Continue reading »]]> Why We Need to Save or Import Sony Cyber-shot Videos onto Windows or Mac?

Cyber-shot is the Sony‘s line of point-and-shoot digital cameras introduced in 1996. Cyber-shot model names use a DSC prefix, which is an initialism for “Digital Still Camera”. And nowadays, more and more people tend to capture their happiest and sweetest moments with Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. We may shoot lots of smooth and sharp HD (high definition) footages during travelling or family time, and we usually expect to save those great movies to our computer rather than locking them in our camera, then transcode AVCHD MTS to any video formats and edit in video editing programs on Windows like Avid, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, or on Mac like FCP, FCE, iMove, CyberLink PowerDirector, etc. After reading the below article, you may get a clear instruction about how to get Sony AVCHD videos on Windows or Mac for video editing later.

How to import Sony Cyber-shot HD AVCHD videos to Windows computer?

For Windows users:

1. Turn on the computer.

2. Ensure the recording media with the pictures or movies is inserted in the camera.

3. Connect the supplied USB cable to the camera and the USB input jack on the computer.

4. Turn on the camera.

NOTE: The computer automatically detects the UBS connection from the camera and installs the appropriate driver from the Windows 7 operating system. Afterwards, an AutoPlay window appears on the computer screen.

5. In the AutoPlay window, click Import Pictures and videos using Windows.

6. In the Import Pictures and Videos window that appears, click Import Settings .

7. In the Import Settings window, assign the location on the computer to where you want to copy the picture and movie files.

Next to Import images to click the Browse button and then select the desired folder (for example, My Pictures).

Next to Import videos to click the Browse button and then select the desired folder (for example, My Videos).

8. Click the OK button.

9. In the Import Pictures and Videos dialog box, click the OK button.

10. Click the Import button.

Tip: There is a problem that AVCHD is not a playable and editable video format for Avid, Adobe Premiere, or Sony Vegas, and transcoding process is necessary. Use Sony AVCHD MTS Converter to transcode your Sony Cyber-shot AVHCD MTS to DNxHD MOV for Avid, convert Sony AVCHD MTS to WMV for Premiere/Sony Vegas and more.

For Mac users:

Method 1: You could copy and paste your Sony AVCHD videos via a USB cable to Mac computer. Here are the steps.

Tip : This procedure is helpful when you are not using iMove or some other software application to import your video.

Preparation: You need a Mac computer, your Sony camcorder, and a USB cable.

Step 1: Power on your Mac PC

Step 2: Connect the Sony Camcorder directly to the USB cable on your computer. The Sony Cyber-shot camcorder will display as a hard drive on computer.

Steps 3: Turn on the camcorder, navigate to the Sony Cyber-shot hard drive to access the memory stick, select USB Connect, the LCD will show USB Mass Storage. iPhoto may automatically open, if so, just turn it off.

Step 4: On the Finder bar select “Go”, and then “Computer”. Select “No Name” or untitled item. Select the “AVCHD” folder then “BDMV” folder and on the “STREAM” folder.

Step 5: Click on the video you wanna transfer. If you have multiple videos you would like to transfer, press and hold the “command” key, then select the videos by clicking on them. To copy these files, press and hold the command key and the press the “C” key.

Step 6: Select folder you wanna save the videos. Enter that folder, hold the comman key then press the V key, then your videos are be paste to local computer.

Method 2: You can capture and transfer Sony AVCHD videos to iMac/MacBook Pro via iMovie after connecting camera to computer with USB cable.

However, you may face problem when trying to log and transfer AVCHD videos from Sony AVCHD to Final Cut Express (FCE) 4 or Final Cut Pro (FCP) 5. After transferring HD .mts videos from camera to computer hard drive, just run Pavtube Sony AVCHD MTS/M2TS Converter for Mac as the Mac Sony Cyber-shot AVCHD MTS converter to deinterlace and convert MTS to Apple ProRes for FCP X, Import Sony AVCHD MTS to FCE if you want to edit HD videos.

Continue reading »]]>

CyberLink PowerDirector is a video editing software application for non-linear video editing, published by CyberLink Corporation. PowerDirector allows users to capture, edit and output from within the software and has semi-professional features suitable for the consumer level.

In the forum, many users have the problems to import MXF files to CyberLink PowerDirector 9/10, their MXF footages are recorded by canon high end camcorders, like Canon XF series, Panasonic P2 card, Sony XDCAM etc. MXF videos are not well supported by PowerDirector due to the codec. Such as:

Q1. “How to ingest and convert P2 footage on pc with powerdirector 9?

Hello, I am trying to edit a movie that was filmed a little bit ago. : It was filmed on a panasonic p2 camera which has mxf file extensions. That was dumped onto an external hard drive which is accessible on both pc and mac(exFAT) so I can see the 50gb. On Final Cut Pro I would do a”log and transfer” and click on the particular p2 folder.

How would something like this work in powerdirector 9? Is there a third party plug-in or something that would allow PD9 to read it like this. I saw that it will read rw2, but this isn’t the format.  Moreover, it just has a lot of folders that some how that “log and transfer” deal puts them together for the actual footage.”

Your help is appreciated. Thanks in Advance.

Q2. “I get a Canon XF305 camcorder and recorded some video clips, when I try to import the files to Cyberlink PowerDirector to edit, I find the files could not be recognized, so what is the problem and how can I solve it? Thanks”

Through the above questions, you will find they can hardly import the MXF footage output from these camcorder to CyberLink PowerDirector.

CyberLink PowerDirector can easily import files in various formats, the supported file formats are as follows:

Video formats: MPG, MPEG, MP4, MOV, AVI, Divx, WMV, FLV, AVCHD, DV, Canon/Nikon DSLR video files as well as DSLR video in H.264 format, HD video from HDV camcorder, WMV HD, RealVideo, Blu-ray Disc

Audio formats: WAV, MP3, WMA, M4A, AAC, Dobly, DTS, WAVE and MPEG-1 Layer III audio formats

Image formats: RAW, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP

May be you are looking for the best way to import and edit Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM, Canon MXF files in Cyberlink PowerDirector. Fortunately, your problems can be solved with MXF Conversion tools. MXF to CyberLink PowerDirector Converter is the terrific program that has full support to convert Sony XDCAM/Canon XF/Panasonic DVCPRO HD P2 MXF to CyberLink PowerDirector compatible formats, like WMV, MPG, MPEG, MP4, MOV, AVI, Divx. WMV format is best for use in PowerDirector on Windows platform.

Below is a guide for you, you can follow it to convert MXF to PowerDirector support format.

Before conversion you need

1. Transfer the .mxf clips to hard disk.

2. Get MXF Converter ($29). Click here to download a trial. A trial won’t expires but it converts MXF with Pavtube logo on the screen.

(Good News, now if you buy Pavtube MXF Converter for Windows or Mac products, you can get a Free DVD Creator for Windows or Mac in the 2012 Thanksgiving Giveaway (Nov. 14- Dec. 10), please take a look!)

Step 1. Add MXF files.

Launch MXF to Cyberlink PowerDirector Converter. Click the button “File > Add Video/Audio” to add MXF files to the professional MXF Converter. Or drag and drop .mxf clips to file list.

(Note: While importing the P2 MXF files, please make sure you have the original P2 MXF file structure as it saved on your camcorder. If you only have some random MXF clips, your files will have image only without audio.) If it is necessary, you can double click the each file to have a preview.

Tip: If you wanna join AG-HVX200 P2 MXF files for CyberLink PowerDirector 10, just check the “Merge into one file” box.

Step 2. Select WMV as the output format for CyberLink PowerDirector 10 and set the output folder.

Click on the “Format” and get the dropdown menu, then move you pointer to “HD Video”, from the sublist, you can easily find the “WMV HD(*.wmv) or MPEG-2 HD Video(*.mpg)” which is the compatible format for you to import Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM or Canon MXF files to CyberLink PowerDirector 10 for further editing. Of course, you can also set the AVI, MOV, MP4, MPG etc. CyberLink PowerDirector support format as the output format.

Useful Tips:

Settings – click the “Settings” icon and you will go into a new interface named “Profile Settings”. You can adjust codec, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channel in the interface according to your needs and optimize the output file quality. You can set the video size as 1920×1080; set bitrate from 1Mbps to 20Mbps; set frame rate as 24p or 30p to get best output video for CyberLink PowerDirector 10.

Step 3. Click the “Convert” button, start converting your Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM, Canon MXF files to WMV/HD MPEG-2 for CyberLink PowerDirector 10 with the NVIDIA CUDA and AMD APP acceleration technologies support. You can find the process in the “Conversion” interface.

After the conversion, you can easily import/edit MXF to CyberLink PowerDirecor for editing. Then feel free to create brilliant movies like a pro with the powerful set of integrated tools.

How to load/import converted MXF footage to Cyberlink PowerDirector

Step 1. Start up Cyberlink PowerDirector, follow “Open Folder>>Import Media Files” to import individual video clips.

Step 2. Browse to the converted .mov video and press “Open”.
Now the MXF footage is successfully converted and imported to Cyberlink PowerDirector and you can get down to video editing. Read more from MXF Column page.

Supported MXF camcorder models by MXF Converter

Canon: Canon C300, Canon XF100, Canon XF105, Canon XF300, Canon XF305

Panasonic DVCPRO HD P2: AJ-HPX3700, AJ-HPX2700, AJ-HPX3100, AJ-HPX2100, AJ-HPX2000, AG-3DP1, AG-HPX500, AG-HPX370, AG-HPX250, AG-HVX170, AG-HVX171, AG-HPX371, AG-HPX600, AG-HPX255, AG-HVX200, AJ-HPM100, AJ-HPM200, AG-HPX300, AJ-HPX3000

Sony XDCAM: Sony XDCAM SD, XDCAM HD and XDCAM HD422

Continue reading »]]> Part 1. What are MTS files?

The *.mts format was developed jointly by Sony and Panasonic for use in their camcorders. Support for the format has grown and is now supported by Canon, JVC and Sanyo video camcorders. The format itself is based on the popular MPEG4 video codec and supports both 1080i/p and 720p video modes.

MTS files are encoded with the most effective AVC codec, which is good for streaming, but not widely accepted by Video Editing software like Windows Movie Maker, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, etc.

Part 2. How to Convert AVCHD MTS files to AVI on Windows or Mac?

Step 1: Get MTS files from HD Video camera/camcorder to PC.
Connect an HD Camcorders to your PC with a USB cable. Once connected and powered on, the camcorder should appear on the desktop as a new disk. It is desirable that you copy the videos to your PC’s hard-drive before converting or editing them.

Step 2. Load the MTS files to Pavtube MTS Converter.
Install and run Pavtube MTS to AVI Converter on your computer. When the below interface pops up, click “Add” image button to browse your computer hard disc and add the .MTS files you want to convert to the program. Batch conversion is supported by this MTS converter, so you can load several MTS files at one time.

Step 3. Edit your MTS files on MTS to AVI Converter (optional).
This MTS to AVI Converter can help you set video brightness, contrast, saturation; trim and crop video, trim video; Add text, image, and video watermark, etc.

Note: If you would like to merge multiple .mts clips into one file before the conversion, please tick off the checkbox “Merge into one file”

Step 4. Customize output Settings.
To convert MTS to 1080p AVI video, you can click the “Format” bar, and choose HD Video -> AVI HD Video(*.avi) or DivX HD (*.avi) as output format.

If you wanna convert M2TS to Xvid, just choose Xvid AVI as output format from “Common Video”.

To further improve the video quality, you may click on “Settings” and set video bit rate up as “high quality” or “original” to avoid quality loss. To shrink the output file size, you may set video bit rate and frame rate down.

Step 5. Start converting MTS to AVI video.
Once the above mentioned steps are finished, you can click “Convert” to start convert MTS to 1080p/720p AVI video with the MTS to AVI Converter. When the conversion task is completed, you are able to get the final output files by clicking “Open” button with ease.

Tip 1. Pavtube MTS/M2TS Converter takes full advantage of NVIDIA’s CUDA technology and ATI Stream (AMD APP) technology to largely accelerate conversion speed.

Tip 2. Due to the huge file size of MTS movie, it usually takes a long time to convert MTS to AVI. You may check “Shut down computer after conversion” in the conversion progress window and leave it be.

Tip 3. Pavtube Studio has put the great MTS/M2TS Converter on its Summer Sales Special Offer list, which means you can save up to 20% on the excellent MTS compressor and importer tool! Go ahead and click the below links to get your coupon:

http://www.pavtube.com/2012-summer-sale.html

Continue reading »]]> “I have a Canon camera that produces MVI._ files which are not recognized by the ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD 2 program that I use for building DVD”s/home movies. I need to be able to convert the MVI to AVI or WMV files so that the movie clips I take can be used seamlessly in the DVD program….”

Movie clips taken with EOS 5D Mark II, IXUS 130, Power Shot SX 200IS and many other Canon cameras are normally saved as MVI_xxxx files. These MVI files are actually Motion-JPEG/H.264 encoded video with .AVI or .MOV as file extension. The SD MVI videos shooting at 640×480 end up as .avi files and HD MVI files at 1280×720 or full HD 1920×1080 .mov files. H.264 .mov is a processing intensive format that does not playback or edit very well, while M-JPEG .avi is not compatible with Quicktime and iMovie 11. The solution to this is to use Pavtube MVI Video Converter to decode the files when converting into a different, and ideally more edit friendly, compression format.

Transcode solutions with the Canon MVI Converter:

To play MVI in Windows Media Player, convert MVI video to WMV format;

To import MVI to Windows Movie Maker/DVD Creator, convert MVI to AVI format;

To add MVI videos to iTunes/QuickTime player, convert MVI to MP4 format;

To use MVI movies in iMovie/Final Cut Express, transcode MVI to Apple Intermediate Codec;

To edit MVI footage in Final Cut Pro, transfer MVI to Apple ProRes codec.

MVI Converter Special Offer

MVI Converter for Windows

MVI Converter for Mac

Guide: Converting Canon MVI videos to AVI/WMV/MP4, etc

1. Run the Pavtube Canon MVI video converter, and drag and drop MVI videos to the software.

2. Press “Format” bar and select output format from pop-up profile list. Beside AVI, WMV, MP4, MPG, MKV format, there are also presets for you to convert MVI to iPad, Android tablets, Xbox 360 and various other portable media players.

3. Press “Convert” button to start converting Canon MVI videos to AVI/WMV/MP4, etc.