[solved] AVCHD playing and editing

[doctordruidphd]

I am considering buying a new camera (Panasonic FZ100 or LX5, not decided yet). The FZ100 records video in AVCHD, and the LX5 in AVHCD-lite. Are there players and editors for both of those formats? Can anyone confirm that they actually work? Since I don't have a blue-ray player, I will need to save in a different format; I assume (but am I right?) that an editor that can read it, can save in some other format (mpeg).
Thanks for any info. Better to find out now, than after I buy the wrong thing...

[GreyGeek]

Re: AVCHD playing and editing

A recent question with some partial answer was posted here.

I did a google search for "Linux _AVCHD" and found this Wikipedia article. It mentions that Avidmux can

Avidemux is a free open-source program that can be used to edit or convert AVCHD and AVCHD Lite files. It is also capable of demuxing and remuxing the audio and video streams into several different container formats including AVI, MP4, and MKV. (When converting AVCHD Lite .mts files from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3, the framerate must be manually set to 29.97.)

and it also mentions that Blender can edit and play such files:

Blender supports the AVCHD format on Windows and Linux systems (using a FFmpeg decoder). Blender has a little-known, very powerful video editing system with infinite layer bit-depth and integration with the 3D editing component. BlenderAVC streamlines the process of importing the files, as it is difficult and bug-prone without AVS scripts. Blender supports proxy editing at down to 25% scaling, which helps when editing AVCHD video, which is slow.

The BlenderAVC is here.

I'm surprised at how incompatible AVCHD is with Apple, a vidoe platform if there ever was one:

Playing back AVCHD video

Recorded AVCHD video can be played back in a variety of ways:

* Directly from a camcorder on an HD television set, through HDMI or component-video cable.
* Burned onto DVD disc in AVCHD format, then played on most Blu-ray Disc players[8] or on a Playstation 3 gaming console.
* Recorded on an SDHC in AVCHD format, then played on select Blu-ray Disc players and HDTV sets and on a Playstation 3 gaming console.
* On a computer, played from the camcorder connected via USB as an external storage device, or from removable media or from the computer's internal hard disk drive. Presently, the default media players from Apple (QuickTime) will not play AVCHD natively, additional (free) software is required.[26] Windows 7 is able to import and play AVCHD video natively, having files with extensions M2TS, MTS and M2T pre-registered in the system. Windows Media Player is able to index content of these files, while Windows Explorer is able to create thumbnails for each clip.[27] Windows 7 does not support importing of AVCHD video metadata such as thumbnail images, playlists, and clip index files. Joining AVCHD video files during the import is not supported either.[27]

[doctordruidphd]

Re: AVCHD playing and editing

I haven't tried Blender yet, but will.
So far, of everything I have tried, only openshot opens the test videos I found without error.
Mplayer and xine seem to play them, but the testers are only a few seconds.
What I will have to do is transfer them from AVCHD to mpeg format, so they can be played on standard (meaning, older non-blueray) video players. Openshot didn't save the file, but that may just have been my inexperience with it. Will try it again, and blender.

Strange about the Mac.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: AVCHD playing and editing

Problem:

The AVC for blender appears to be windows-only:

Requirements

* Windows 32-bit (not tested with 64-bit)
* You must have Python version 2.5 installed.

Blender itself won't open .mts and .m2ts files.

OpenShot is flat out refusing to export videos, and I can't figure out why. When I try to export, everything greys out, and it just sits there (for half an hour) until I kill it, and the video files are empty. This is true, even if I use some other kind of video file as a source. This is not looking good.

[GreyGeek]

Re: AVCHD playing and editing

Thanks for the info... it will sure be an influence in what media devices I purchase...

[doctordruidphd]

Re: AVCHD playing and editing

The problem with openshot seems to be solved. I remove/purged it, and loaded the version from its ppa. Now it is opening and saving as advertised.

Why cinelerra won't open .mts and .m2ts files is beyond me, since in theory it is using the same codecs as openshot.

There is also an application called handbrake which easily converts avhcd files into m4v (whatever that may be), which seems to be easy for other applications to open. I guess it's primarily a dvd ripper. Transmageddon works, too. For some reason, it remains difficult to set the output size on these things. There are also command lines using ffmpeg and mencoder that also work, though I have yet to find any comprehensible explanation of how to use all their options.

I'm still learning about these applications and video files in general, as I have never had much to do with them. But at this point it looks like an AVCHD camera won't be a waste of money.

[GreyGeek]

Re: [solved] AVCHD playing and editing

That's interesting ... things are not hopeless for AVCHD...

[kjjjjshab]

Re: AVCHD playing and editing

...
There is also an application called handbrake which easily converts avhcd files into m4v (whatever that may be), which seems to be easy for other applications to open\
...

I've had the best luck converting my avchd files with the handbrake snapshots from here:

https://launchpad.net/~stebbins/+arc...rake-snapshots

[tnorris]

Re: [solved] AVCHD playing and editing

I am considering buying a new camera (Panasonic FZ100 or LX5, not decided yet). The FZ100 records video in AVCHD, and the LX5 in AVHCD-lite. Are there players and editors for both of those formats? Can anyone confirm that they actually work? Since I don't have a blue-ray player, I will need to save in a different format; I assume (but am I right?) that an editor that can read it, can save in some other format (mpeg).
Thanks for any info. Better to find out now, than after I buy the wrong thing...

I have a Panasonic Lumix ZS3 Camera that records HD Video in AVCHD Lite format (basically the same as AVCHD except at 60fps each frame is duplicated). It's been a while since I actually tried to play the native files but IIRC they played just fine in VLC.

Also, I use ffmpeg to convert them. Here's a simple script I wrote to do the conversion to avi since I always forget all of ffmpeg's parameters if I don't use it for 2 weeks.

#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 source target"
    exit
fi

SOURCE_DIR=$1
TARGET_DIR=$2
IFS=''

for file in $SOURCE_DIR/*.MTS $SOURCE_DIR/*.mts
do
    echo "infile: $file"
    out_file=$TARGET_DIR/"${file##*/}"
    out_file="${out_file%.*}".avi
    echo "outfile: $out_file"
    ffmpeg -y -i "$file" -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 800k -acodec ac3 -ab 128k -s hd720 "$out_file"
done

Basically, I haven't had any major issues with the AVCHD format on Linux.

[kjjjjshab]

Re: [solved] AVCHD playing and editing

...
Also, I use ffmpeg to convert them. Here's a simple script I wrote to do the conversion to avi since I always forget all of ffmpeg's parameters if I don't use it for 2 weeks.
...

This is what I used before handbrake... not as nice as yours though.

#!/bin/csh

# For NTSC change -fps 50 to -fps 60000/1001 below (already done)
# To run: Go to directory in Dolphin, then with terminal: $ csh mtscon.csh *.mts

foreach f ($*)
mencoder $f -o ${f:r}.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=10000 -fps 60000/1001 -vf scale=1280:720
end
## Labels to jump to exit OK (done) or not OK (error)
done:
exit 0
error:
exit 1

(Just adding it to the thread to consolidate some relevant code)