George;
I have a Canon HF11 and use PD8 Ultra.
There are LOTS of folks here that can give you the "blah...blah" differences of all the file types but....
Simple answer is:
1. It plays .mts and .m2ts files just fine.
2. For just a .mts file player, I am currently partial to a useful tool I picked up at: http://seemyworldonvideo.com/pages/extras-news-items.html
which also has a good number of free tools for PD editors.

Hope that helps.

Hi George -

My Canon (HFS100) is similar to yours, in the recording profiles. Your HG10 records in four bitrates (5, 7, 9, 15 MBps). On my system, at least, PD8 handles/edits these profiles well... but balks at clips recorded in 24MBps (MXP mode, on mine).

You'll find quite a bit written on this very topic in the PD6/7 forum. Use the search facility. Among others, one member (James) offers good advice on this.

I'm with Fred - get the Splash player - it wipes the floor with the ImageMixer Player bundled with the Canons.

Cheers - Tony



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thanks for the replies. i dowloaded the trial version of pd8 and it did a 5 minute disk of my mts files. although, the interface is stranegly laid out and the lack of help without an internet connection is a problem for me.

i can only emphsize that my interest is in mts files. i am not a "power" user. people keep referring to hd or avchd files. but, my entire need is to play and burn those mts files.

i downloaded the splash player. it does not play my mts files. even though the site goes on about it handling hd files.

i guess i'm getting a bit closer though.

also - why does no one adress flv files?

George -

Try this:

1. Open the Splash player.
2. Click "Open File"
3. Locate one of the mts files from your Canon
4. Voila - it will play.

flv fles are flash files for streaming on the internet.

Cheers - Tony
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Hi George,

I would do a search on AVCHD and especially articles dated since May. As Tony said, I must have made at least 10 posts concerning this. I have a Canon HG20 which is the replacement to the HG10. Tony has the camera which is ahead of mine.

Editing AVCHD all depends on your computer specs. I have a quad core Q9300 with an 9500 GT video card and have no problems. With my system the 24 Mb/s bit rate is not a problem.

Smart rendering will not work properly with Canon's AVCHD format at the moment. What this meas is that you will have to rerender your video upon burning the disk if you plan on using PD. If you only want to play your videos then I would also recommend the new Splash player. It gives my no problems even with the 24 Mb/s AVCHD video. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

tony - thanks for the response. however, spalsh does open my mts files but the playback is terrible. there is flickering and sudden flashes of red and yellow throughout the playback. also audio playback is jerky.

james - i don't really understand what you are trying to tell me. as i've said before. i simply want to find - IF IT EVEN EXISTS - a program to play back my canon hg10 mts files. and then be able to put them onto a dvd. i don't know about any of this technical stuff. and thats what is is to me.

WHY is this MTS format so hard to handle???

George;
What kind of machine are you using? Is it a MAC?

The SPLASH player doesn't usually have problems with MTS.

I suggest the following if you are using Windows :

1.Choose START, RUN, and type DXDIAG (or if Vista, just type DXDIAG in the SEARCH location that comes up on the start menu)
2. Choose "SAVE ALL INFORMATION" to create a file.
3. Upload that file to your next post (you can attach a file when creating a reply), so we can look at the specs of your machine environment. That will help narrow down the issues.

Then, we can recommend a solution (remember- WE are users too!)

Hi George, the Splash program is the best one I've found to date to play the mts files. As far as I know, you can not use that program to put the files on a DVD. I use PD for that purpose. These files are very complex and you need a powerful PC to play them back without issues. It's part of the cost if you want a HD camera.

I have two computers. One is a dual core 2 GHz laptop which can barely play my mts files and my other computer is a 2.5 GHz quad core which can play them back just fine. It also depends on the quality settings you used when you recorded your videos.

If you can't play it back then your computer likely is not powerful enough. Fred is correct in asking what kind of computer you are using.

Have you tried the default Canon software? Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Quote:
Smart rendering will not work properly with Canon's AVCHD format at the moment. What this meas is that you will have to rerender your video upon burning the disk if you plan on using PD.

(note: I'm not the OP, just another newbie with the same name!)

I have a Canon HF200. PD does not recognise this camera as a removable drive. Apparently, this is because it connects to the PC via USB. I copy the .mts files from the camera into a folder in "My Videos" and PD can find them there.

Can you (James) clarify what you mean by rerendering video upon burning to disc? Might this be related to the problem I am having with the image on the DVD not being the correct screen ratio (tall/thin image filling screen - http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/8045.page)?

Hi George,

That's odd the PD does not recognize your HF200. I have the HG20 and PD will recognize mine through the USB. Despite this I've found that manually copying the video through windows explorer was the best option. PD would occasionally freeze and I would lose what was transfered and I would have to do it again.

I can clarify what I was trying to convey. Your camera records mts files in the AVCHD format. This is a highly compressed format which is being used for HD video and you need a powerful computer to play and edit it properly. After you get your files added to the timeline and edited your going to have to produce your video in the desired format. This production is called video rendering. When you click on the produce tab you will have several options. I normally produce a file to save on my hard drive. Commonly I use the MPEG2 BD profile if I want to preserve as much quality as possible to match the original. It's not perfect, but it does an acceptable job in my opinion.

In my previous post I mentioned the compatibility issue between PD and Canon's AVCHD format. When you click on produce you also may render a MPEG4 file which is AVCHD and the file extension will be mts. My camera can record with a bit rate up to 24 Mb/s, but PD has a bit rate limit of 16 Mb/s for MPEG4 files (AVCHD). What I meant by rerender in this context is that if you want to save your project in MPEG4 format, PD would have to render everything about your project when creating a new file. I referred to smart rendering earlier (SVRT). If PD and Canon files were more compatible, then the original video would not have to be rerenderd (reproduced) during the video production process. This means that the final video would contain the original clips from the camera without PD doing anything to them (ideally). As it stands, due to the bit rate limitation of PD, when a MPEG4 file is created the video has to modified to conform to the 16 Mb/s limit and thus the quality is degraded.

George, I hope that is helpful. Feel free to ask more questions. I may have went more in detail than you expected.


I'll check your link before addressing your other issue.

Good luck Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

I think the issue here is one I recently experienced on PD8 upgrade.

My Canon hf-11 camera records in an AVCHD format that is 1920 x 1080. In PD7 I could produce these videos using the DVD HQ setting well. In PD8, it distorted them like GeorgefaeCartland was describing (tall/thin). That is because the NEW default for DVD HQ for this program is 720x480.

So for High-Res production, I use the BD- 1920x1080 format. For WMV production, I made a new profile ('cause this one is also 720x480) with the correct format of 720 x 406.
See dafydd tutorial:
http://seemyworldonvideo.com/view/218/creating-wmv-templates/

GeorgefaeCartland;
Does your camera record in 1920 x 1080???

Fred, excellent post! I'll have to check this myself.

Did you make a new DVDHQ profile at 720x406? Also, are you referring to NTSC or PAL? GeorgefaeCartland is using PAL.

I want to be sure before I change my settings. I did follow Dafydd's instructions and make a new 1920x1080 WMV profile. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Yes, I noticed after I posted that he was using PAL...I am using NTSC. I did indeed make a new profile for 720 x 406...had a little trouble getting it to STICK and had to get dafydd to send me an "auto-install" file.
I think the issue is the same, just the dimensions will be slightly different. Proportionally, that is!!

Hi,

I am also a GEORGE and I have been following this forum rather closely since installing PD7 Ultra in late June. Video editing is rather new to me since that time as I am primarily still photography, but getting more into video and thus finding this site extremely helpful overall and thanks to all.

This post is interesting as I have a Canon HG21 and migrated to PD as was not that impressed with programs that came with the camera.

Thanks for the tip on Spash, just downloaded and YES works very well and much prefer over ImageMixer which will not play .m2ts after producing in PD.

Like the PD program but at first had a lot of problems "burning" and still have some issues, but thanks to this forum I have resolved most of them. Will most likely upgrade to PD-8 shortly, but was waiting to see what some of the reaction has been to.

My goal is showing HD-BluRay video's instead of present slide programs to various groups. I currently have one major issue which I will post seperate and hop someone can help me.

Dell XPS 630
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / 2.4 GHz
3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667 MHz
750 GB 7200 RPM 3Gb/s SATA 2 HD
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Windows XP

Cheers - GEORGE Dell Studio XPS 9100
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz
64 Bit Operating Sytem
12 GB DDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1248 MB Memory

Canon HF S21 & Canon HG21

Fred - Yes , my Canon HF200 can record in 1920x1080, although I use the XP+ setting which is 1440x1080.

Perhaps that might be something to try? I'll shoot some footage on the higher resolution setting and see if burning a DVD will generate the correct screen ratio.


James - Still a bit unclear about what you do: Am I correct to say that you create a movie file with PD then burn it to disc using another program? I want to be able to burn straight to disc within PD. I can't see how I might use a BD profile with a DVD burner.

I burned an AVCHD disc at 1920x1080 (which will play on my BD player) and the screen ratio was correct. For personal use, I will probably use this, but my friends and family do not (yet) have BD players, so I need to be able to create DVD versions of some movies for them.

Welcome to the third GEORGE!! If this keeps up, we will have to rename this thread to THE GEORGE CLUB

GeorgefaeCartland;
There is also a BD 1440x1080 production profile. Have you tried that for producing the XP+ videos using that?

There is also a BD 1440x1080 production profile. Have you tried that for producing the XP+ videos using that?

Not yet. Might not be needed. I think I've solved my problem (see http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/0/8045.page#33373).