PMB.

I'm very surprised about Pinnacle, they produce a new Patch 11.1.2, which should work in some way better with AVCHD than 11.1.1 but the opposite situation happens. I wrote them about the problem but they do not believe me, instead they answered that I should reinstall Studio in a special way, which I did ... you never know. But it did not make any change, in my opinion 11.1.1 has a much better AVCHD output than 11.1.2.

Anyway, I tried the trim option from PMB and it comes out an error, thus I suppose (almost 100% sure) that even the 11.1.1 AVCHD files are not really Sony compatible. I'll try your procedure and see if something changes regarding the video quality. But I have only Nero Vision 7 Premium and hope it will work.

I'm uploading at the moment my video files to Mediafire and will post the links later in my Thread "AVCHD Quality ..." (where Mark is waiting ... sorry for the delay). If you like, you could try if you get a better AVCHD result from the "Sony original clip difficult" which is really a bad situation for any video editing software, I think.

Franzie

franzie,

Did you use 1920 x 1080 or 1440 x 1080 when you tested the playback in PMB?  My test with PMB was also smooth.  Perhaps its the full HD (1920) input that causes the jerkiness?

Would appear to be the case.

Kero

I've a SR7 which produces 1440x1080 and since I use Studio, with 11.1 and 11.1.1, the AVCHD output files have always been smooth. The jerky AVCHD videos showed up in my case with 11.1.2 and even the Pinnacle Support does not know why !

Thus, I reinstalled Studio only up to 11.1.1 and it works again fine.

If you have 11.1.2 installed and your Full HD Studio AVCHD files are smooth with PMB, then maybe the Studio Encoder Problem exists only with 1440x1080.

Did you try to trim the Studio AVCHD files with PMB (like Ronny) ?

What about your AVCHD video output quality ? Is it the same as the Sony original clips, even in difficult situations, like fast movements, shadow and so on ?

I think I will not use AVCHD output from Studio any longer, as the Studio MPEG2 HDV2 at the same resolution and same bitrate produce better results than AVCHD, and even the storage size of the videos is just a little bit bigger. If you set the MPEG2 HDV2 to 25000 kbit/s the results are much better than the AVCHD Studio output (but the output size is almost the double) !

If you like, try my "Sony original clip difficult" or any other of your own in difficult situations like this. You can download the files with the links I post in a few moments in my Thread "AVCHD quality with Studio 11.1.1 or 11.1.2".

Frank

Hi

I have also problems with version 11.1.2.  

I have done several dual layer AVCHD dvd disks with version 11.1.1  and all of them are playable with PlayStation 3.  I have copied stream files (*.m2ts) to my network hard disk (NAS box) where I have installed TwonkyMedia software.  I have used it to stream my videos to PS3 and it was working very well.  

But after I updated to version 11.1.2 all new stream files are corrupted.  PS3 don’t recognize them at all.  Video codec is unknown and picture size is something 40*40.  It should be 1440*1080, I have Sony HDR-SR1 camera.  Old files that I have made with version 11.1.1 have right size.

I have also tested these new files with Picture Motion Browser (PMB) and new files are jerky.  All old files made by version 11.1.1 plays smoothly.

Strange thing is that if I use Cyberlink PowerDVD both formats, ver 11.1.1 and 11.1.2 are playable (smooth playback)

I hope that Pinnacle will fix this error soon so that I can again start editing my videos.

Jukka L

for now there is a solution for you, go back to the 11.1.1. version (uninstall 11.1.2. or use system restore or new Studio installation up to 11.1.1) and you'll be again happy, I suppose.

If you were happy with 11.1.1., then you do not need 11.1.2 anyway !

I tried 11.1.2 because I thought, the AVCHD encoder quality would be better but there is not any difference and moreover there is the added jerky effect !

What about the video quality with your system, compared to your original SR1 clips, don't you have the blocking effects in dark and uniform areas, when the acquiring situation is difficult, i.e. during fast camcorder movements ?

Please let me clarify some points:

• The .m2ts files from the Sony Camcorder and those created by Studio differ in the used encoding strategy: Sony produces field encoded streams while Studio encodes frame based.
• Both stream types are legal for AVCHD. We use two AVCHD Verifiers (one from Sony) to check the created AVCHD images and there are no errors reported.
• I can export an AVCHD to DVD with Studio 11 an play that DVD back in the Sony HDR-UX1 camcorder.
• According to the AVCHD specification, the files on a built-in hard disk or a SD card have to be named as 8.3 files. That means the streams are called .mts. To be able to play an AVCHD on the camera, you would also have to change the other filenames:
• index.bdmv -> INDEX.BDM
• MovieObject.bdmv -> MOVIEOBJ.BDM
• *.mpls -> *.MPL
• *.clpi -> *.CPI
• *.m2ts->*.MTS

So my question would be: Can't you just copy the renamed AVCHD image from Studio to the camera's hard disk or do you have to use PMB to export to the camera?

The workflow you describe contains two additional encodings that will most likely change the quality of the clip: The first from Studio m2ts to Nero mp4, the second from Nero mp4 to Sony m2ts.

Regards

franzie

Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately I don’t have so old restore point and I am not keen on doing that uninstall reinstall procedure (takes too must time). I think that I will wait for summer and build new faster computer because this is too old and under specifications needed for AVCHD editing. Preview window freezes after 1 or 2 seconds and it takes too must time to render 55 min AVCHD dvd. And maybe my problem is fixed till that (Pinnacle or Sony).

I think that video quality is good with my system (PS3+Epson EMP-TW700 LCD-projector). There is already some loss in the quality because projector is HD ready not full HD. But I haven’t noticed difference between original camera clip and “Pinnacle clip 11.1.1”.  Now when I know what to look for I will check it next week end when I have more time. I can only compare version 11.1.1 clips because PS3 don’t recognize version 11.1.2 clips (streamed clips (Twonky) or not even clips that are saved on USB external hard disk).

Jukka L

Hi mpingel,

to answer the question "Can't you just copy the renamed AVCHD image from Studio to the camera's hard disk or do you have to use PMB to export to the camera?"

This was of course the first thing I tried. ;-))......but unfortunate this does not work ;-((

The Sony camera must have something "more" (I guess some supporting files or structure) to recognise the video file on his hard drive.....and PMB is adding that "something".

I really do NOT understand companies like Pinnacle/Adobe/Sony/etc. Sony is the "mother" of the AVCHD-standard and the AVCHD-cameras and still Pinnacle succeeds in putting an AVCHD-implementation in place that is NOT compliant with Sony-format.....

And then all the confusion that it generated with these file formats....AVCHD is based on MPEG-4, ....but then they are putting it in MPEG-2 transport stream container files....using .m2ts as extension...all due taccording the specification it should be MTS???...and the Nero is using .MP4-extension ??? And now the interlaced versus progressive info from mpingel.....what a BIG mess.

Another thing I don't understand is why there is no smart render at all with AVCHD. If you put native AVCHD files on the timeline...without trimming, without titles, without music, without anything additional, the whole thing is completly re-rendered...and it takes TIME, A LOT OF TIME....

I have a master degree in electronic engineering (some 35 years ago), so if I spend some sillion hours (sorry to my wife) reading the internet and the forums and experimenting, and then putting 2 and 2 together, I can (hopefully) figure out some things to get it working (but it becomes really hard for me also)......but what about all these other people in the field that do not have a technical background but just want to enjoy their fantastic hobby of making great movies?????? Shame on the "video-industry" for fooling around with us !  (Sorry for the frustration, guys).

Ronnys_be:

The Sony camera must have something "more" (I guess some supporting files or structure) to recognise the video file on his hard drive.....and PMB is adding that "something".

I really do NOT understand companies like Pinnacle/Adobe/Sony/etc. Sony is the "mother" of the AVCHD-standard and the AVCHD-cameras and still Pinnacle succeeds in putting an AVCHD-implementation in place that is NOT compliant with Sony-format.....

Again: Our AVCHD implementation is Sony compliant. The problem is that PMB cannot handle all legal AVCHD implementations (more precisely: The used decoder can't).

I admit that I do not know enough of the details of the Sony Camera you are using, but I know that AVCHD images created with Studio play back on Sony AVCHD Cameras with DVD and SD cards. So i am pretty sure that there is a way of putting that image on your camera's hard disc directly (without re-encoding it).

Ronnys_be:

And then all the confusion that it generated with these file formats....AVCHD is based on MPEG-4, ....but then they are putting it in MPEG-2 transport stream container files....using .m2ts as extension...all due taccording the specification it should be MTS???...and the Nero is using .MP4-extension ??? And now the interlaced versus progressive info from mpingel.....what a BIG mess.

.MP4 files are not transport streams. It is a totally different file format. And Pinnacle streams are also interlaced.

These are details you are confronted with because you are trying a workflow that is not supported by the available tools. The intended workflow for Studio was: Import from a Camera, edit, export AVCHD to DVD and play it back on a player that supports it (PS/3, Panasonic, ...).

I understand your frustration. If i can get hold on a camera with a built-in hard disk, I will check what needs to be done.