Alternative to tsMuxeR on snow leopard for joining/cutting AVCHD at best quality

Join AVCHD Clips-Join AVCHD retaining the Highest Quality on Mac

Canon camcorders provide simple video editing with cutting and trimming, so that you can get rid of the content without any sense and keep storage for useful recordings. However, when I play the clip on the LCD screen, I find it uneasy to split/cut AVCHD files. Even though Canon Vixia HF R20 is equipped with 3.0" Touch Panel LCD, the onboard feature of cutting/trimming/dividing video on Canon camcorder would take a long time for preview.

When it comes to Mac computer, things go more complicated as the bundled software in CD is only for Windows. When I googled camcorder software on Mac, some people suggested tsMuxeR, but it does not work on my iMac with Snow Leopard. I find Aunsoft Final Mate for Mac, as the perfect Mac alternative to tsMuxeR on Snow Leopard for joining/cutting AVCHD at best quality.

The step-by-step guide below may answer the question about how to preserve the best possible quality for AVCHD files on Mac.

Step 1. Import/Capture AVCHD files to Aunsoft Final Mate for Mac.
When Aunsoft Final Mate for Mac is run, it can automatically detect and pop up a wizard for you to capture video from camcorder. The videos would be listed on the "Camcorder" tab. And for the AVCHD files copied on Mac, just go to the "Resource" tab, click the "Add file path" button for the STREAM folder.

Step 2. Combine/Join clips into a movie as single file
Select the .mts or .m2ts files, drag and drop to the timeline and the files would be joined in sequence as one lossless movie. Alternatively, you can click the "Create New Movie" button, then drag and drop short clips to the movie ID to join the clips.

Step 3. Split/Cut AVCHD Clips with frame accuracy.
You can play the movie and pause at the timepoint you would like to cut off, then click the Split button to cut the video from the current frame. To get the exact frame for splitting/cutting, you can use the "Previous Frame" button and the "Next Frame" button. The "Goto" button would also help you quickly locate the video.

Step 4. Export AVCHD movie retaining the original raw video quality.
Click the "Export" button, and then the OK button. The Mac AVCHD cutter will start join/cut AVCHD Clips in native format without any conversion.

Hope you enjoy the workflow above to join/split/cut AVCHD MTS/M2TS files on Mac Snow Leopard, and preserve the highest quality without recompressing. The lossless HD videos will be ready in a few seconds.

Tips:
For users with PowerPC processor on iMac/MacBook, Aunsoft Video Converter for Mac would help you convert H.264 MOV files from DSLR cameras like Canon 7D, Nikon D3100, D7000 to Apple ProRes for FCP or AIC for iMovie/FCE at the best possible quality.

Join various MTS files-Merge/Convert Panasonic/Canon/Sony/JVC various MTS to ProRes for FCP without rendering

As the reason of recent activities, I have a lot of different .mts Videos for Editing. These .mts video most are from camera, camcorder, like Sony CX700, XR520,Sony Nex-5, Canon HF G10, HG20,HF100,Panasonic HDC-TM90,SD700,Lumix GH2.etc.Some .mts videos can be directly into FCP editing, some not. So in order to Edit all MTS Videos on FCP, I need a converter to Import and Convert various MTS. But separating each video conversion is a lot of trouble, so I will need to merge those mts videos into one and convert. Through Google search, I found Aunsoft Final Mate for Mac is the recommended MTS Joiner/Converter- can join and convert mts to FCP for editing on Mac. Then I download and try it. And I had successfully converted a total of 15.8G mts files to MOV and edit on FCP, I choose the Apple ProRes MOV as output format, so that I can import prores mov to fcp without rendering.

Following is the experience of using Final Mate for Mac to Merge and Convert Panasonic/Canon/Sony/JVC various AVCHD MTS files to ProRes 422 for editing on FCP.

Step 1 : Import various mts Files from Computer to Final Mate for Mac.
Click "Add" to browse computer and select a folder where video files are saved, then click “OK” to display all video files including various MTS files in Resource Tab.

Step 2. Create a Movie for Combining/Converting AVCHD MTS files.
Soon after the mts files are imported, you need to create a movie for conversion. There are two ways for you to create a Movie for converting imported various MTS files.

- The easiest one is dragging and dropping displayed various MTS files from Resource Tab to a single Movie.

- Another way is clicking the drop-down button of “Add Movie” icon and choose “For Conversion” to create a blank movie. And then drag and drop the video clips from Resource Tab to the blank movie in Movies Tab. In this way, all video clips will be merged as one single movie for conversion.

Step 3. Export ProRes video file for Final Cut Studio.
Click the Export and choose Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 HQ (*.mov) to output format for editing in Final Cut Pro. Apple ProRes 422 , Apple ProRes 4444,introduced in Final Cut Studio, was advertised to one of the codecs to result in less compression and higher data rate/higher quality files for HD editing in Final Cut Pro.

Tips: You are free to set/adjust output ProRes MOV files parameters (Bit rate - high quality, Frame rate - 30, Resolution/Size - 1920 x 1080, channel - 5.1 channel) to make a good output quality.

Step 4. Click OK to start Joining and Converting different AVCHD MTS to ProRes.
Click OK button, the software will automatic Join and Convert the various mts files into one big files.

When the conversion is finished, you can get big files for importing and editing on Final Cut Pro without rendering.

Tips: If you are using Final Cut Pro 5 or lower version, ProRes is not the best format for you. However, you can choose QuickTime Movie Format > Apple InterMediate Codec(AIC) as output format for editing on Mac.