General Discussion - Make Panasonic HC-V700 MTS editable in FCP without rendering jacknjchn - Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:52 am Post subject: Make Panasonic HC-V700 MTS editable in FCP without rendering
For Mac users, the Final Cut Pro is the most popular NLE software. We can use Log and Transfer or Log and Capture to import videos, images, ect to FCP for editing, thus you can conveniently upload your videos to websites for sharing with friends and family members or burn the files to DVD/BD for different usage. It is boring that teh Final Cut Pro, including FCP 6/7 and the latest FCP X, doesn't surpport to import all videos sometimes. If you often use FCP to edit 1080p AVCHD clips, you may often meet the incompatible error message.
I have a lot of Full 60p (50p for PAL) AVCHD recordings from Panasonic HC-V700. I was bothered by the incompatibility problem last week. Luckily I found the best way to solve the importing problem with FCP, which is to convert Panasonic HC-V700 AVCHD to Apple ProRes, the most compatible codec for editing in FCP. After upgrading to Final Cut Pro 7, there are five ProRes codecs working with FCP, which are Apple ProRes 422 HQ (*.mov), Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov), Apple ProRes 422 (LT) (*.mov), Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) (*.mov) and ProRes 4444 (*.mov) for you to choose from according to your needs. It means that, the converter you are looking for should better have all the five options included.
I have been using the top and professioanl AVCHD to ProRes Converter. It has Final Cut Pro Built-in Profile with five types of ProRes Codecs so that we can choose the best ProRes codec for converting to. Besides, it is designed with some useful editing functions, including joining imported clips together for easy importing, trimming section of your file, adding text/image/video watermarks to your original files, replacing audio tracks, etc. Thus, it is the top recommendation for you.
Step 1: Get the free trial version of the top MTS Converter for Mac, install and run it to import the 1080p recordings from Panasonic HC-V700.
Tips:
1. Double click the selected file and you can have a preview of the imported file on the viewer.
2. If you want to join the files together, please tick the box "Merge into one" on the main interface.
Step 2: Hit the Format box and select one of the Apple ProRes codecs on the dropdown list. You are advised to choose “Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)”or “Apple ProRes 422 HQ (*.mov)” format. Due to the difference in the compresstion standard of AVCHD and ProRes 422, the converted files are significantly larger than the original ones. If you prefer smaller file size, please choose “Apple ProRes 422 (LT) (*.mov)” instead.
Tip: the main difference betweem the five ProRes codecs:
a. ProRes 422 (HQ): offers the utmost possible quality for 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 sources and provides target data rate of approximately 220 Mbps and higher quality than Apple ProRes 422;
b. ProRes 422: provides target data rate of approximately 145 Mbps and higher quality than Apple ProRes 422 (LT);
c. ProRes 422 (LT): provides roughly 70 percent of the data rate of Apple ProRes 422 (thus, smaller file sizes than Apple ProRes 422) and higher quality than ProRes 422 (Proxy);
d. ProRes 422 (Proxy): provides roughly 30 percent of the data rate of Apple ProRes 422 and high-quality offline editing at the original frame size, frame rate, and aspect ratio;
e. ProRes 4444: offers the utmost possible quality for 4:4:4 sources and roughly 50 percent higher than the data rate of Apple ProRes 422 (HQ).
Step 3: Adjust the video and parameters, including the Bitrate of Video and Audio, the Codec of Video and Audio, Video Size, Sample Rate, Frame Rate, Audio Channels, etc., by clicking the Settings buttion on the main interface. The screen shot listed below is our recommendation on the settings for you.
Tip: The 1920*1080 as video size and 30fps for NTSC area while 25fps for PAL area as Frame Rate are the best settings for editing in FCP.
After the 1080p AVCHD to Apple ProRes conversion, you can run the Final Cut Pro and click File --> Import --> Files to import the converted files and edit them in FCP without any rendering or unrecognizable problem. In addition, if you want to make your Panasonic HC-V700 files editable in iMovie, FCE, Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, etc. the AVCHD Converter will also a great choice for you.
