Making HD video is fun. But one of the things everyone tends to forget is that the video is usually recorded in a proprietary format, that, as I speak, can’t be read by Windows Media Player or Adobe Premiere.
This mini-tutorial is the result of frustrations and long hours of searching. I could only do one thing with this: share.
For converting, I used a program named TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress, by Pegasys Inc. You need to buy a license for this but you can also download a 14-day evaluation version on their site. This program supports AVCHD and can convert it to a load of other formats. What I will show you here is the conversion of an AVCHD video made with a Canon HF10 camera (framerate-setting 50i, default) to MPEG-I.
First of all, let’s open TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress. The screenshot above is what the welcome screen looks like.
1. Click on ‘Source’. Click on ‘Add file’. Choose your .mts file that you would like to convert. Click on ‘Open’:
2. Now, you will see the next screen. Click on ‘Filters’:
3. Choose ‘Deinterlace Always (double framerate)’ and click on ‘OK’:
4. When you’re back in the original screen, you will see your video added:
5. Click on ‘Format’. Once you’ve clicked this, a window will pop up and you will be asked to choose a format. Here, I chose ‘MPEG file output’. You might as well choose Mpeg-4, DivX, QuickTime or any other. Click on ‘Select’:
6. Once you’re back in the main screen, choose ‘1:1’ for Aspect Ratio. Use 1440 on 1080 pixels (full HD) or 1280 on 720 pixels (‘HD ready&rsquo
as resolution. If you would like to take something else, you can, but don’t forget to take the proportions into account. Since I am in Europe, I chose ‘25fps’ as framerate. Important here as well is the setting ‘Output each clip in a separate file’, because if you would be converting more than 1 file, everything would be put in 1 single file, and we don’t want that, do we?
7. Click on ‘Encode’. Click on the first button below left:
8. Encoding has launched. When the file is converted, a window will open with the directory containing your file:
I’ve put the video I used in this tutorial on Vimeo. Click on it to see it in HD on Vimeo.
I hope this tutorial was somehow useful to you. I based myself on a tutorial video found on Vimeo. This tutorial is adapted to my needs.
