Codec not supported
Gunivortus
Add -strict experimental after -acodec aac.
/data/assets/logo/android-chrome-192x192.png
LWKS Forum
Mediacoder is a GUI for a variety of back-end source encoders including MEncoder, (sibling of MPlayer) not just FFMPEG. See screen grab which lists them all. I had both the "source" selection and "encoder" set to "auto-select" when I did the .mts re-wrap to mp4. So, it is possible that it did not use FFMPEG to do the re-wrap.

Note in the above screen grab that I have chosen "manual select" for the source--this is only to show the drop down menu that reveals the whole range used by Mediacoder. However, when doing MTS re-wrap, both "encoder" and "source" were set to "auto-select". See the pdf file in my earlier post.

An advantage of Mediacoder is that it installs all the back-end audio and video encoders it needs itself. There is no need to install them separately.

So this may be the Swiss army knife we have been looking for. Did you manage to get the sound sorted out for AVCHD or are you still using Audacity?

also I have been wondering what is a good HD codec that LW can play to standardize on. Uncompressed HD is one way to go but I imagine it uses massive amounts of diskspace. Is there another format that provides a good space/quality compromise. I notice that Standard Prores seems to use around 4 times that of HDV so something using this amount of storage may be worth aiming for.

It would also be good if it played on a dual core box.

Ben

OK, I think I have found the right audio settings in Mediacoder to convert from .mts to .mp4 with 5.1 surround AC-3 audio transcoded to 5.1 surround sound AAC. The video is re-wrapped (not transcoded). The resulting file plays in VLC with both picture and sound OK. LW imports both video and all 6 surround sound audio tracks at the same time from the mp4 file thus eliminating the need to use Audacity.

I have done another pdf file showing the settings for all the relevant Mediacoder tabs.

The only weird thing is that the video frame rate is mysteriously changed from 25 fps to 50 fps even though "copy video" is selected on the video tab and "original" frame rate is selected on the picture tab. I don't understand why this happens.

These are the steps.

1. import the mts file into Medicoder.

2. on the video tab select "copy video" and "auto select" for both encoder and source.

3. On the picture tab select "original" for frame rate and "keep display AR" in the aspect ratio drop down menu.

4. On the audio tab:

a) select "LC-AAC" in format drop down menu

b) select "FAAC" in encoder drop down menu.

c) In the source drop down menu, select "MEncoder".

d) Make sure "copy audio" is deselected.

e) On the right hand side click the FAAC tab and select "mp4" for both the MPEG version radio button and the container drop down menu.

5. On the container tab select MP4.

6. On the sound tab in the channels drop down menu select "original"

7. Hit the start button.

An mp4 file is created very quickly that plays in VLC with both and sound OK.

Playback in LW

The imported footage does not play smoothly in LW but as drkuli pointed out in another thread this is very possibly down to LW's current problems with long GOP. Greg_E's winter road file played back in much the same way. Improved handling of long GOP is on the Lightworks roadmap

In the meantime, if you want the footage to play smoothly in LW, import the mp4 with Lightworks' transcode function using MPEG I-frame HD/AVI. There is a bitrate choice of 50 MB-250 MB. If you are importing from an external USB drive best use 50 MB bitrate as Greg_E suggests in an earlier post.

Keep the mp4 file for future use when LW's handling of long GOP is improved.

View attachment mts2mp4_2011-04-14.pdf

Something else that is strange. Mediainfo reveals that the original MTS file is 1920 x 1080 interlaced. It also shows that the mp4 created by Mediacoder is also 1920 x 1080 interlaced. See below. However, the import tool in LW displays the mp4 file as "HD 1080p" (see screen grab below).

Original MTS file Mediainfo analysis

General

ID : 0 (0x0)

Complete name : C:\Users\username\Desktop\Tom drinking milk_00001.MTS

Format : BDAV

Format/Info : Blu-ray Video

File size : 326 MiB

Duration : 2mn 37s

Overall bit rate : 17.3 Mbps

Maximum Overall bit rate : 18.0 Mbps

Video

ID : 4113 (0x1011)

Menu ID : 1 (0x1)

Format : AVC

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile : High@L4.0

Format settings, CABAC : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames

Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=26

Codec ID : 27

Duration : 2mn 38s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 16.2 Mbps

Maximum bit rate : 16.0 Mbps

Width : 1 920 pixels

Height : 1 080 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Frame rate : 25.000 fps

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Interlaced

Scan order : Top Field First

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.312

Stream size : 305 MiB (93%)

Audio

ID : 4352 (0x1100)

Menu ID : 1 (0x1)

Format : AC-3

Format/Info : Audio Coding 3

Mode extension : CM (complete main)

Codec ID : 129

Duration : 2mn 38s

Bit rate mode : Constant

Bit rate : 448 Kbps

Channel(s) : 6 channels

Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE

Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz

Bit depth : 16 bits

Compression mode : Lossy

Delay relative to video : -80ms

Stream size : 8.44 MiB (3%)

Text

ID : 4608 (0x1200)

Menu ID : 1 (0x1)

Format : PGS

Codec ID : 144

Duration : 2mn 37s

Delay relative to video : -80ms

MP4 created by Mediacoder Mediainfo analysis

General

Complete name : C:\Users\username\Desktop\Tom drinking milk_00001.mp4

Format : MPEG-4

Format profile : Base Media

Codec ID : isom

File size : 308 MiB

Duration : 2mn 38s

Overall bit rate : 16.3 Mbps

Writing application : Lavf52.61.0

Video

ID : 1

Format : AVC

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile : High@L4.0

Format settings, CABAC : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames

Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=26

Codec ID : avc1

Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding

Duration : 2mn 38s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 15.9 Mbps

Maximum bit rate : 16.0 Mbps

Width : 1 920 pixels

Height : 1 080 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Frame rate mode : Constant

Frame rate : 50.000 fps

Original frame rate : 25.000 fps

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Interlaced

Scan order : Top Field First

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.154

Stream size : 300 MiB (98%)

Audio

ID : 2

Format : AAC

Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec

Format profile : LC

Codec ID : 40

Duration : 2mn 38s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 372 Kbps

Channel(s) : 6 channels

Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE

Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz

Compression mode : Lossy

Stream size : 7.01 MiB (2%)

Language : English

Mediacoder seems to play XDCam EX files but I can't seem to get a file exported for testing in Lightworks, have to do more digging. Also Mediacoder seems to support the VFW codecs that we need to install to make Lightworks operate, it might be worth while to export directly into one of those codecs to allow Lightworks to handle the files. Again I am using words like "seems to" because I have not been able to prove these points.

Do you mean use Mediacoder to transcode directly to MPEG I-frame HD/AVI rather than AVC/MP4? It would be good to be able to do both. One day in the near future LW will be able to handle long GOP better--it is on the roadmap. But in the meantime, it might be more pragmatic to transcode to MPEG I-frame HD. I see that Mediacoder has an option to use system codecs which presumably will include the Matrox VfW.

The Mpeg at 100mbps should be a pretty decent codec to use, just keep in mind that on many USB connected disks this is about all the speed you are going to get from them (12.x MBps) so that would be single stream of playback. Mpeg at 50mbps might be a better choice for some people.

OK, I guess 100mbps is fairly similar to ProRes but I thought 50mbps was acceptable to BBC so is it not a bit OTT. I guess my thing is I am talking about TV and corporate not high end (i.e. Film). BTW is Mpeg 100mbps 10bit colour depth (is it mpeg 1,2,3,4? Ime not exactly a hard core techie when it comes to codecs).

OK, I think I have found the right audio settings in Mediacoder to convert from .mts to .mp4 with 5.1 surround AC-3 audio transcoded to 5.1 surround sound AAC. The video re-wrapped. The resulting file plays in VLC with both picture and sound OK. LW imports both video and all 6 surround sound audio tracks into LW at the same time from the mp4 file thus eliminating the need to use Audacity.

Wow is it always 5.1? I generally don't use the internal microphone. I generally plug in a mono microphone for most things. Does LW even handle 5.1?

OK, I think I have found the right audio settings in Mediacoder to convert from .mts to .mp4 with 5.1 surround AC-3 audio transcoded to 5.1 surround sound AAC. The video is re-wrapped (no transcoding). The resulting file plays in VLC with both picture and sound OK. LW imports both video and all 6 surround sound audio tracks into LW at the same time from the mp4 file thus eliminating the need to use Audacity.

Wow is it always 5.1? I generally don't use the internal microphone. I generally plug in a mono microphone for most things. Does LW even handle 5.1?

Well, LW appears to be able to import and extract 6 tracks of audio from a single mp4 file and so I am guessing it does support 5.1. LW was originally designed for film editing and feature films, for example, do sometimes use surround sound.