Recreating Original AVCHD file Structure

Hi
I have a few folders on my mac containing only MTS files
Is it possible to recreate the original file structure of the Memory Stick (my cam's a Sony) ? That means rather than having only MTS files i'd like to get again the "AVCHD --BDMV--CLIP & STREAM...." structure
That way i could reimport them easier into imovie rather than convert each file separately with a 3rd party software
I guess i have to upload them again on my cam ? How should i do this ? Is there another way ?
Thanks

I agree with Martin and might add that I was in a similar project late last year with several folks who certainly weren't as computer savvy as myself, and YouTube turned out to be the solution. That way I didn't have to deal with the perennial "I couldn't open it" comments you WILL receive. Everyone was able to view YouTube.
You might try uploading to Vimeo - I think you can actually upload .MTS files directly to their site, if you want to just post your raw footage. You could just get the files in the Finder directly from the file structure on the HF10, copy them to your Mac and upload from there. (I haven't tried this, but Vimeo's site says they accept .MTS files, which is what the HF10 videos will be, in the "STREAM" subfolder)
The downside is that their free account maxes out at 500MB of uploads per week. That may be enough for you but I don't know. If you pay, the limit is quite a bit higher.

Similar Messages

Relinking original AVCHD files?

Hi again folks,
I converted a whole load of AVCHD footage to Prores 422 Proxy (in order to save HD space). I have now completed one section of the edit and want to output back to the AVCHD quality. But when I carry out the following method FCP 7 isn't able to find the associated files on my external HD.
What am I doing wrong?
* Highlight the entire Timeline where the edited Sequence is.
* Go to Reconnect Media.
* Locate the original AVCHD files (which are on an the external HD).
* Click Reconnect.

Tom, what I done was in the Browser selected all the clips which I'd used in the Sequence.
I then clicked Batch Capture, which opened the Log & Transfer window. I then selected the external HD which stored all the original AVCHD clips and set the Log & Transfer settings to ProRes422 HQ.
This method then converted all the clips in my Sequence to ProRes HQ.
So, in a way, yes I did use Log & Transfer, but only because that's the screen Batch Capture took me to.
What is Pro Res HQ good for then Tom?

AVCHD File Structure From MAC to PC

Hello,
I know this is sort of off topic but I need the expertise of this forum....
I am the videographer (mac user) for a speaking group and have to film speeches 5-7 minutes in length each week. The problem is how to get the videos to each person without processing on my Mac and uploading to youtube so they can see them.
I am Using a Canon HF10 and wonder if I could pop out the memory card from the camera put it in a card reader attached to a person's PC and transfer the files that way. I know that I would copy the entire file structure to their computer. I assume the PC person would have to have something that could work with the AVCHD files but I don't know what is on a PC computer these days. The other dilemma is that the speakers HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO COMPUTER skills.
Anyone have any ideas how to get the video to a viewable state without going through FCE.
thanks,
Al

I agree with Martin and might add that I was in a similar project late last year with several folks who certainly weren't as computer savvy as myself, and YouTube turned out to be the solution. That way I didn't have to deal with the perennial "I couldn't open it" comments you WILL receive. Everyone was able to view YouTube.
You might try uploading to Vimeo - I think you can actually upload .MTS files directly to their site, if you want to just post your raw footage. You could just get the files in the Finder directly from the file structure on the HF10, copy them to your Mac and upload from there. (I haven't tried this, but Vimeo's site says they accept .MTS files, which is what the HF10 videos will be, in the "STREAM" subfolder)
The downside is that their free account maxes out at 500MB of uploads per week. That may be enough for you but I don't know. If you pay, the limit is quite a bit higher.

How do I make or recreate a "valid file structure"

I am trying to get FCP to get the video from my harddisk (boot volume). I dont have the camera right now, but still need to have a solution to make FCP to read video from harddisk and not be dependent to read from a harddisk inside a camera. I have read abot using several kinds of other peaces of software that imports or in someway making FCP able to edit the video. As a secandary solution thats OK, but I think this should be done by FCP. I use 6.05.
Is there documentation how a file structure should be - if this is at all doable outside a cam. I tried to put the folder structure on a USB stick to make it "look like the camera", but it is still unreadable.
There is a error message I understand, but cant use get further "please choose a folder whose directory structure matches supported media". (law-school writen this
Here is the folder structure down to the .mts
//AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/00038.mts
Alle other files and folders is as they is on camera.
So whats missing to get a "directory structure that matches supported media". Any suggestions?

Just copy the contents of the disc as a whole, into a folder on your HD, and follow the instructions in the "HD and Broadcast Formats" to navigate to it in Log & Transfer. You should be using a separate physical drive for media.

Utility to Repair AVCHD File Structure?

Premiere Pro CC
Win7x64
Nvidia GForce GTX 470
Canon XA10
The files and directory structure under the PRIVATE folder look OK.
However, the Premiere Media Browser does not recognize the AVCHD view when looking at the AVCHD folder.
Apparently, the AVCHD directory structure is corrupted somewhere (perhaps, 00000.MPL).
Is there a utility which will repair the AVCHD directory structure?
Thanks in advance.

The reason you need the file structure for PPro is the "metadata" contained in the structure, which lets PPro stitch the individual files together for seamless editing
If you find a Canon program that will stitch the individual files together into one large file, you no longer need the file structure... since you will edit the new, single file in PPro

How important is the AVCHD file structure, anyway?

Hola everyone!
When I archived the first ~200 videos from my new hd camera (canon hf10), I was unaware that I had to archive the file structure too. So I have tons of files mts that I want to work with in FCE4. Voltaic seems way too buggy (I'm running new macbookpro w/ 4 gb of ram and a speedy dual core)...and I tried VideoPierHD (the demo version). VideoPier seems promising...but after exporting for FCE and importing into FCE, FinalCutExpress, it says" the following media files are not optimized for FCE. It is highly recommended that you recapture the media to create new copies of the files to improve their performance for multistreamed playback."
What does that mean?
And, is there software that can automatically "rebuild" my folder structure for me if I do need it? FCE works well for all of my other movies that have been archived, but that first 200 or so would be nice to work with.... Thanks for your time!

So...it took some time ( a few hours for ~30 GB) but I figured out how to rebuild the folder structure for my Canon HF10 WITHOUT buying any new software....
I loaded up windows in Fusion and installed the Pixela Imagemaker software. I added my files to Imagemaker's library and then selected them to be written back to the camera. Imagemaker rebuilt the file structure in such a way that FCE imported the files with no problems whatsoever! I was ambitious at first and attempted to copy all 228 files at one time....the software just kept hanging... I found a happy medium to be about 8 gb a time to copy back to the camera.
So, for all of those who ran into the same problem, I sincerely hope that this helps out!
Blessings,
Donny

Log & Transfer AVCHD file structure, FCP7, 10.8.2

I've been looking around for a definitive solution to this problem and have yet to find one.
As has already been discussed in this forum and others, ML now treats AVCHD folders as packages, hiding the folder structure. I'm aware of the 'Show Package Contents' solution to drilling down through the packages to access the MTS files. However, that doesn't allow me to Log and Transfer the footage into FCP7, which is what I need to do, since the folder structure and names have to remain intact. I would prefer to avoid using any third-party converter.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Indeed, at least as far as I can tell.
Four folders containing the raw AVCHD content, as received:
Show Package Contents on AVCHD package reveals AVCHDTN and the BDMV package:
Show Package Contents on BDMV reveals CLIPINF, INDEX.BDM, MOVIEOBJ.BDM, PLAYLIST, and STREAM:

Backed up avchd files to another drive, can I...

Hi
I've backed up my Panny GH2's avchd files to another drive, different from the drive used for editing where they also are.
To use those files, FCPX imports them wrapped in a QT 'sheath' and produces files about the same size, right. I take it that is not an alias of some kind and it doesn't need the original file any more.
So can I now remove those original avchd files to give me more room on the drive since they are backed up elsewhere and FCPX has a file good for editing of a similar size?
Hopefully this is not too confusing.
best,
elmer

I don't quite get what you mean. When importing in FCPX, you click on the folder and it shows the clips, there's never a choice about importing folder structure that I can see.
And the pop-up window for importing shows 'copy' checked and grayed out so I don't have a choice. I believe that's about how it was in earlier versions of FCPX. I also tested with a small vid file, just moved it actually to another place in the drive which should have broken the connection. No problem with the file in fcpx.
Thanks again!
When You have avchd foorage from a camera, it has a specific folder structure. Some people copy the files from a camera card using the finder and do no copy the e tire folder structure. You ard right that this structure is not apparent shen importing inFCP X.
It is clear that you have it as FCP X makes copy the media over. Thiz is correct behavior when importing from a camera, camera card or camera archive. That's fine.

Solution when iMovie or FCE will not import AVCHD files or MTS files

Problem: iMovie or FCE will not import your footage from SDHC camera with files in AVCHD structure, or cannot import .mts or .m2ht files (which you may have copied from AVCHD structure. When mounting camera, you can see the camera as disk but iMovie will not try to import footage. If you point Final Cut Express (FCE) to the file structure, it fails to recognize it as a valid file structure. (I have Canon HF10, but understand that this problem is common on many camera models, maybe camera has been turned off at the wrong moment?)
Cause: Faulty file structure on camera or disk
Soultion: Rebuild AVCHD file structure using an AVCHD editing tool. I found multiAVCHD (multiavchd.deanbg.com), which is not perfect, but will do the job. And it is freeware (possible to donate).
I would like comments about others experience - but at least this worked for me:
- Download and install the software (Yes, you need Windows)
- Set the right parameters: mostly default, I didn´t want any recoding. But tick off to keep the source files!
- Select the AVCHD source (or source .mts or m2ts files) and destination
- Start rebuilding: select output for Sony Playstation 3
- Put the AVCHD file structure on a USB stick
*If using iMovie:*
Start iMovie and plug the USB into the mac (virtual disk (.dmg file) or other media should work fine as well). The USB may contain other files as well, but the root of AVCHD must be named AVCHD.
iMovie recognizes the drive as a camera. All is not 100% well, as the dates for making the footage is lost, and the thumbnails are distorted if seen at all, until clicked on. But then import worked for most clips. Some clips gave an error message, but FCE was able to import these (Log&transfer).
*If using FCE:* Use Log and transfer on this file structure (need not be on external disk)
If you have a better solution - please share! I suppose there are other tools out there which may correct the file structure with less side effects and no errors.
If you go for this solution - remember the author of multiAVCHD, he will surely appreciate a donation. I guess everybody will agree that this is worth at least as much as you paid for your SDHC card.
Why a function to correct faulty file structure is not included in iMovie and FCE is beyond my understanding!
I notice many users salvage their footage by converting the .MTS files, using Handbrake etc. But I believe rebuilding the file structure is faster and with no quality reduction.

Hi everyone,
I'm hoping someone is still subscribed to this and can help.
I have a Sony HDR-SR10. Yesterday I was able to connect it to my iMac by USB and view all the footage in the import window of iMovie (08).
Last night, to save time sorting at home, I took it to work with me and using the software that came with the camera installed on a Windows PC went through to see which files were rubbish and could be deleted before importing to speed up the transfer on to my mac.
Today, my Mac won't recognise the Camera!?!?!?!
Have I inadvertently reformatted the .MTS files or the camera itself, to windows or something? CanI change it back??
I'm currently creating a new disk image of the camera on my Mac in the vain hope that it will work and be recognised by the Mac as a camera. I can see from the progress box the following text:
Creating Image "Sony Camcorder Media.dmg"
=====Progress Bar=====
Reading (WindowsFAT32 :1)...
Which is why I think I've done something seriously wrong!! .. because it mentions windows!
HELP! HELP! HELP!
I have my entire honeymoon and the first year of my son on this camera and I want to edit with iMovie! Especially as I just paid for iLife 09 upgrade!

Parts of AVCHD files

hi - i have some old footage from a sony handycam, which is saved to my imac as an avchd file. it is a large file - around 60gb.
unfortunately, i don't have all the related files/folders that are usually appended to the AVCHD file (i believe it normally comes in 4 parts?). i just have the AVCHD file itself.
i am able to get some use out of the AVCHD file. i can click on the file and it opens in quicktime and displays all of the 200 "clips" that are sitting in the file. i can then play any one of the individual clips that sit in the AVCHD file.
however, i would like to be able to break the file up to be able to edit / email different clips separately. however, when i drag the file into iphoto it inevitably crashes due to its large size.
any tips as to how i might be able to process this file would be much appreciated.
thanks.

The AVCHD file structure is shown in:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AVCHD_actual_file_structure.jpg
The actual movie clips are in the subfolder "STREAM". You can import these indivdually or in groups directly into iMovie 10. (In iMovie 9 you have to convert them first). I don't know about iPhoto since I don't use it.
In iMovie 10 you can then sort them how you like into into different events. In each event they will appear in chronolgical order and If you select View - Show separate days in events they will be grouped into each day's shoots.
Geoff

Working with AVCHD Files Imovie and FEC 4

I have a Sony HD SR 1 which uses the AVCHD format
I can import the AVCHD files into Imovie 08 as HD or use FEC4 Log and Transfer to import the files.
My question is about quality. If I import the AVCHD files into Imoive and later want to use the project in FEC 4 I have to export the project as XML to use it in FEC 4. Does this step from Imoive to FEC 4 produce the same quality as using Log and Transfer in FC 4 on the original AVCHD files?
Thanks.

There is no loss of quality in exporting XML. It's solely an instruction set. If you're just using iMovie to capture you can simply import the media from the iMovie folder into FCE if you want.

Remnants of original file structure in library

While most of my photos have been re-arranged in the new library by roll name, when I look in the library via finder, I see that there are still some photos that remain in the original Date named folders.
These photos also now ALL seem to appear under a new roll number that was created automatically during the iPhoto 06 upgrade, regardless of when the said photos were originally created.
All of these photos were at some time modified by photoshop CS.
The question is:
Should/can I delete the remnants of the original file structure from my library (the date named folders, as seen in finder), now that it appears that most everything has been moved from the date based folders to the "Original" and "Modified" folders?

Hey deejaybee - I had the same issue a while back, in my case the new roll (and hence the leftover folders) contained more than 1000 images!
Best advice is don't delete the remnants in the Finder, not until they contain no images at all. Check the images in the new roll within iPhoto, delete them from there if you're sure (which will in turn remove them from the remnant Finder folders), then delete the empty Finder folders.
In iPhoto:
1 Click on the Library in the Source list, opt to Sort by Film Roll and scroll to the new roll created by the upgrade.
2 Check each image in the new roll against where it should be in your Library. Prior to the v6 upgrade, each of these photos originally existed in another, earlier, roll (created when you first imported them) and those original rolls will now contain either duplicates of the photos in the new roll, 'original' pre-edit versions of the photos in the new roll or - more worryingly - no copy of the photos at all. If you can't quickly locate the original roll:
a Select a photo in the new roll and click the 'i' button in the bottom left corner of the iPhoto window to show you the date the photo was taken;
b Click the calendar button (to the right of the 'i' button) and select the exact date you just found;
c If you're still in Library / Film Roll view, you'll now see just the rolls containing photos from that date; the selected photo should originally have existed in one of these and others from the same shoot should still be there.
In your case you say all the photos in the new roll had at some point been modified in Photoshop; what you should be looking out for then is the 'original' copies of those photos, if you keep / kept them (so you can always 'Revert to Original' if you don't like your edits). If not the originals then at the very least ensure that those new roll photos still exist in the original roll(s) in their edited form.
If you can't locate the photos in the original roll(s) at all, and you wish to keep them, don't delete the copies in the new roll! Either leave them in the new roll or, in full Library / roll view (i.e. with the calendar button not selected) select & drag them from the new roll to the roll they were originally in.
As an example, in my case many of the photos in the new roll were unedited 'originals'. The edited versions of these still existed where they should have in their original rolls, and for these edited versions the 'Revert to Original' menu option was still available, but selecting it did nothing - because the original photos had somehow become orphaned, hence iPhoto moving them to the new roll, to draw the to my attention. I dragged the originals back to the correct rolls and deleted the edited versions - I can always recreate edits from an original photo, but I can never recreate the original photo once it's gone.
Once you've emptied the new roll completely, by either dragging the photos back to another roll or by simply deleting them, the remnant Finder folders will also be empty and can then safely be deleted.
Hope this doesn't sound all too pedantic; out of my 1000+ photos, a large proportion of them were not to be found elsewhere in my Library and I would have lost rather a lot by simply deleting them without consideration...

How to rescue MTS files with no AVCHD folder structure?

Occasionally friends ask me for help with AVCHD cameras but as I have not yet got one I have to rely on what I read on the forums.
I have experimented with AVCHD clips from the DVD accompanying Tom's FCE 4 Editing Workshop book and have a couple of questions.
1. From my tests it appears that the whole folder structure is not necessary. Just having the BDMV folder and all its contents appears to be sufficient for FCE 4 to recognise and convert the files. Is this correct?
2. People who accidentally destroy the folder structure and just save the MTS files find that FCE cannot recognise them.
I have found that RevolverHD and VLC can both play the basic MTS but only VLC can transcode them and that is only to a limited number of codecs. However, once transcoded the files could then be put into Streamclip and converted to AIC.
Rather a complex and potentially degrading process.
So what other apps would be better to use for converting MTS to AIC or ProRes?

Let's sort through a few things. Yes, only the BDMV folder is needed, but you need the whole folder, in which case you may as well have all the metadata and take the whole folder structure for archiving.
1440x1080 does not need to be converted to 1920x1080. 1440x1080 is anamorphic AVCHD and is included in the AVCHD specification. In fact there is a 1440x1080 preset in FCE and that's all you have to use. The media is anamorphic, and it displays in normal 16:9 widescreen as 1920x1080.
The same clip when simply rewrapped as an H.264 changed from 23.5MB to 31.4MB.
This appears to be because it was automatically given extra pixels to stretch it out to 1920x1080.
The file size difference is not the pixel size. If the media is 1440x1080 H.264 mts rewrapped to QuickTime the file will be larger because the QT file structure. It will still be H.264 1440x1080.

Working with raw .MTS files, no AVCHD folder structure

Hi, I've backed up raw .MTS files to Blu-ray data discs, just the files not the AVCHD folder structures.
I've read about this and everyone says it's not the right way of doing things, that it requires the entire ACVHD folder structure to function.
However when I load these files back onto my Mac from the discs they import just fine into FCPX 10.1.1 natively or optimized. I've had no issues with it at all so why are people so against that way of doing things?
Just curious.

saddact wrote:
Can you explain why they would have gone through multiple generations of compression?
Your camera(s) shot in a certain format. It could use any of a number of codecs – including variants of MPEG2, H.264, whatever. So you import that into FCP and edit – either natively or in optimized. Then you export. When you export, it recompresses – in this case to a fairly high bit rate version of H,264. But to be clear, it always recompresses – even if your camera used H,264 to acquire the media, and you don't optimize, it will recompress in exporting to Blu Ray specs. Inevitably, there is some loss of infomation. It may or may not be a detectable loss.
HTH.
Russ

Can you edit AVCHD files for length & keep them AVCHD?

I shoot video on a Canon Vixia HF10 camcorder that records in AVCHD. I usually import these files into an event in FCPX and create optimized media when doing so. Then, when I archive the project, I delete the optimized files and just keep the AVCHD files (which makes the project archive much, much smaller).
I shot some video the other day but forgot to stop the recording at the end of about 30 minutes of footage. This resulted in the camera recording until it filled the 32 GB card. And I was shooting from 4 angles with 4 different cameras, so I got more than 100 GB of useless footage.
I'd like to trim the AVCHD files themselves so that I can get rid of the 3 1/2 hours of footage I shot by mistake, and make the AVCHD files much smaller. Can I do that? How would I do that?
The only thing I can think of is to import the entire files into FCPX, transcode them into optimized video, then trim the resulting ProRes 422 .mov files down in a timeline, and export them. But then I think that I'd lose some quality in the process (of trimming, exporting, and reimporting them), and I'd be archiving .mov files (which I don't want to do because they are so large).
I'd appreciate any advice.

first, AVCHD is no video 'format', but mainly a file and folder structure standard. Within that, wrapped as 'mts', you'll find h264 encoded video. which leads to ....
second, h264 is no lossless format. even plain cuts makes a re-encoding neccessary, which 'multiplies' compression errors/loss.
imho, you have two options:
• import wisely FCPX allows to select on AVCHD import - no need to 'swallow' the fulll 16Gs of a card, if you need just 10min here and 20sec there, import these parts. … but even 'parts' are probably bigger in file size than original recordings.-
• if you dig deeper into your AVCHD files (cmd-click/Show Package Content), you'll notice, a single 1h recording is chopped into many mts files. you could identify the 'empty' ones, erase them, and give the free tool AVCCAM Restorer a chance to re-enact a standard compliant AVCHD-structure (=erasing some mts inside an AVCHD 'axes' the whole thing!).
Try with a test recording! Test with a copy! This is a workaround! .... no guarantee, it works.

Recreating Original AVCHD file Structure

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