Panasonic HS100 not connecting with iMac

[lelu]

Hi

I've recently bought the Panasonic HDC-HS100 and have taken alot of footage with it that I need. I used the HD Writer software that came with it with my Dell laptop but the footage would only play 4 frames per second, I presume that was because the laptop is four years old and just not up to standard. Now I'm using an iMac but the software supplied by Panasonic is only for Windows.

I've connected the camera and still images show fine but I can't get the video footage to open. I've got Premiere Pro version 3.1.1, do I need a newer version. I've also got iMovie 6.0.3 and its the same story but I'm pretty sure that version is too old anyway.

Do I need to download a Panasonic driver that will suit Mac?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[A n d r e w]

You're right in thinking that iMovie HD doesn't support AVCHD camcorders like the HS100, and in fact does not support 1920x1080 video (or rather, it does - unofficially - so long as you don't use any transitions other than cuts).

As for Premiere, I just looked at the support pages (Adobe Premiere Pro CS3), and while HDV and DV are mentioned as supported formats, there's no mention of AVCHD, which leads me to suspect it isn't supported.

You could try VoltaicHD to convert your .mts AVCHD clips to .mov (which is supported according to the PP support pages, though it's only a wrapper and I'm not sure whether it will import absolutely any .mov) but it's not an ideal solution. Otherwise, the only solution would be to update to iMovie '09 or Final Cut Express, or a more recent version of PP which supports AVCHD.

You could alo try posting here, if you haven't already.

Andrew.

[lelu]

Thanks Andrew, much appreciated. I tried to start a thread where you left a link but it won't let me log in, maybe I'll try later!