I am just about to purchase a new Panasonic HD camera and need to establish if I will be able to Edit the footage in Media Composer 3.5 + directly or will I need to use a third party software to perform the task.

If a third party software is required then could you make any recommendations please.

Regards

Fred

Hi Fred,

As far as i know MC does not natively support mpeg file format created by Panasonic HD cameras. if the camera has a FireWire, then capturing will be the next option.

Some of the third party converters you can try are,

• Canopus procoder
• Super(free)
• TMPGEnc

if you have budget i suggest you look at some of the entry level Panasonic P2 cameras where Avid has access to their native file format

i could only wish avid start supporting consumer HD cameras too. Btw, what is the model you have chosen to purchase?

Vishal Alex

I use the Panasonic converter to convert AVCHD to a virtual P2 folder. This converter is free, do a search here to see if you can find a link. Version 2 will only work with Panasonic cameras, version 1 is supposed to work with any AVCHD. Once converted to P2, use AMA to bring the footage in, then you can consolidate to drives.

Panasonic has a free conversion utility on their web site.  The early version worked with all cameras; the newest only works with Panasonic, so you are in luck there.  As I recall the utility is made by Main Concept.  If you look at the AVCHD posts on this forum I'm sure you'll find the URL; if you have a problem finding it send me an email and I'll dig it up for you.

Vishal Alex:

Hi Fred,

As far as i know MC does not natively support mpeg file format created by Panasonic HD cameras.

if you have budget i suggest you look at some of the entry level Panasonic P2 cameras where Avid has access to their native file format

 Btw, what is the model you have chosen to purchase?

Vishal Alex

Thanks Guys, it seems I could be in luck.

The Model I am looking at purchasing is either the HDC-HS300 or the HDC-TM300 this is to replace my own  hand held consumer camera for general holiday stuff.

Regards

Fred

I am looking to purchase a consumer Sony HD camcorder, either HDR-CX580V or HDR-XR260V,  which create MPEG AVC/H.264 files. I am using Media Composer v6.03 and I would like to know if I can import these files for editing in an HD project before purchasing the camera.

If not, is there an easy wqorkaround?

Thanks,

Enrico Madonna

Just Add Water, Inc

You can import, you can link through AMA. But due to the codec H264 potřebujet either extra performance PC for direct processing H264 (personally I have never met). More likely you will need to transcode all the footage to another video format (DNxHD or XDcamHD ....). It can be time consuming, depending on the power of the PC, with the possibility of errors. The processing AVCHD/H264 codec there are a few threads.
V.

Fred Jackson:

I am just about to purchase a new Panasonic HD camera and need to establish if I will be able to Edit the footage in Media Composer 3.5 + directly or will I need to use a third party software to perform the task.

If a third party software is required then could you make any recommendations please.

Regards

Fred

I would suggest getting some test media from your new camera and trying out Squeeze 8.5 which may provide a one step process to Avid-ready DNxHD MXFs, with the possibility of excerpts instead of full clip conversions. Costly, but maybe worth it if it runs well on your PC.

I've used the free Main Concept product-- give it a try, too.

I could not AMA my Panasonic GH2 footage until v6.0, and it was painfully slow to even play those clips - on my under-powered home system. v.6.5.2 may do better, but I have not tried it. Traditional imports work on v5.3, perhaps earlier version as well- can't recall.

On v6.0, An immediate transcode of AMA clips was certainly required on my system.Your quote above says "Media Composer 3.5" - was that a typo? Even at v6.5.2, Be sure that AMA will work on all the Panasonic frame rates you intend to use- I have no idea if GH2 experience is applicable to the camera you want.

enricomad:

I am looking to purchase a consumer Sony HD camcorder, either HDR-CX580V or HDR-XR260V,  which create MPEG AVC/H.264 files. I am using Media Composer v6.03 and I would like to know if I can import these files for editing in an HD project before purchasing the camera.

I´ve been editing stuff from Sony Avchd cams using the 64 bits versions of Avid ever since it became certified, ( or even before .. ) must be at least 100 - 150 projects, small or less small.

I have had as much as 4,5 hours of media direct linked before doing the rough cuts and transcodes.

I have also worked on multi platforms rather much, starting up a project on my Mac ama linked from the cam out mobile and then moving the bins and relinked still using ama on my PC when arriving home.

No external applications, free or not, used in this process, a happy camper here.

I have a new Sony NEX-6 camera which is outputting MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 High Profile for AVCHD in the form of .MTS files.  I downloaded and installed the AVCHD AMA plug-in and restarted Media Composer.  When I try to open the MTS file with AMA I get:

"Unable to link to file or volume.
You may need to download & install the plug-in from the Avid AMA website.  See console for more informatiion."

There is no additional information in the console.

When I try to import the MTS file I get:

"This type of MPEG file is not supported."

Am I doing something wrong or are the MPEG AVC/H.264 files outputted by my camera not supported by Media Composer?

Thanks,

Jill

Hi Jill, I made this tut linked below a while ago that hopefully will give you some clues.

1080 / 50 or 60 P will not work however

link

Tomas:

Thank you for your help.  It turns out that my 1080 60p was the problem and when I recorded at 1080 24p AMA linked successfully.  It's just too bad that Media Composer can't yet injest 1080 60p with its more dense quality.

Jill

Hi Jill, nice that it works for you now.

About 1080 50 / 60 P , as it isn´t a certified publishing format there is no such profile in Avid and the console command to bring it in as slowmo seems to be temporay out of function.

Squeeze or QT Pro on the Mac side can create tiff sequenses that you can import into a normal project as slowmo.

On the PC side the only converting tool for creating tiff sequenses that I have seen is AE . 

I'm using the Panasonic SD707 (equivalent to SD700) which is a much later version of the TM300. I don't have any issues with MC5.5.3 accepting the footage. I've also tried it in MC6. With 1080p/50 footage I can either use the Panansonic software itself (which in turns uses the camera as the converter) or Squeeze 8 to convert the 1080p/50 to 1080i/50. That will then fast import into MC.