M2TS...Now what?

Insane_Diego

Newbie Joined: Jan 18, 2009 21:00 Messages: 18 Offline

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Jan 20, 2009 16:40

I guess I didn't really understand what I was doing in the Trial version. I was looking at many products and I probably got confused. Regardless, I've settled on PD7. I've taken my 720p video and now I'm trying to output to MPEG-4 and all I can get is a useless m2ts file as output. I've read what I can in the forum and it seems like maybe I'm stuck. The m2ts file will not import to Sony Vegas 8 Pro nor will it play on my Vista x64. I can import it back into PD7 and it's fine. My alternative is to use/BUY a convertor. Uh, why? PD7 should have made a useable file. I mean what the heck am I supposed to do with the raw m2ts file?

Now maybe my solution is not to "want" MPEG-4. I thought it was the way to go because it would create the smallest file with the best quality. If I go MPEG2 then I see that I seem to lose audio quality (which probably isn't important since the camcorder sound can't be that good anyway). So my questions are:

1. How do I get MPEG-4 in 720p or greater that I can play in QuickTime/ IE, etc out of PD7?

2. Do I get better or worse quality by going to AVI or MPEG-2? It seems I certainly get a larger file.

3. PD7 outputs the m2ts file. Now what? They allow us to create it for some reason. What am I supposed to do with it? Store a collection of them for later reimporting back into PD7 to make a disc or another video? I don't get it and obviously documentation is NOT a Cyberlink strong point.

OnTheWeb1

Contributor Location: Michigan USA Joined: Jan 02, 2009 12:58 Messages: 511 Offline

Jan 20, 2009 17:35

Quote:

1. How do I get MPEG-4 in 720p or greater that I can play in QuickTime/ IE, etc out of PD7?
The fact that Quicktime can't play or recognize M2TS files is not a PD7 limitation.

2. Do I get better or worse quality by going to AVI or MPEG-2? It seems I certainly get a larger file.
Its not that simple. The same 'Quality' file of MPeg2 will be larger than Mpeg4. MPeg4 is simply more efficient and yields better compression. In almost any case, the way you improve 'Quality' is to increase the bitrate that it is rendered at.

3. PD7 outputs the m2ts file. Now what? They allow us to create it for some reason. What am I supposed to do with it? Store a collection of them for later reimporting back into PD7 to make a disc or another video? I don't get it and obviously documentation is NOT a Cyberlink strong point.

Both Youtube and Vimeo accept M2TS files directly but it take a couple extra steps during the uploader process. When you upload to youtube, it gets an error at the end an says the upload failed (but it doesn't fail) and your video shows up nicely.

MPeg4 and M2TS are bleeding edge (as you are finding out) in the video world and broader support is coming. It does yield the smallest, most efficient files if that is important to you.

In the meantime, MPeg2 is compatible with just about every software out there, and the way you keep high quality is to use high bitrates. So, edit your project, use Mpeg2 and very high bitrate if you are going to do further editing in other software. Apple and Sony can easily read Mpeg2.

WMV is a high quality format, but apple won't read it directly. It sucks that Microsoft and Apple have chosen their proprietary formats and we, the users, suffer having to constantly convert stuff.

If you are just going to upload to Youtube, the M2TS file is good because it saves on bandwidth and uploads quicker.

You'll have to experiment and find out what encoding strategies work best for you workflow. A lot depends on where you are trying to get the final video to end up, storage, Youtube, DVD, etc.
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vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Jan 20, 2009 17:50

Hi Rick,

Media Player Classic Home Cinema plays .m2ts files :-
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170561

This might also help although I haven't tried it :-
http://a8t8.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2518DD508BB713E8!240.entry

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
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Insane_Diego

Newbie Joined: Jan 18, 2009 21:00 Messages: 18 Offline

Jan 20, 2009 20:01

Both excellent answers. Cutting edge again...Argh. I spent the 80's and early 90's on the edge and now I'm much more conservative. Heck, I just went Vista 2 months ago. I thought AVC was mature enough to go between products.

I didn't realize YouTube took those files directly. That makes perfect sense why PD outputs in that format. Looks like MPEG-2 will be what I use if I want to edit my PD files. I bring them into Vegas because there are many more tweaks I can make in that software. I love the Video FX in PD7 though and Vegas doesn't have stabilization!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jan 20. 2009 20:03