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Differences between Movie Formats

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Can anyone tell me what these different things mean, and how they relate, or don't relate, to one another"

prores
mov
quick time
mts

(I have a Panasonic HMC 150 that shoots as mts digitial files. I want to edit these files on Mac but the Mac won't open them.)
 

Raz0rEdge

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MOV == QuickTime..that's a format that a Mac can definitely open. MTS might be a Panasonic specific format, and you can open that in whatever software you got with your Panasonic and then you'd have to convert/save it to a more generic format like MOV, AVI, MP4 for sharing..

Regards
 
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They are all video codecs or carriers for video streams, and all can be played on a Mac with various players.
ProRes is an Apple format used in post production.
MTS is used in High Def Video (as is M2TS)
.MOV is a highly compressed movie format, as is Quicktime.
 
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Would I do the conversion after I upload the mts files to the mac? And do I lose quality of the original file if I convert the mts file into something that Mac can understand? Why do mov and quicktime have different names if they are the same thing? Also, what is prores?

Thanks for your response.
 

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I made the title more descriptive. Using titles that are descriptive will help with getting people to assist you.
 
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.MOV is a highly compressed movie format, as is Quicktime.

So which is better edit your movie in Final Cut Pro: .mov or prores? From my understanding, when you compress (as converting to .mov) you lose quality? And when you do your final rendering of your final edit movied does it restore the high quality of the original mts file.
 
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.mov, .ts, .mts, .m2ts are containers with specifications.

Ignore the post about .mov being highly compressed. Although they *can* be, they are not always going to be - and won't be if the container has ProRES video in it (a simple example, a project I have that is 720p, ProRES 422 (obviously a .mov container) @ 1hr6min is ~72Gig - this is normal.

.mov files can contain a variety of different codecs


ProRes is a codec. ProRES video has very little compression to it and is extremely easy to edit. The ProRES codec can be stored within a .mov container. There are 2 major versions of ProRES, the original ProRES - also known as ProRES 422 and the new ProRES that came with Final Cut Studio 3 - also known as ProRES 444.

Quicktime Video (as used in export to quicktime video) is really just another way to refer to .mov files.

.mts (MPEG Transport Stream) files are containers that hold video, audio and potentially data. It is just a container that has specifications on the type of codecs and how the audio, video, etc. should be stored within the container.

As you're editing in Final Cut Pro (per your other thread on the MTS/M2TS topic that we had discussed), you will not transcode the mts yourself, you'll do a log and transfer of the footage which will handle converting the very hard to edit highly compressed footage to the much more edit friendly ProRES codec within a .mov container.
 
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the OP shouldn't need an additional converter IF:

1) The OP is using Final Cut Pro as they had mentioned in another post
2) The OP has NOT taken the stream files out of the AVCHD structure (as I had mentioned in that other post)...
3) That is iSkysoft (aka Aimersoft and a couple others) which is well known on this forum as software that is not very respectable (and uses forum spamming tactics to push their products - and from what I understand from some other posts on different forums, the Mac community in general some time in '08 got Macupdate to remove any/all iSkysoft products from their listing).
 
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.you will not transcode the mts yourself, you'll do a log and transfer of the footage which will handle converting the very hard to edit highly compressed footage to the much more edit friendly ProRES codec within a .mov container.

Is this the part where I need to download some type of software onto my mac in order to "log and transfer" my mts files? What exactly do you mean by log and transfer? Do you mean conversion? Thanks for your help.
 

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...
3) That is iSkysoft (aka Aimersoft and a couple others) which is well known on this forum as software that is not very respectable (and uses forum spamming tactics to push their products - and from what I understand from some other posts on different forums, the Mac community in general some time in '08 got Macupdate to remove any/all iSkysoft products from their listing).

This community also.
 
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Is this the part where I need to download some type of software onto my mac in order to "log and transfer" my mts files? What exactly do you mean by log and transfer? Do you mean conversion? Thanks for your help.

Do you have and/or plan to use Final Cut Pro as you had mentioned in this thread: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/movies-video/238157-m2ts-mts.html#post1234314 ?

If the answer is yes, then Final Cut Pro will do what it needs to with the files in their native folder hierarchy (DO NOT TAKE THEM OUT of the subfolders that are on the card - they need to remain within the AVCHD hierarchy they are in when you record on the camera) - it's under the file menu and it's called Log and Transfer.

If you don't have FCP, but plan to use it and need to just archive the footage until you get in front of FCP, you need to follow my first point from this thread: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/movies-video/238157-m2ts-mts.html#post1234995

Now, if you didn't follow what I had said in the original post and have taken the mts files out of the AVCHD folder hierarchy then you will need to transcode them using some other software, in the future DO NOT take the mts/m2ts files out of the AVCHD structure - FCP (and iMovie and FCE) are all able to import AVCHD footage, yanking them out of their folder structure causes problems.
 
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This community also.

in terms of what? Helped to get rid of the software from MacUpdate? I consider this community part of the Mac community at large :) In terms of forum posts here I had mentioned...

nethfel said:
3) That is iSkysoft (aka Aimersoft and a couple others) which is well known on this forum as software that is not very respectable (and uses forum spamming tactics to push their products

In terms of the other forum posts I was referring to was just that it was discussed that the Mac community worked to get the software removed (I hadn't seen posts about the removal here, but I assume that there was some, but since I couldn't find links while I was writing the response, I didn't want to say there was discussion about the removal without having the post links to back it up:) )
 
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The mts files are in their original AVCHD folder structure. When I upload the folder to Mac's Final Cut Pro for editing, the files show up as "read only" so I can't edit them.
 
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How are you "uploading" to FCP? You NEED to use Log and Transfer which is under the FILE menu in Final Cut Pro to use the video within FCP.

You know, I've been assuming (as most probably would) that you're using either the latest version of FCP (fcp 7 that comes with final cut studio 3) or the previous version (fcp 6 that comes with FCS2) - but you seem to be having trouble either locating or using Log & Transfer - what version of FCP are you using?
 
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I transferred using a Sony card reader connected to the Mac hard drive with USB cable.

However, I finally understand what Log and Tranfer is. I needed your statement: "You NEED to use Log and Transfer which is under the FILE menu in Final Cut Pro to use the video within FCP."
Thanks so much! I will try this.
 
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Well, I'm glad you found it - but I did reference it's location in 3 separate posts (two in this thread and one in the other one) - I guess I didn't make it clear enough before, but as long as you found it that's all that really matters. It's the component of FCP you need to use to get the footage in to work with.

You WILL need a LOT of storage space (as an example that I referenced in another post, a 720p 1 hour file takes ~72gigs of storage - and that doesn't include any render/export/additional video, so make sure you have a large scratch disk to work with.
 

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