General Mac hardware discussions forum: Panasonic HDC-TM90 Mac HD Editing Question

"iMovie does not support footage recorded in 1080-60p from this Camcorder"

http://help.apple.com/imovie/cameras/en/index.html?lang=en_US

We can make videos in 960x540 30fps on iFrame, but not 1080-60p.

using the above software aren't you just converting 1080-60p into 960x540 (iFrame) for importing into iMovie 9 or 11?

If that is the case, why not file in iFrame and import directly into iMovie?

P

I think Aunsoft MTS/M2TS Converter program promises that it will convert 1920x1080p60 .MTS (which doesn't work on iMovie 9 or 11) to .MOV or something campatible with iMovie 09 or 11 without loosing *much* of the quality.

And Aunsoft FinalMate incorporates both a movie editor and a converter.

Promising to convert the film from .MTS to .MOV, keeping it at 1920x1080p60.

I'm assuming most of those replying on this thread are mac users who also bought this camera. I'm about to purchase clip wrap but I had one question for everyone.

I'm wondering if anyone else has a stark difference in exposure when viewing videos on the camcorder (regardless of format recorded in) versus viewing the video on a mac. I've got a 2009 iMac and its amazing how different the videos are when I play them back. The camcorder is vibrant, bright, and almost like you're actually in the room, but after transferring to the computer, its dull, grainy, and completely unlike what I just viewed on the camcorder.

Does anyone else have this problem?

The videos look great on my Mac screen.
Do you have any problem with other video content on your Mac? Could it be a brightness setting?

If it is only the camera video on your Mac, try checking all the camera settings.

One more idea. Try posting a short sample video to youtube and let some of the rest of us see it. Maybe seeing will help someone diagnose the issue.

(You might need to convert the video with clipwrap or other utility to some other quicktime compressed format for it to play smoothly, but I have no idea where the graininess would come from)

Thanks for the reply Steve. I'll try to get something posted tomorrow on youtube. Just so I'm clear - your videos look pretty much the same whether playing back on your camcorder or mac? And how old/new is your computer?

Do you use clip wrap for all of your imports? I've had this camcorder for a few months now and haven't had much time to really get a handle on everything involved regarding shooting formats and subsequent importing. I say that because at some point along the way, iMovie started recognizing the camera and importing the movies directly whereas it had never done that before.

I am so used to everything with macs being so straight forward that this situation has really annoyed me.....mainly because most of my videos are of my young son and I don't want to chance messing these up or not getting the best quality out of them. I've actually filled up the memory on the camcorder and haven't deleted any of the videos yet because I haven't figured out the viewing issue I mentioned in my initial post. I'm afraid I may have to reimport or jump through some other hoop and if I delete now, I'll be stuck with these dull lifeless videos.

If possible, can you tell me exactly what your best recording experience entails? From shooting format to import procedure. It doesn't have to be 1080p.

Thanks

Sorry for the long delay, but I missed the notice of your reply and had not been back to this site in awhile.

I have tried shooting in iFrame and 1080i/AVCHD (highest quality of the 4 choices:HA1920) and 1080/60p (highest quality overall). The 1080i has no particular advantage in my opinion, save for some space efficiency. It takes longer to convert (requires deinterlacing) but it will shoot 2 hours on a 16GB card vs 1:23:00 for 1080/60p.

If you don't mind the smaller resolution of iFrame, it is certainly most convenient, since it reads directly into iMovie.

But if you want the higher 1080 resolution, use the 1080/60p mode. ClipWrap converts it in one step to AIC mode (compatible with iMovie), or it can also convert to FCP native formats, and does so reasonably quickly. It took about 2 minutes for a 42 second clip on my old 2006 iMac (2.33GHz Intel Core Duo) to convert to AIC. You can load up all the clips from a "PRIVATE" folder and batch convert overnight or while you are working on something else. ClipWrap does not do deinterlacing, so the 1080i modes would require a different program and/or additional step. (I use MPEG Streamclip to deinterlace and do some other conversions, but it is slow relative to ClipWrap.)

The 1080/60p mode is also useful if you are shooting action footage, footage that you want to "stabilize" or footage that you want to zoom into, since these edits cut down on resolution, and you want to start with as much resolution as possible.

I have had NO quality difference going from camera to computer. I don't know what could cause that.

One more thing. You can just copy the whole PRIVATE folder from the camera and/or SD card and not worry about losing any quality. The PRIVATE folder (or the underlying AVCHD folder) is what you drag to ClipWrap. Don't try to isolate the files buried further down. ClipWrap needs the directory structure and figures everything out.

Of course it's been 3 months, and I'm sure you have been experimenting yourself with this camera so I hope you have already figured this stuff out, but I thought I would post anyway. Maybe it will help you, or other readers. Let me know how it's going!

Steve

By the way, I rarely go to the trouble of retaining the 60fps info for iMovie. It would only be useful if you want to run something in slow motion.

Also, there is another program i just bought:
AunSoft Video Converter for Mac ($35)
There are a couple of related programs AunSoft sells for $29 but this one seems to do what they do and more, so I sprung the extra 6 bucks. I bought it through the App Store.

This allows batch conversions to many different formats. Added features relative to ClipWrap are that it will deinterlace the 1080i (avoiding an extra step through MPEG StreamClip) and convert the 1080/60p to 30p (which iMovie will do at import, but this should create smaller movies at the intermediate step, I think.)

I'm still testing for speed, but it seems reasonable so far.

First off - I'm a newbie at this. But I'm in the same boat as Lyn in the original post. I've had the HDC-TM90 since last year and just filled up the 32Gb card so now I need to transfer the movies to my Mac. I have iMovie08 but am willing to upgrade to iMovie11 if I need to.

One of my main reasons for picking this camcorder was to get HD movies that are crisp and sharp. Is there a noticeable difference if I choose iFrame as my recording format as opposed to the 1080/60p I'm using now?

So correct my anywhere along the way but to keep the high quality of the 1080/60p I've recorded in, I need to purchase ClipWrap (unless there's something else) and take the entire AVCHD foler and drag it into the software where I can pick and choose what I want to convert. And when prompted I should choose AIC mode so the movies are compatable with iMovie. Am I on the right track?

Would this work for iMovie08 or do I need to upgrade to iMovie11? The movies are not going to be half speed or anything - right?

Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

And it appears you are asking new questions in an old post.

Please start a new discussion.
Bob