Noob needs a little help avchd (capture)

[broke it again]

Hi, I had to do a system restore and I lost my hd writer cd and now I cant capture to edit any video on windows movie maker. Panasonic wants $15.00 for a new cd but it is not good software. I just want to be able to capture the video and convert it to mpg2 so I can edit. Can anyone help me out? I need some free software just to capture and convert like the HD Writer did for me. Thanks for any help,
Rob.

Also, another member "Ikki" mentioned this in another post. "AVCHD is highly compressed and requires a lot of computing power to edit on the fly. If you are going to end up putting the video onto DVD, then the best way of doing this on lower powered equipment is to transcode to another format such as mpeg2 or mp4 at DVD resolution (720x576). This can be edited in all NLVE's such as Vegas with ease."

The thing is, I do have a computer powerful enough to handle the video. But, I was under the impression that I had to convert to mpeg2 before I could capture. Anyway around this? I have spent almost $2000.00 on equiptment only to have conflicts in software and to be told several different things by HP, Panasonic and editing companies.

[mmace]

you don't need to "capture" AVCHD, plug in your camcorder as you used to, Windows see's it as a USB drive, go into the stream directory and all your mts/m2ts files are in there, drag them on to your PC or work with them from there. No capturing needed, no special CD needed.
If your PC's fast enough then no converting is needed, you just need software that can handle AVCHD as an input. There's no point taking compressed footage (AVCHD), compressing to a different format (MPEG2) and then compressing it again when you've finished editing as it will look awful

[senu]

As stated . USB " drag and drop " is all you need to get the Files on your PC

The point about editing is that AVCHD is hard to edit on modest PCs,. If yours is fairly fast and recent .. You can edit it in its native form
What do you have?

If not , converting it to mpeg2 1080i (HDV) does make it easier to edit but quality loss is relatively spared
However converting it back to AVCHD is likely to give you a quality hit

While you dont need any software to " capture" you do need some to edit and output , whether directly or via any conversion

[broke it again]

Thank you for the replies. I have an issue with connecting the camera though. When I use the usb, the computer does not recognize the camera. I have tried that several times. The only way it will work is if I go into the panasonic software first and convert it to mpg2. The video is in .mts format and I am not familiar with that. That is what the comuter is not recognizing.
My computer has 1000 gig hard drive, 4 gigs of ram, vista 64bit, quad core processor. Auto play comes up when the camcorder is connected, with no option for video, just still shots. If I go to "open folder" choose "movie maker",
this is the window I get.

The file K:\PRIVATE\AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM\00000.MTS cannot be imported because the codec required to play the file is not installed on your computer. If you have already tried to download and install the codec, close and restart Windows Movie Maker, and then try to import the file again.

[senu]

Originally Posted by broke it again

Thank you for the replies. I have an issue with connecting the camera though. When I use the usb, the computer does not recognize the camera. I have tried that several times. The only way it will work is if I go into the panasonic software first and convert it to mpg2. The video is in .mts format and I am not familiar with that. That is what the comuter is not recognizing.

You are stating 2 different issues

• The camcorder may not be " recognised" because it needs drivers, which is contained on the CD. Some camcorders are recognised as " USB mass storage devices which dont need drivers as such
• The second issue is the mts file format
  mts is the extention for AVCHD files. Some have it as m2ts. It is new and you may not be failiar with it but it was always what you had

The reason you didnt have a problem is that the " codec" needed to recognise it was installed as part of the HD writer installation
As such, the CD contains both the drivers to recognise the camcorder and codec to recognise the file format
However you dont need it to edit if you can get better software
Windows Movie maker is not the software for editing AVCHD. Although free and easy to use it simply isnt cut out to edit the files
You should consider buying any of the available 3rd party editing software ( which also have codecs for AVCHD)
Also if you install any Playback software that can play AVCHD files they will have the decoding codec and install it in the background

My computer has 1000 gig hard drive, 4 gigs of ram, vista 64bit, quad core processor. Auto play comes up when the camcorder is connected, with no option for video, just still shots. If I go to "open folder" choose "movie maker",
this is the window I get.
The file K:\PRIVATE\AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM\00000.MTS cannot be imported because the codec required to play the file is not installed on your computer. If you have already tried to download and install the codec, close and restart Windows Movie Maker, and then try to import the file again.

Try Importing the files as " files" , not via WMM.
Windows is giving you this message because WMM does not recognise the mts ( AVCHD files) for reasons stated above. You dont have a codec for AVCHD playback
VLC will play them try installing it
Also Nero Showtime ( 8/9) from the full suite will
Others are Ulead VS 11.5
Cyberlink Power DVD Ultra
Win DVD plus
Amongst others

[broke it again]

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I did have software that was supposedly able to work with avchd. I bought Pinnacle but that turned out to be the worst mistake I have made in a while. I have seen some posts that say the new Vegas will work. Is that true from your experience? I will try VLC. Thanks again and I will report back with the results.

[senu]

I would give Vegas a go..

[broke it again]

I just downloaded the tutorial. I think I like how Pinnacle was set up better than Vegas but Vegas seems more stable on my computer. Thanks again.