Known Participant

Question

Panasonic TM700 1080/60p 28mbps files

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
April 28, 2010
11 replies
49329 views

The newest panasonic camcorder, the TM700 records video at 1080/60p in an MPEG-4 format. Can CS5 import these files, and if so, what would the logical output format be? 720/60p perhaps, or can you output 1920x1080/60hz progressive? I believe the files have an MTS extension but since AVCHD doesn't allow 60p it's a sort of non-standard format.

According to camcorderinfo.com few editors will accept the Panasonic files, but the quality of the footage is significantly better than the cameras 1920x1080/60i AVCHD mode.

I'm wondering if you could include clips from this camcorder in a CS5 project, and if so what output resolution/framerate would make the most sense (for computer playback I imagine, I don't think Blu-Ray or AVCHD discs support 1080/60p data).

Seems like a great new camera feature, but it's not clear to me how you would distribute the final edited file in such a way as to take advantage of the 60hz progressive nature of the original footage.

This topic has been closed for replies.

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docdam

Participating Frequently

Is actually possible to edit and encode file in 1080 50p or 60p. Then is possible to play the file with player like WDTV. You can store the video in hard disk and play in any TV at the original quality.

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Anonymous

I am not a videophile or techie.

I was looking to purchase this Panasonic TM700 video camera for family (general consumer use) after its multiple top ratings for overall video quality. Our usage is primarily family events (indoor birthdays & holidays), vacation (indoor & outdoors) and possibly future kids' sporting events. I had been looking at the Canon hfs200, which video quality is quite poor overall compared and Sony Cx350. I know the cx 500 series is a better video cam, but can't afford the current price difference (panny is $750 and sony is $1000.) I was ready to buy this camera this weekend, but have only recently come across forums, such as this one, that imply there is no current compatibility to DVD or blu ray for the 1080 60p files from this camera.

I know you can playback the data directly from the camera to the TV. However, we usually like to back up our videos to a DVD or possibly blu ray for future storage & TV playback, not through camera. I have never done video editing & don't own any video software. Am I correct in my understanding from this discussion, that if I download the TM700's video files to my computer, that I won't be able to directly copy them to a usable blu ray or DVD video file for playback on a standard dvd player or ps3 without downconverting the files to 720 60p? If so, what is the point of having th 60p camera? The panny is really well rated, but if I can't preserve the video quality & file format, is it useless as far as a lay person like myself is concerned. The camera can be set to record at 1080 24p, but at that "resolution" does not perform as well as its competitors, and from what I gather from this forum, does not down convert (may be wrong terminology here) to 1080 24p correctly.. Should someone like me, who isn't looking to edit, but only "backup" onto a playable format stay away from this camcorder? Am I better off sticking with a different camera? I liked that the panny had EVF and manual controls, and overall better low light performance than some of the other cameras I was looking at in this price range. Any input or suggestions from other video camera owners would be much appreciated!

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excited_Genie16B8

Legend

If so, what is the point of having the 60p camera?

Precisely.

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Anonymous

Even if this camera didn't have hte 60p feature, it's still a great camera.

It will also capture in four different bitrate 1080i formats which are in the BR spec. There are some BR players that will play the 60p BR discs.

I hate the look of interlaced video so if we have to render to 720 60p for BR, your never working with interlaced video. I believe 1080 60p will eventually be a BR supported format. So this camera is ready for the future and won't be antiquated anytime soon. I'm thinking of buying another one. I have a Sony HVR-A1,

$1700.00 and this camera blowes it away. Youtube it and look at some of the low light videos. It also comes with some basic editing software.

So for the price, down to $730.00 now, it has the best looking video around and is built for the future. Most people will have an i7 eventually and will be able to play the 1080 60p mp4, wmv files.Why spend more for a less quality camera anyways?? Danny Hays

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docdam

Participating Frequently

When files become over 4GB the TM700 split the video into more files m2ts....

When i put them in the timeline it's like i loose some frame... instead with the panasonic program the video is fluent...

Do you know how to merge the m2ts files in premiere without converting them????

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Anonymous

Sorry, I don't know the answer to this. I am having some problems with Premiere - I am just learning the program.

After installing Premiere Pro CS5 on Windows 7, I cannot see my preview icons for photos and videos anymore in Windows Explorer.

The files just appear as blank icons, and do not show me the photo or video clip preview.

This is strange...

Does this happen to anyone else?

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Gio Willis

Participating Frequently

I am not having the above mentioned issues working with cs5 in mac environment , maybe it is the quicktime engine. I work perfectly with footage 1080 50p . Blu ray has some limitaions of its own . If you want to preserve 60 or 30p (NTSC) or 50p 25p (PAL) you will have to render in 720p . The maximum resolution allowed by blu Ray discs as far as concerns european standards, are 1080i24p or 1080i25i

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Anonymous

I have been doing some extensive testing this week, after reading all the posts in this and other forums.

Editing TM-700 video files:
I have tried the demos for Adobe Premiere CS5, Vego Pro 9, Vegas Movie Studio HD, Corel Videostudio Pro X3, Pinnacle, PowerDirector, and Edius 5.5.
I shot some basic footage at full 1080/60p.
I used files converted with HD writer to .m2ts vs just copying the .MTS files directly to hard disk.
Most programs will open both types of files, and allow editing. However, to save and reencode the files was a problem.

Only Premiere and Vegas (both versions) had the ability to change custom settings to 1920x1080 59.94 (or 60)p. Premiere was via the H.264 preset, and Vegas was via the Sony AVC preset and Mainconcept mpeg2 presets.

Premiere - I could not hear any sound when importing and previewing files (it said there were no audio tracks). Also, the only template available is H.264, and only creates .mp4 files. There is no option to keep the video in the same format at the original .m2ts or .MTS. It encoded the video, but the result had no sound. I'm not sure if these file choices or sound problems are a limitation of the trial version.

Vegas - Although it appeared promising that I could select 59.94 frames per second as a custom option, in both the Sony AVC preset and Mainconcept mpeg2 presets, neither would encode. Encoding would not begin, and reported "An Error occured while creating the media file. The reason for the error could not be determined."
Encoding to any other preset worked fine.

Videostudio Pro X3 was also able to edit the original video, and burn to blu-ray. Unfortunately, the video was reduced to 1080i. Video files could only be saved at 1920x1080 29i (24 p not even an option)

The included HD Writer software is very basic, but will do the job.
If you simply want to trim your videos, add some basic transitions, and save the file in original format, this is still the simplest option. It is an awkward program, and to trim video, you don't actually mark in and out points, you "delete" unwanted pieces of video. You select the opposite - what you don't want, as opposed to what you want.

Playback of 1080/60p on computer:
I have tried Windows Media Player and PowerDVD 10 Ultra. I also tried with and without DivX installed. I also turned off Windows Aero, and as many programs running in the background as possible.
Initially, I thought that PowerDVD was the best, with fewest skipped frames. But it was still not perfect.
Then I downloaded Splash lite. Wow. So far, perfectly smooth playback of both .MTS and .M2TS files from the camera. Not bad for a free program!

So for playback, Splash lite works the best for me.
For editing, HD Writer is a basic fix for now.
Premiere CS5 and Vegas are promising, but I need some questions answered:

Can anyone who has full versions of Vegas or Premiere confirm if
1) In Premiere - is the audio present when previewing video, and is it present after reencoding clips?
2) In Premiere - can you encode to anything other than .mp4 and keep 1080/60p?
3) In Vegas - has anyone been able to encode files without the error at 1080/60p? What are the detailed settings used?

I discovered another interesting thing about playing 1080/60p video...
With both PowerDVD Ultra, and Splash lite, I disabled hardware acceleration in the options of each program - and voila!! Perfectly smooth playback!!
Strange, that with hardware accerleration on, video plays worse.

Something for others to try - disable hardware acceleration in your video players for smoother playback!

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ddhir

Participant

dptempid,

Thanks for sharing some really good insights and information.

For 1080 60p video, I too found HD Writer to be basic but it works well......and your suggestion on Splash Lite was great...........the playback of 1080 60p video is really smooth even on my PC that has a Pentium 4 dual-core processor.

Now if only Blu-ray could include 1080 60p in the standards......then we won't have to downgrade the 1080 60p to 720 60p or 1080 60i to record on Blu ray discs, which can be shared easily !

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paulbenn099

Participant

Looks like Panasonic is protecting their AG-HMC40 by cutting off the TM700 AVCHD at 17Mbps, then teasing us with this 28Mbps 60p mts that we can't do anything with. Curse you Panasonic marketing strategists!

Dear Panasonic: If you add 24Mbps AVCHD to the TM700, with 30p and 24p, you will put Canon and Sony out of this prosumer business, you corner the market. Just a thought. And you could do it with a firmware upgrade I bet. Then just figure out some other way to differentiate the HMC40.

Interestingly the camcorderinfo.com review of the TM700 is much better than their review of the HMC40. They didn't like the HMC40 at all.

I've tried using CS4 Media Encoder (MainConcepts) to convert the mts to 1080 30p h264 and I see noticeable blur on movement. 720 60p looks pretty good. 1080 60p is an option also but playback is very jerky.

I'd like to try a 1080 60i output, but MainConcepts doesn't offer that. Why? Just curious.

In general, is there a way to convert 60p to 30p or 24p with minimal loss of quality? I.e. if I could turn the TM700 mts into ProRes 422, even if the 422 file was huge, would that just leave me with the same problem in a different source format? I.e. losing too much quality going to 30p or 24p?

At this point I'm leaning toward the Canon HF S20 because it has the best usable image (24Mbps AVCHD), albeit with crappy low light performance, because I'm not seeing any solutions to this 60p problem.

Paul

S

SymbioticIC

Participant

Just a different thought on an alternative workflow for Final Cut as some people here have referred to and asked about: transcoding the 60p .mts to ProRes422 shows (to my eye) absolutely no loss of quality. (even ProRes LT works well) In FCP going to 30p or 60i is a no-brainer, as you simply drop whole frames or every-other line, and editing in ProRes is very nice and not so CPU demanding. Encoding your final output using x264, with its multitude of quality options to play with, gives great output. (arguably better than MainConcept's H.264) I need to do further tests, but the consensus is that choosing an output bit rate say >= 30Mbps makes it virtually indistinguishable from the original .mts.

Although I haven't tried yet, I understand using Cinetools (part of FCP) you can also get a well-interpolated 24p if desired from 60p. (of course this may not have that "film look" that so many desire, but that is caused by other factors as well)

Eventually I'd like to compare to the Premiere workflow, which is attractive for not requiring 2 conversions. But I must honestly say I'm surprised I don't see a generational loss using Final Cut like I expected - ProRes really works. And the TM700 gives just beautiful footage at 60p!

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paulbenn099

Participant

Ok, that sounds like a solution. I was thinking 60p -> 60i would be a minimal loss of quality, but I don't see any option for that in Adobe/MainConcepts. Right now I'm a PC Adobe guy and not sure I want to make the investment in time and $ to go to the Mac FCP world.

Either way it looks like a lot of transcoding so probably will go to a Core i7 Nvidia box as Adobe's CUDA support makes a large difference there. And that setup is a LOT cheaper on PC (also it's a good excuse for a decent gaming box ;-).

Is there a converter that will do mts to ProRes 422 that utilizes CUDA?

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AANNBBAA

Participating Frequently

Some of you may be on this thread already but just in case you havn't seen it yet, theirs a computer playback discussion going on at around the bottom of this page:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1225613&page=75

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Gio Willis

Participating Frequently

I tried to play a 1080/60p on my mac pro with no problems . However I think that one of the Blu Ray settings provided by CS5 is more than enough. These camcoders take advantage of filming in 1080/50(or 60p) and the progressive gives a sort of film-grain effect to the movie. When exporting I personally think it is quite irrelevant if1080/25i or 24p is more than enough and preserves the actual quality of the original footage, what I am trying to say is that it is not visible to the human eye. As far as playback is concerned on a computer, the result depends on many factors, including graphic card.

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kisshoma

Participating Frequently

Is Adobe Premiere CS5 for Mac able to import MTS files from the Panasonic TM700 in the 1080p60 format?

I have tried this with the trial version and the Premiere CS5 says that the format is not supported...

I also tried in a Windows 7 virtual machine with the Adobe Premiere CS5, and it is working. What is going on?

A bug on CS5 for Mac software?

Have anyone tried this on a mac?

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Gio Willis

Participating Frequently

There is absolutely no problem in Adobe CS5 Premiere Pro, note that the trial version has only some codecs and limitations on tapless formats, I am importing those files with no problems in the purchased version.To have all the features you will have to buy the products. I am using it in mac environment with all the advantages of outputting to Blu Ray : Remember that when you output to Blu Ray the supported formats are 1080i25 or 1080i30 for players compatibility reason, whether it is progressive or interlaced is based on the original footage.

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hfukui01

Participant

I just imported MTS files from Panasonic TM700 on Premiere CS5 to edit. Even though I had to convert a different format before import on Final Cut to edit 1080/60p, I did not need to do that for Premiere. However, I could not import the MTS files as 60 or 59 fps. They automatically became 29 fps.

How did you guys make them like high fps? Also Could you tell me the best sequence setting for 1080/60p? I want to edit as good quality as possible.

Thank you!!

Harm_Millaard

Inspiring

I only tried it with a single clip given to me, that I imported and it shows up as 50 fps, which is what is expected in PAL country. Plays and edits without problems in a HDV 1080i-25 sequence.

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AANNBBAA

Participating Frequently

Just some pointers for owners of Panasonic's new top consumer camcorders.

For playback on a computer, having DivX installed and using Windows Media Player should give you some good results. That goes for almost any 1080 50p or 60p codec. As for the PS3, it plays back native files flawlessly as long as you don't have any picture adjustments enabled. The PS3 will even playback edited 1080 60p Microsoft VC-1 files. Now as far as H.264 files from Main Concepts, disable all of the PS3's picture adjustments and tell us if you notice the playback quality getting improved. Hopefully Premiere will add an export to M2T in the future.

I'm having some exporting issues with CS4 at the moment. When I tried to export to 1080 60p using MPEG2 as the codec, I'm told that my settings are wrong. Anyone knows the exact settings I should be using?. When exporting to H,264 using Main Concepts, everything is fine. How do I get an option to export to VC-1?

I do plan on upgrading Production Premium to CS5 possibly when I get my next GI Bill payment.

I do not own the TM700 by the way (I wish I did!), I'm at least trying to gain some knowledge so that I can possibly help people.

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Gio Willis

Participating Frequently

I have recently updated to CS5 master collection because I had the same problem with 1080 50p footage shot by HDC-sd700 or TM700.

I was going mad by transcoding all the material in ProRes 422 HD or other suitable formats for final Cut Pro. I used ClipWarp or Aquafadas Videopier HD. I luckily solved this problem natively with Premiere Pro CS5 and Encore CS5. Here I could edit in realtime all the 1080 50p footage ,do the soundtrack ,work in PS an AE and have the timeline updated in Premiere. The final time to prepare the Blu Ray disc was very fast too. Much faster than compressor. I am sure that you won't have any problems with 60p footage too. When you export to Blu Ray you can choose 1080 30p or 60p and the desired bitrate in encore directly. I saw no difference and no loss quality from my blu ray disc to my camera footage via HDMI.

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ruzunAuthor

Known Participant

You can't choose 1080/60p in the H.264 Blu-Ray section, only the H.264 section. I don't think blue ray supports 1080/60p regardless, it's not in the spec. Just 1080/24p and 1080/60i I believe, and perhaps 1080/30p.

When you choose just regular H.264 output you can make a .mp4 files that are 1920x1080/60p but I think you would have to play them back as computer files, you couldn't burn those to a Blu-Ray format disc without transcoding them to some blu-ray compatible frame rate/format.

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Gio Willis

Participating Frequently

Yes you are right . It is 1080/25 or 24p or 30p for US standards. Maybe it's a matter of compatibility with blu ray players.

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