AVCHD Lite on a Mac

[folka]

Hi Guys,
does anybody know a propper solution for importing the AVCHD Lite videos from the TZ7 / ZS3 to a Mac? I tried with VisualHub and Toast 10. Both worked but the videos are compressed to mp4. The quality is good but I wonder if there is some software that can natively play the mts files of the camera. Any idea?

[slffl]

Hi Guys,
does anybody know a propper solution for importing the AVCHD Lite videos from the TZ7 / ZS3 to a Mac? I tried with VisualHub and Toast 10. Both worked but the videos are compressed to mp4. The quality is good but I wonder if there is some software that can natively play the mts files of the camera. Any idea?

Yeah, VLC can.

[folka]

I Tried with VLC but allways had artifacts and the sound was now correct. I have a Macbook Pro 2,33 Ghz Core2 Duo with 2GB ram. I think, that should work but VLC seems not to be the best solution. Any other ideas?

[TKHershey]

Turbo.264 HD from Elgato works great to transcode TZ7's AVCHD Lite files into files playable on Mac. This hardware encoder is super fast, and its software brings AVCHD Lite files directly from TZ7. You can combine multiple files into 1 file as well. I simply create a small H.264 file (iPhone preset profile) for simple playback each time I shoot a video. If I need to transcode it to higher res, I will process it again. You can simply use a default preset or if you are picky, you can manually tweak many settings. You can read more about it here: http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/Turbo264HD/product1.en.html

[justin-shedworx]

If you want to convert the AVCHD Lite to AIC for editing, then VoltaicHD (http://shedworx.com/voltaichd) (which we make) is an option for you. You can convert from AVCHD to any Quicktime format using VoltaicHD.

If you have a Playstation3 or any Blu-ray player that supports AVCHD, you can also burn those AVCHD files to a DVD using RevolverHD (ours) or Roxio Toast 10.

The Turbo.264 HD is a very good (i.e. fast) option for conversion also, but its going to cost half the price again of your TZ7.

[Retinette]

Well I have a new TZ7 and cannot use the Elgato solution since it requires Mac OS 10.5 - Leopard, whereas I am only on 10.4 (Tiger). I am also using a PPC-based iMac with iMovie 05. I was not clear from the shedworx site whether that would be OK or not. That is, I can see that you support PPC, but I am not clear whether having converted the TZ7 video I will be able to edit it anyway. Thanks.

[Retinette]

I guess the other options I have for conversion are:


VLC - Videolan (http://www.videolan.org/) - as mentioned in the review of the ZS3 / TZ7. Having looked at this (http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=59485),
it is not available for my PowerPC / Mac OS X 10.4 set-up.


Aimersoft Total Media Converter (http://www.convertfiles.org/video/convert-m2ts-mts-trp-avchd-for-mac.html). Has anyone used this ?



VisualHub (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21888). This is no longer available.


Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/)


I don't mind paying for a solution as long as I understand that it is better in some way than the free stuff.