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CS6.0.2 Update No Fix For AVCHD Spanned Clips - Workarounds?

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
October 5, 2012
5 replies
21243 views

While I try to avoid Spanned Clips as much as possible due to a history with Premiere importing them, for event coverage we still get them and I just can't figure out how to make them work in Premeire CS6 on OS X. I see lots of posts about this and would like to know if there is a fix that does not require purchasing another product (like MTS Merge $35).

We are using AVCHD footage from Pansonic cameras and if it spanned, the sound will be missing for much or all or the clip.

I have tried using the Media Browser to import the entire AVCHD folder.

I have tried using Panasonics AVCHD Viewer application to import the footage (switches wrapper to .mt2s instead of .mts).

I have tried transcoding to new codec (Quicktime and VLC will play the MTS file correctly but output loses audio sync).

Ugh, this is terrible. Has anyone else found a workaround?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer ECBowen

This is exactly what happeneds when the spanned clip is imported (no audio until the last 5 minutes). All the other clips on the card are fine.

Also as mentioned in my other post, the spanned clip does play correctly in quicktime and VLC players.

I did file a bug report with Adobe and got a reponse (holy cow!) from prembugs that said I should make sure I have logged with my adobe ID to activate the codecs (what?!?) Anyway I had done that. They also mentioned something about OS X 10.8 (mountain lion) but as indicated the Bug form, I am using 10.7.5 (Lion).

Anyway, I still think this is a Adobe issue.

I did just re-import the card (locked this time) and still have the same issue. Nothing appears to have been written to it ouside of the camera files.

Our workflow is to copy the contents of the card to the hard drive before import, so any XML is written to the hard drive not the SD card.

Media Browser is in AVCHD mode when I import and sees the spanned clips as a single clip.

Take those Spanned clips into Media Encoder and re-encode them using Main Concept's AVCHD. Then import them into Premiere and see how they act. As long as you select the same codec settings as the original material then there wont be any generation loss as it will just re-write the file with a different file writer.

Eric

ADK

Todd_Kopriva

Inspiring

The Premiere Pro CS6 (6.0.4) update fixes a bug with spanned AVCHD clips: http://bit.ly/DVA_updates

N

ns194

Participant

I have a suggestion for you, jefbak. Until adobe patches PPro to behave consistently with spanned clips, there are a couple workarounds. If you're on a Mac, you can always use ClipWrap, which just rewraps your spanned clip into a .mov file for easier editing (FCP people tend to use this to transcode to Prores, but there is a simple rewrap functionality as well). This may at least solve your playback woes in Premiere.

Another alternative requires using the command line to rejoin the clips. I have a hacked GH2, and the man behind the hack has a very useful FAQ regarding AVCHD and all things GH2 related. The section on spanning is helpful: http://www.personal-view.com/faqs/gh2-usage/gh2-usage#spanning

This worked pretty well for me in most cases. You should be able to tell by the date/time/size of the clips which of them constitute a larger spanned clip.

E

excited_Genie16B8

Legend

Spanned clips from the GH2 don't seem to exhibit the bug. You should be fine using them as is.

N

ns194

Participant

Well, I have one of my longer clips affected. It may be due to the hacked firmware and shooting at a high ISO. I've had no trouble in most cases. But one clip has suffered laggy playback, dropped frames, etc. I found that manually joining the clips, and if need be, rewrapping them, did help.

josephs51576386

Participating Frequently

If you have access to a PC you can just use this program for free.

http://www.vontraining.net/download/

It will merge all your stuff together for, it works very quickly too. Plus no quality loss since it's only simply merging the video together.

T

TradeWind

Inspiring

Unfortunately this is not a spanned clip problem with Adobe or Panasonic. This issue does come up from time to time.

Be sure when you pull the card from your camcorder, you LOCK IT immediately. Then it becomes impossible to change anything on the card purposely or inadvertantly (and as you are aware, changing anything - structure, file names, ANYTHING - on the card will blow the whole operation, so locking it is perfect). Also, sometimes Mac users have problems when they fail to lock their cards, because Mac OS immediately starts writing files to the card if it's not locked.

When you're using the Media Browser in PPro, be certain that you are viewing the clips in AVCHD mode (there's a dropdown option for this right there in the Media Browser). If you're importing individual clips from a single continuous recording, you're NOT in AVCHD mode, and this will always cause the problem you are describing.

I don't mean to lay this out as "you're doing it wrong" but unfortunately this is all very well documented at this point, and whenever there is a problem with spanned clips, it is 100% of the time due to a user that renamed something, moved files, or otherwise didn't follow the complete rules of AVCHD management. I don't normally use a term like 100% (tend to prefer 99.9%) but I say 100% because it is absolute in this case.

jefbakAuthor

Known Participant

I guess my counter arugment to the Lock idea/issue is that I have never ever had a problem importing clips that are not spanned. Ever. Wither either of the Panasonic cameras. It is always spanned clips that have trouble importing, but play fine in VLC or even quicktime player.

Locking your cards sounds like a good idea, but I don't see it as the reason for this especially when the clip plays correctly outside of premiere.

ECBowen

Inspiring

Regular players do not write XML files to associate the clips when you play them while editors do. When you import AVCHD files, Adobe will write associate files to the current location of the media files. That is why the suggestion to lock the cards is a valid one. Editors need to remember that standard players and Advanced players such as Editing applications are completely 2 different animals. You cannot compare them as a troubleshooting mechanism.

Eric

ADK

Averdahl

Community Expert

What Panasonic camera do you use?

I have no trouble with spanned clips from the Panasonic HMC-151 as long as i don't rename the PRIVATE folder or any of it's subfolders or it's content.

/Roger

jefbakAuthor

Known Participant

We have both an HMC-150 and HMC-40, I think with the latest firmware. I have had issues with the footage from both cameras, but the footage in this case is from the HMC-40. Both cameras are setup for 720P30 recording. Our workflow is to copy the entire directory structure form the SD card to the hard drive and then import to premiere. So the directory sturcture is not changed. It was working working for me in CS5.5, but I had problems with CS5 before that. So it was a surpise to see it crop up again.

A

Anonymous

Well evidently I was incorrect in my memory of options with media encoder. I had to select the H264 Preset and then manually match attributes to the source file includes changing to a set bit rate and audio bit rate. This outputs the media to MP4. In every comparison my editor can view, the quality is exactly the same as the original and the file size is basically identical. There is however no match source option. The settings have to be manually from the file attributes.

Eric

ADK

The test above with matching bitrate settings manually (MP4 file size is 39 850 kb while original AVCHD file size is 38 688 kb):

NB: True rewrapping with SONY PMB produces complete matching MTS and M2TS file size and the 'Difference' test in linearised colour space results in completely black plate with no a single artifact.

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