Thursday, September 4, 2014

VLC AVCHD Playback- Play and Convert AVCHD Files with VLC Media Player

Wonder how to smoothly play AVCHD media files on your VLC Media Player? Read on to find the solutions here.

VLC Media Player is a lightweight media utility that won't use a lot of your computer's available system resources while playing video files. AVCHD Video (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is an effective file format for camcorders and digital cameras with HD recording capability. AVCHD Video's foremost advantages are contained in much smaller files on your hard drive and achieving Full 1920x1080 Resolution.


How to play AVCHD Videos with VLC?

Tip 1: If you meet a VLC Media Player No Sound Problem, here is a solution.

Step 1: Download VLC from Videolan.org. Install and launch the software when installation is complete.

Step 2: Connect your AVCHD camera or camcorder with your computer using a camera cable. Turn on your camera and set it to playback mode. And when your camera is detected by windows explorer, go to the "My Computer" section and open the camera by double clicking the device icon.

Locate the AVCHD file that you want to play and drag and drop it into the computer or any other specific folder. Alternatively, you can click on the 'media' button on the top left corner of VLC interface and then press 'open file' button.

vlc add media

Step 3: Then you can go direct to the AVCHD file location, select and click 'open'. Your AVCHD Files will automatically start to play with VLC Media Player.

vlc locate avchd

Troublesome issue:

However, as for one of the most popular AVCHD playback tools, VLC still has some shortcomings. Firstly, if your VLC version is not up to date, there's a chance that you will only see a grey background, and will hear the sound for a while, but it can crash after that. Moreover, if you don't have sufficient fire power on your Windows PC, there's a very big chance that you will only see flashes of images and will only hear sound. You may also see broken video images (lines going through it). And besides that, the playing process always encounter unexpected troubles. Even try it on the Centrino.

Don't worry! Here are some suggestions that will guide you out of this trouble.

Solution 1: You can use VLC to convert AVCHD files 

Tip 2: By using VLC, you can convert video files, download Youtube videos, etc. Many powerful functions!

Step 1:
Click the "Media" tab and select the option "Save/Convert."

vlc convert avchd

Proceed to the top left corner of VLC and click the "File" tab.

file tab

Step 2: Click "Add" button of VLC to access the search screen pop up section that shows the contents of the hard drive.

vlc add

Select your desired AVCHD and click on the "Open" button to load your desired AVCHD file. Then click "Save/Convert" button to access the Convert window.

vlc convert

Step 3: Press the drop-down box named "Profile" and select a format you need for fit VLC. There are several options that include MPEG-2, WMV, MPEG-4, ASF and many others each designed with their own encoding types.

profile settings

Step 4: You can go into the advanced setting and change some settings. You may also create your own profile to hold your output video.

Step 5: Click the "Browse" button to choose a save computer folder for your converted file. Rename your converted file. Make sure to put the file extension for the format that you previously chose. Click the "Save" button to return to the Convert window sections.

save file

Step 6: Click the "Start" button to start the conversation process.

start conversion

Solution 2: You can use Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate to convert AVCHD as an alternative way.

The following are the pros of using VLC Converter:
  • Supports outputting a wide range of video and audio formats
  • Good converter with hotkey support
  • Easy to use interface and features
  • Very lightweight and flexible
  • Convert various formats as well as Blu-ray, DVD discs
Step 1: Add AVCHD files

Install and launch this best AVCHD to VLC Converter; click the "Add Video" button to import the AVCHD files.

Convert AVCHD Files with VLC Media Player

Step 2: Choose VLC most compatible format

Click Format bar to choose output format and you can choose MP4, AVI, MKV or other common formats for playing with VLC.

best format for playing with VLC

P.S. You can adjust the parameters by clicking "settings" button, choose the resolution, bitrate, frame rate as you want.

Step 3: Convert AVCHD to VLC

Click Convert button to start encoding AVCHD files for playing in VLC player.

After the conversion, tap the Open icon in the main interface and you can locate the converted files there. Just add the files to your VLC, and you can play the converted AVCHD on VLC easily without any issues.

Tip 3: If you are mac users, try Pavtube iMedia Converter for Mac, which can also stream DVD to VOB for Playback on VLC.

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Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Transcoding Avid MXF Media with DaVinci Resolve Lite

Read this awesome guide, you can learn how to transcode Avid MXF Media with DaVinci Resolve Lite.

With an incredible range of digital film cameras available, DaVinci Resolve includes more native camera file support so you can grade directly from the camera files to get the best results. Let's learn how to transcode Avid MXF with DaVinci Resolve Lite in this article.

A recent projet required the editorial department to transcode dailies using a set-generated LUT for the ARRI Alexa camera. The simplest method to transcode media, apply LUT, and prepare for cutting with Avid Media Composer is using DaVinci Resolve Lite.



Grab your free copy from the DaVinci web site. Ensure the latest version is compatible with your exact version of OS X. For example, we needed to use Resolve Lite version 8.2.1 (betta) with OS X 10.7.4. We ran with a Mac Pro (mid-2010) with 12-core Intel Xeon, 8 GB of RAM, and ATI Radeon 5770 HD graphics card. Resolve would rather have a dedicated GPU such as the Quadro 4000, we found the Radeon to transcode in nearly real-time.

Resolve version 8 will not pass-through audio so the transcoded media will be sans audio. Sync in the Avid.

TRANSCODING 

The following steps will get you going in Resolve and ensure the transcoded media includes metadata for Avid’s Tape column and later conform.

  • Open Resolve. 
  • In Preferences, add your source and destination drives or Resolve won’t see them. Restart Resolve. 
  • In CONFIG panel > Project Tab > choose 32 bit floating point, DaVince YRGB, 1920×1080 square pixel. 
  • In CONFIG panel > Project tab > Timeline Conform options, choose the right timecode speed for the project. 
  • In same tab, check “Embedded in the source clip,” check “Assist…” and check “Source clip file pathname” and use the pattern: */%R.* 
  • Which is star slash percent R period star. Click Apply. 
  • In CONFIG panel > LUTs tab > click “Load 3D Input Lookup Table” menu and select your desired LUT. ClickApply. 
  • In BROWSE panel > Media Storage > select your source drive/folder/clips, right click, and choose “Add Folders and Subfolders to Media Pool.” 
  • In CONFORM panel > Timeline Management > click New (+), and click OK. 
  • In FORMAT panel > scroll through each clip and check HFlip and VFlip as needed to flop/invert clips. 
  • In same panel > click the first clip, click Select All, then menu items Session > Render. 
  • For Render properties, check Use Prefix, Suffix, No. of Digits from Source 
  • For Output Type, select MXF / DNxHD such as DNxHD 36 1080p. 
  • For Rendering Mode, check Source and leave other options unchecked. 
  • For Data Level, select Normally Scaled Legal Video. 
  • Choose a Destination Path and click Render. 

AVID IMPORT 

You can’t directly import MXF media into the Avid. Instead, create a new folder inside Avid MediaFiles/MXF and drag the transcoded MXF files here. Switch back to Avid and the media database will be updated. Create a new bin. Switch back to Finder. Drag the msm.db file into this new bin.

There are alternate methods to use the MediaFiles folder such as an external drive, moving media from a temp folder into a permanent one, etc. Use whatever works but you need to follow the preceding paragraph to ensure the clips are imported.

As the procedure above is too complex, if you want to find an easy way, you can transcode Avid MXF files to someting which can be easily adapted to fit for the video processing in DaVinci Resolve with Pavtube MXF MultiMixer/iMixMXF. Here is the workflow.

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Monday, August 25, 2014

Avid Everywhere—Delivering on Our Vision for the Media Industry

Avid Company shares “Avid Everywhere,” its strategic vision for creating the most fluid end-to-end, distributed media production environment in the industry.

At IBC, Avid shed some light on the its new strategic vision "Avid Everywhere" with a news conference and the release of a white paper.

Avid Everywhere

What is Avid Everywhere

At first glance, I assumed that Avid Everywhere was an Adobe Anywhere inspired rebranding of InterPlay Central and InterPlay Sphere. I was wrong, Avid Everywhere is about more than collaborative video editing.

Vision and strategy

Avid Technology is a company with a diverse range of hardware and software products, covering content creation (video, audio, graphics, news), asset management, audio/video hardware i/o, consoles and control surfaces, storage and servers.

The Avid Everywhere event was less about specific product details and more about defining the direction of the company. The centerpiece of the vision is a common services platform called Avid MediaCentral.

Avid MediaCentral

Most users who are editing and audio professionals will mainly associate Avid with the Artist Suite tier. This is the layer of content creation tools, including Media Composer, Pro Tools, Sibelius and the control surfaces that came out of Digidesign and Euphonix, including the Artist panels. If you are a single user of Media Composer, Pro Tools or Sibelius and own no other Avid infrastructure, like ISIS or Interplay, then the entire Avid Everywhere media platform doesn’t touch you very much for now.

The top layer of the platform chart is MediaCentral | UX, which was formerly known as Interplay Central. This is a web front-end that allows you to browse, log and notate Interplay assets from a desktop computer, laptop or mobile device.

Surrounding the entire structure are support services (tech support and professional integration services) plus a private and public marketplace. Media Composer software has included a Marketplace menu item for a few versions. Until now, this has been a web portal to buy plug-ins and stock footage. The updated vision for this is more along the lines of services like SoundCloud, Adobe’s Behance service or the files section of Creative Cloud.  To make this work, the Avid MediaCentral Platform includes things like proper security to enable such transactions.

All clouds are not the same

I started this post with the comment that I feel many editors confuse Adobe Anywhere and Avid Everywhere. I believe that’s because they mistakenly interpret Avid Everywhere as the specific version of the Media Composer product that enables remote-access editing. As I’ve explained above, Everywhere is a concept and vision, not a product. That specific Media Composer product (formerly Interplay Sphere) is now branded as Media Composer | Cloud. As a product, it most closely approximates Adobe Anywhere, but there are key differences.

Media Composer Cloud

Adobe Anywhere is a system that requires a centralized server and storage. Any computer with Premiere Pro CC or CC 2014 can remotely access the assets on this system, which streams proxy media back to that computer. All the “heavy lifting” is done at the central site and the editor’s Premiere Pro is effectively working only as a local front-end.

In contrast, Media Composer | Cloud is primarily a plug-in that works with an otherwise standard version of the Media Composer software. In order for it to function, the “home base” facility must have an appropriate Interplay/ISIS infrastructure so that Media Composer | Cloud can talk to it. In Avid marketing parlance “you’ve got to get on the platform” for some of these things to work.

Sphere Upload Settings

Media Composer | Cloud permits hybrid editing. For example, a news videographer in the field can be editing at the proverbial Starbucks using local assets. Maybe part of the story requires access to past b-roll footage that lives back at the station on its newsroom storage. Through Media Composer | Cloud and Interplay, the videographer can access those files as proxies and integrate them into the piece. Meanwhile, local assets can be uploaded back to the station.

While not everything about Avid Everywhere has been fully implemented, yet, it certainly is an aggressive strategy. It is an attempt to move the company as a whole into areas beyond just editing software, while still allowing users and owners to leverage their Avid assets into other opportunities.

How to Import video into Avid Media Composer?

First, make sure the right bin or folder is selected, otherwise the ‘Import…’ option might be greyed out. Then, go to File > Import…. You will be prompted to select the video or stills you want to import.

Important Note: You must choose a transcode format if you are using this method. I recommend DNxHD while you’re in Avid. That means if you want to transfer unsupported files into Avid Media Composer including 108060p AVCHD .MTS, MXF, Sony XDCAM, 4K XAVC, MPG, MKV, MP4 or VOB etc, you’d better transcode them to Avid most likely format DNxHD .mov. To get it done, Pavtube HD Video Converter (or the Mac) version is highly recommended to you.

More info:

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Transcode Sony TD30V/B 3D MTS to MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, ASF, SWF, FLV for editing, sharing on Mac

Read this article if you are interested in transcode Sony TD30V/B 3D MTS to MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, ASF, SWF, FLV for editing, sharing on Mac, it offers a possible solution for dealing with 3D AVCHD video.

First and foremost the most appealing aspect in any camcorder is that it produces high-quality video. The Sony HDR-TD30V/B provides you with video quality that, not long ago, would have been inconceivable out of even a high-end consumer-level camcorder. With gorgeous 1080i 3D video recording in a sleek, portable package, this camcorder warrants every penny charged.
Sony TD30V/B 3D


Recorded lots of amazing 3D mts videos with Sony HDR-TD30V/B? Wanna share this 3D AVCHD mts from TD30V/B with your friends or family, and do some editing work with them in mac programs?

Now with Pavtube MTS/M2TS Converter for Mac, you can make Sony HDR-TD30V/B recorded 3D AVCHD editable in FCP X, iMovie, FCE, Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, etc, playable on media players or portable devices and uploadable onto Youtube. What's more, this top 3D MTS Converter for Mac allows you to split one file into several, specify output file size, adjust various output parameters to get custom files, output 3D MKV/MP4/MOV/WMV/AVI with Side-by-Side, Top-Bottom, or Anaglyph (Red-Blue) video to satisfy multiple requirements.

Now just download the app and follow the step-by-step guide to transcode Sony TD30V/B 3D MTS to MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, ASF, SWF, FLV for editing, sharing on Mac.

1. Connect your TD30V/B camera to Mac and keep it on. Launch the best Mac 3D MTS Converter app; click the top left two icons to load your footages individually or in batch correspondingly.

3D MTS Converter for Mac

2.
Click the Format bar to select output format. If you only want to get 2D video in MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, ASF, SWF, FLV format, just choose the format you need.

MPEG-2 format

P.S. If you want to output 3D video for editing or playing, you can choose format from “3D Video” option.

3. Hit the Convert button to start transcoding Sony TD30V/B 3D AVCHD MTS files to MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, ASF, SWF, FLV.

When the conversion task is finished, click “Open” button to get the exported files and then import the converted 3D MTS video for editing, sharing on Mac.

More features of this top 3D MTS Converter Mac:

a. In case the default settings do not fit your requirement, you can click “Settings” button and enter “Profile Settings” panel to adjust video size, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channels.

b. If you want to merge multiple MTS files into one for easy editing, please tick the box "Merge into one file" to merge all the imported clips.

c. In case the MTS footage is taken under interlacing mode, just click "Edit" to go to Video Editor, and hit Effect to select Deinterlacing and interlacing lines will be eliminated. (Checked by default)

d.  This app works for most professional 3D camcorders like Sony HDR-TD10, Sony DSC-WX30, Sony HDR-TD20, JVC Everio GS-TD1, Panasonic HDC-Z10000, Panasonic AG-3DA1 etc.

This top 3D MTS Converter Mac can help you convert Sony TD30V/B 3D MTS footage to any format you want standard 2D and 3D video. 


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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Monday, August 18, 2014

MP4 in PowerPoint - How to Insert MP4 into PowerPoint for playing?

Do you want to insert MP4 Videos to PowerPoint for playing? This article mainly explains why can't we directly use MP4 in PowerPoint and introduces the easy solution to embed all kinds of mp4 files into PowerPoint for presentation. 

Some types of software take YouTube and other videos from video sharing sites and save them in file formats that you can watch without needing to be connected to the Internet. Many of these videos are saved in the MP4 file format. 

Hot search: MP4 to PowerDVD | MP4 to HTTP Live Stream | MP4 to Sony Movie Studio | H.264 MP4 to H.265 MP4 | MP4 Files with Adobe Premiere Pro 

Part I: While PowerPoint does not allow you to directly insert an MP4 file into a PowerPoint presentation? 

 

For PowerPoint 2007, 2003 or lower version: According to Microsoft PowerPoint official website, PowerPoint 2007, 2003 or lower version only supports WMV, AVI, ASF, and MPG/MPEG four video formats. If you import other video formats like MP4 to those version of PowerPoint, it will end in fail. 

For PowerPoint 2010: Though PowerPoint 2010 announced to embed and play MP4 files, it has some limitations: 

a: You need have the QuickTime player installed on your computer and you can only insert an Apple QuickTime movie (.mov, .mp4) file to PPT 2010. 

b: The PowerPoint 2010 64-bit version is not compatible with 32-bit versions of QuickTime. You must install a 64-bit version of QuickTime, or a 32-bit version of PowerPoint 2010. 

For PowerPoint 2013: In PowerPoint 2013, .mp4 videos encoded with H.264 video (a.k.a. MPEG-4 AVC) and AAC audio is recommended. However, even though your video file have the .mp4 file extension, it may not play correctly if the correct version of the codec is not installed, or if the file is not programmed in a format that is recognized by your version of Microsoft Windows. 

Therefore, we often meet difficulty in inserting MP4 to PowerPoint, let alone to play MP4 in PowerPoint successfully. Then how to get mp4 files easily embeded and played in PowerPoint? The answer is to convert mp4 to PowerPoint compatible AVI, WMV, ASF, MPG videos. Now let's go to learn how to do it. 



Part II: How to convert MP4 Videos for inserting and playing in PowerPoint 

Step 1. Run the Pavtube Video Converter, drag and drop source video to the program. 

  

Other Download: 
- Pavtube old official address: http://www.pavtube.com/video_converter/ 
- Amazon Download: http://download.cnet.com/Pavtube-Video-Converter/3000-2194_4-75734821.html 
- Cnet Download: http://download.cnet.com/Pavtube-Video-Converter/3000-2194_4-75734821.html 


Overall, the all-in-one program can easily convert Blu-ray DVD disc, DVD folder, DVD IFO/ISO file and various videos inluding the MP4 files to any video format like AVI, WMV, MPG, FLV, F4V, SWF, H.264, MKV, 3GP, RMVB, WebM, VOB and more for playing in any version of PowerPoint Presentation including PowerPoint 2010, 2007, 2003, 2000, 2002, 2005 or even PowerPoint 95, 97. If you are Mac users, try Pavtube Video Converter for Mac

 

Step 2. Click on "Format" bar, and Choose PowerPoint compatible format. 

Choose the PowerPoint supported formats in the "Format" dropdown list. You can go to "Common Video" and find "MPEG-1 Video (*.mpg)" which works well with both Windows and Mac version of PowerPoint. What's more, WMV is well supported by PowerPoint for Windows; MOV is well supported by PowerPoint for Mac. 

 

But, here you are recommended to choose the Apple devices like iPad, iPone, Apple TV, etc directly. Find a suitable format under these Apple devices options. 

Tips: For some advances users, you can go to adjust video and audio parameters like bitrate, resolution, channels, etc. Click "Settings" button you can go to check and change them as you like. 

Step 3. Press on "Convert" to start encoding MP4 Videos to Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation compatible video. 

Step 4. When conversion completes, press on "Open" to locate converted videos. 




Part III: Embed video in PowerPoint 

Before starting adding video to PowerPoint, you need to create a folder and put both your converted video and your PowerPoint presentation in this folder. Then open the PowerPoint in this folder to insert the converted video file which is just located in this folder. 

For PowerPoint2003: 

View the appropriate slide in normal view where you want to insert the converted video. 
Go to the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, and then select Movie from File. An insert movie dialog will pop up where you need to search for and insert the converted file. 

 

Then an alert box pops up asking "How do you want the movie to start in the slid show?" To play the movie automatically, click automatically. To start your movie by clicking the mouse, click When Clicked. 

 

For PowerPoint 2007: 

View the appropriate slide in normal view where you want to insert the converted video. 
Click on Insert tab and select Movie to insert video into PowerPoint just as in PowerPoint 2003. 

 

In this way, you can insert and enjoy your favorite MP4 Videos on any version of PowerPoint including PowerPoint 2010, 2007, 2003, 2000, 2002, 2005 or even PowerPoint 95, 97.. 

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Sunday, August 17, 2014

Importing Sony Alpha a7S XAVC-S files to Premiere Pro and After Effects for editing smoothly

If you have issues with importing Sony Alpha a7S XAVC-S to Premiere Pro and After Effects, just follow this article to solve.  

Sony Alpha a7S is amazing! Great camera, overall. I'm primarily using this camera for film, but love taking stills with it. It takes wonderful stills, so don't let a 12.2 megapixel camera fool you. The wide shots are amazing and the video quality is wonderful. The only problem I encountered was the file format. The XAVC S codec it shoots in wraps its files into MP4s. These files are extremely difficult to import into all my major film editing softwares, like Premiere Pro and After Effects.

According to our experience and other user's feedback, to make your Sony Alpha a7S XAVC-S workflow in Premiere Pro and After Effects smoothly, it’s highly recommended converting a7S XAVC-S clips to MPEG-2 for Premiere/AE editing use.

Here comes Pavtube HD Video Converter for Mac to do so. It is the best Mac a7S XAVC-S Converter or compressor to help you edit the XAVC-S clips from a7S you shoot in Premiere Pro and After Effects without rending, you can go to download it and have a free try! Below I will outline how to convert Sony Alpha a7S XAVC-S footage to Premiere Pro and After Effects compatible format for editing on Mac.

Step 1: Copy Sony Alpha a7S media on to the Storage Drive in a folder.

Step 2: Launch the best Mac XAVC-S Video Converter. Click the "Add" button for adding to import the xavc-s files from a7S.

Mac XAVC-S Video Converter

Step 3: Click on the dropdown menu of "Format", and then move your pointer to Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas> MPEG-2 (*.mpg) which is the perfect video format for you to transfer Sony Alpha a7S XAVC-S to Premiere Pro and After Effects. Then you can set the output folder by clicking "Browse" icon as you prefer.

Premiere Pro and After Effects Format

Step 4: Click "Settings" icon to adjust audio and video parameter. You can change the default codec, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channel according to your needs and optimize the output file quality.

Note: To get original(best) video quality, you can keep original video size and bitrate.

Step 5: Click the "Convert" button and it will convert Sony Alpha a7S XAVC-S files to MPG video for editing in Premiere Pro and After Effects immediately.

Step 6: Once the Mac MTS to Premiere/AE conversion is done, you will be able to get the output files for Premiere Pro and After Effects via clicking on "Open" button effortlessly.

Now you can easily import the converted mpg footage in Premiere Pro and After Effects for editing keeping high quality effortlessly.

If you are windows users, try Pavtube HD Video Converter.

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