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Answered

.MTS files no sound

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
February 14, 2013
37 replies
225549 views

We use Premiere Pro to edit .MTS files. We have constantly experienced problems with Premiere Pro not importing sound. Usually, updating everything (not just Premiere Pro) will solve this. We currently have one machine were nothing is working, and right this second, we are deleting Premiere Pro to reinstall and try it again.

This nonsense of constantly battling to get Premiere Pro to import sound has been going on for months. Why is this such a horrible ongoing battle? Is there something we can do?

Correct answer jstrawn

There are some good suggestions on here, and I will add a reminder for people to use the Media Browser to import media (as opposed to the import dialog) with potentially folder-dependent formats like MTS.

By "folder-dependent" I mean the video may be in one directory and the audio may be a sidecar file in a separate directory. So if you're importing the video directly it may not see the audio. The media browser is smarter than the import dialog so it usually knows how to access and import the entirety of the media in a single import. MTS files are not always folder dependent (in fact in most of my own media, they're not) but they can be so it;s good to use the Media Browser when in doubt.... and that would go for most other formats as well.

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Design-Kink

Participating Frequently

Reading through this I can't find any simple fixes that work. I tried dumping the Media Cache & reimporting...

You know Adobe is losing $ with this issue. I have a friend with a CC subscription & a Sony camera that makes .MTS video files. She is not the type of person to mess around on tech forums to make something like this work. As most consumers demand when they pay $ for something then it should just work.

So I've messed around with this for ages. I consider it a Premier bug. If I import .MTS video files into my project, the first clip I place on the timeline has audio. After that, any other clip I drag onto the timeline is missing audio. Interestingly, if I use the first clip that has the audio track and replace it with any other .MTS file, it will import the audio. So I can just copy the first clip as many times as required and replace the clip with the ones that I need. Not elegant, but I don't need to transcode. This is close to proof for me it's just another lame bug.

Alternatively, I agree with Allynn Wilkinson that if your problem is with importing the audio, there is no need to transcode the video. I have been using transcoding software from macx who make a 'video converter pro' and also a free AVCHD converter which works better for these files than Adobe, nice.

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Anonymous

Glad you have solved your problem, though painful...

S

Stan_Elliott

Participating Frequently

If anyone else is having a similar issue, this is what I found out, and how we've resolved it. The issue was caused by changing something in the folder structure of the mts files before PP was finished conforming each file (We often change the name of the stream folder to something that better describes the footage). To get PP to conform a file after it thinks it already has you must delete the .cfa and .pek files. These are saved deep in the library folder structure on newer Macs unless manually changed. To change the location you must do so in Preferences-Media. These are the media cache files. I was under the impression they were the audio preview files who's location you set when opening a project. I was wrong. It would be helpful if you had the option to set this location before a project is opened. Anyway my fix was to delete the faulty files from PP, change the media cache location, delete the deep buried .cfa, and .pek files, re-import the clips, sit back and let everything conform.

jstrawn

Community Manager

Joseph_harkins wrote:

I was under the impression they were the audio preview files who's location you set when opening a project. I was wrong. It would be helpful if you had the option to set this location before a project is opened.

You can change the location for any project's video and audio previews by going to the 'Scratch Disks' tab within the 'New Project' dialog, or after the fact by going to File > Project Settings > Scratch Disks...

You can change the location or the media cache files by going to PrPro (mac) or Edit (win) > Preferences > Media --> Media Cache Files section --> Browse (you can also clean them from 'Media Cache Database' section just below it).

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Anonymous

Hope your problem has been solved, but I am gonna still post here , since this thread has many people have similar probpem. I will post here about how I deal wiht this kind of problem. First , I just go to the google and find a free converter called Hnadbrake, it woked fine until recently. Then I think this free one may not handle my mts files better, then I find some paid one to convert my mts files. And I donwload it from Download .com . Also I use it do deal with my other video files with different foramt. I like the Adobe premiere, but sometimes it may take me sometime to do the prework before I can edit my videos. So I got FCP and PP at the same Mac.

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lesphoto65

Known Participant

I have Handbrake and when I convert the files to MP4 the sound works fine

but the audio is choppy. So the only solution is to put the MP4 files back

into Premiere and export that video as an mp4 again and then it's

editable. What a pain in the rear end to have to do all this just to edit

your video!!!!!!! There must be a better way.

Les

www.LesSchwartzPhotography.com

805.630.6310

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Anonymous

Well, I used this Handbrake before and I am exactly know what you are talking about. The output quality may not alwasy as I expected when it produced from Handbrake , so I just turn to some paid apps to help me. You may try to find some paid one to solve your problem. I am stastified with the one I used now. You can have a try. Good luck

jstrawn

Correct answer

Community Manager

There are some good suggestions on here, and I will add a reminder for people to use the Media Browser to import media (as opposed to the import dialog) with potentially folder-dependent formats like MTS.

By "folder-dependent" I mean the video may be in one directory and the audio may be a sidecar file in a separate directory. So if you're importing the video directly it may not see the audio. The media browser is smarter than the import dialog so it usually knows how to access and import the entirety of the media in a single import. MTS files are not always folder dependent (in fact in most of my own media, they're not) but they can be so it;s good to use the Media Browser when in doubt.... and that would go for most other formats as well.

jefjaeger

Participating Frequently

That is solved? Correct answer? I don't think so! I cannot get the audio files From my MTS files to import no matter what. And I did move the accociated files into the same folder. Any other program including Premiere Pro 'Elements' will bring in the audio as it is supposed to. Only Premier Pro CC cannot get this right? It's infuriating. I have read fix after fix that does not work. The only one that I know will work is to completely convert the MTS file to something else. That takes time, and is frankly unreasonable. I have a pro Canon camera and the supposed 'professional' Premiere Pro software. And I cannot just import a complete MTS file and work on it? Unacceptable and ridiculous! I have been reading about this issue and others for years and Adobe doesn't solve them. They should be embarrased. I called Adobe for support, and if you are working on video on a Saturday or Sunday...it's too bad for you. Not gonna happen. I see that this thread is dates 2014. It's 2020 now and this is still a problem? Wow.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

With "folder-dependent" media, you often must copy the folder structure, as there can be file-location metadata linking them. If so, and you move the files from their original folders, the linking metadata no longer works. I've run into this before.

I tried copying the audio files in with the video as you did ... and it confused things rather than solving things. I ended up simply copying the entire folder structure for any AVCHD/MTS and similar media. It's a pain ... and I do so appreciate my BM PCC4K doesn't work that way.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

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Dowsky

Participating Frequently

I've solved this by unlinking and relinking the files through the menu options "Make Offline" then "Link Media".

simardp

Participant

Another solution I've found is to extract the audio track from the video using Adobe Audition.

Drag the video into Audition. It will extract the audio so it can be edited. Then simply save the newly extracted audio file as any audio format you like (eg WAV). Load the MTS video file and the new audio file into your Premiere project, drop them both into your time line and then link them.

I find this faster than encoding the video into another format.

Paul

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Anonymous

Convert MTS clips into another format for Adobe Premiere Pro and relink against the transcoded version. It will get the audio back into Premiere. Might be a bit time consuming but it works.

http://movies-videos-convert-tips.overblog.com/importing-mts-avchd-files-to-premiere-pro-for-editing-smoothly

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lesphoto65

Known Participant

I have been converting to mp4 and clips look and sound fine. But now the video is choppy. If I stop it and start again then it smoothes out for about 10 seconds but becomes choppy after that. Audio is great and never affected. HELP

Any suggestions appreciated.

Les

Sent from my iPhone

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lesphoto65

Known Participant

I have the Canon G30. The camera comes with a CD which contains a program called "Data Import Utility". First, you need to install that program. You probably were doing what I was doing and taking the memory card out of the camera. Do not do that, leave the card in the camera. These files need to be processed INSIDE the camera and then transferred into your computer. So plug the camera into the wall, now turn on the camera in playback mode, next plug the camera into the USB slot on your computer with the cord provided with your camera. The camera will ask you which memory slot ( a or b) you want to transfer the files from. Next, open the program you installed. It will give your step by step (very simple) instructions how to transfer the files. You won't get all those folders that you usually get when you try to take the files off the actual card. You'll just get the mts files ready to be used. These files will play with sound in Premiere and also Windows Live Movie Maker as well as Windows Media Player. It took me weeks to try and figure out why these files had no sound and finally called Canon and got the instructions I just gave you.

Good luck and let me know if this helped you out.

Les

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Anonymous

Same problem here, the way I fixed my project was:

- cleaning media cache

- quit premiere

- open back the project

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emallove

Participant

I've run into this problem with locked audio tracks. When audio tracks are locked, the video appers to import without it's associated linked audio. Unlocking the audio tracks remedies the problem - as shown in this screen cast: http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/c2VYYjn1RF.