Get Camcorder Video into Devices/Applications

Many friends like to shoot videos very much with their camcorders. After videotaping, they may like to publish a movie with the footages via editing with some video editors like FCP, iMovie, Sony Vegas, Windows Movie Maker and more, and then share it with mobile devices such as the Nexus 10, Galaxy S4, etc. but as we know, the camcorder shootings, are mostly encoded with AVCHD MTS/AVCHD Lite, or sometimes MXF format, which are neither accepted by the video editors, nor by the mobile devices.

Now let’s take a look at what these formats actually are:

MTS:
High-definition MPEG Transport Stream video format commonly called "AVCHD"; AVCHD stands for "Advanced Video Codec High Definition used by Sony, Panasonic, and other HD camcorders; based on the MPEG-2 transport stream and supports 720p and 1080i HD video formats.

AVCHD Lite:
AVCHD Lite identifies a subset of AVCHD format, in which progressive-scan video is limited to 720p (1280x720 resolution) Announced in January 2009, the Panasonic DMC-ZS3/DMC-FT1/DMC-TZ7 digital cameras were the first digital cameras to offer AVCHD-lite movie mode. In these early models, the sensor was limited to 25fps (PAL)/30fps(NTSC), which was then recorded in a AVCHD 720p50/60 format bitstream (using picture flags to instruct the decoder to display each stored frame twice.) Since then, Panasonic has added AVCHD-lite to more of its camcorders and digital cameras. In newer models such as the DMC FZ-200, the sensor captures a full 50fps/60fps for video recording.

MXF:
Multimedia format used by digital audio and video programs; contains captured audio and video data as well as metadata that describes the media stored in the file; designed by Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) as a standard container for audio and video data; can be converted into other formats, such as .AVI or .MOV.

As we can infer from the information above, these file formats are special, and will not be recognized by devices/applications, so if you want to import camcorder footages such as Panasonic Lumix FZ45 AVCHD Lite or Panasonic P2 MXF to the editors like FCP/iMovie for editing, you should convert Panasonic Lumix FZ45 AVCHD Lite to MOV or Panasonic P2 MXF to MOV via a professional Mac AVCHD Converter/Mac MXF Converter. Provided that you are a Windows user, you can try the Windows Version.

After the conversion, you will be able to edit the camcorder videos in FCP/iMovie and more. Besides, you can also you this powerful converter to convert videos to mobile devices like converting MTS to Nexus 10 and M4V to Galaxy S4 and so on.

Practical Tips for Video Conversion FAQ

As we all know, the best way to solve the video format compatibility problem is to convert that video to another common videos. If you are a video zealot, or IT guru, you may easily get the quickest way to conduct the conversion right. However, not all people care much about these stuffs until they need to do the conversion, so they may have questions about what exactly the target video format they should convert to so as to make the unaccepted videos be played well. Let’s look at what people frequently asked about the video conversion:

Q: "I have got shot some AVI videos with my Toshiba Camileo, but they cannot be edited with FCP and iMovie. What’s the problem?"---a friend asked

A: Well, AVI is not the supported file format of iMovie, Final Cut Pro (FCP), and Final Cut Express (FCE), etc. maybe because AVI is Microsoft's response to Apple's QuickTime technology. To solve this problem, the best way is to convert AVI to DV.

Q: "I recently bought the most amazing 15’ Macbook Pro along with final cut Pro, hoping to put together video files from my JVC hard drive camcorder. The files from the camera are .mod and are not recognized by FCP (at least I can't figure out how). Any help on what I have to do? Thanks for your help!" --- From forums.macrumors.com

A: Generally speaking, MOD file is generated by JVC and Panasonic cameras. This kind of video format is now widely used by many famous camcorders since MOD can save videos in high compression rate and great image quality. However, MOD format is not compatible with most video editors such as FCP, iMoive, etc. So, if you want to edit MOD files with these editors, just convert MOD to MOV and the problem will be solved.

Q: "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is coming soon! I’m really excited about it! I like enjoying watching videos with my phone or my tablet when I was free, and I have got a bundle of DVD disc on hand, so my question is that can I play these DVDs with the newest Galaxy S4? "----from TalkAndroid

A: Well, to play DVD movies with Galaxy S4 would be a brilliant idea! But I have to say that it is not possible for you to load the videos directly from DVD to the phone. Instead, you should transfer the DVD videos to you computer firsr, and then convert the videos to Galaxy S4 accepted formats. Don’t have any idea? Try this all-round DVD Converter.

Q: "I want to play DivX videos on iPhone 5, which supports MP4 format only. It’s really irritating to convert DivX to MP4 but without lose their quality. Anyone can help?" Rohan Knouse asked in the Android forum.

A: Many people would like to watch DivX movies with their portable devices that have high resolution display, just like iPhone 5, but hardly can these devices compatible with DivX files. As the friend has mentioned above, you can convert the video’s format from DivX to MP4 because the majority of popular devices can recognize MP4 format. For the quality loss issue after the conversion, you can try this Video Converter, which will preserve the original video quality in 100%.

1080P MKV Videos Playback on Sony Xperia Z/Samsung Galaxy S4

MKV is one of the most widely used video formats today, so it would not be strange to us, isn’t it? Today, many people would like to adopt MKV format in saving their HD videos. It is also favored by the anime and TV shows fan-subbing community since MKV supports multiple audio and subtitle tracks in a single video file. As MKV is such a great format container with that many advantages, some newly designed mobile devices now can somewhat support to play MKV videos.

Nowadays, many mobile devices are designed with big screens, providing high resolution display. Such kind of devices could be outstanding for enjoying high definition videos and movies anywhere. Clearly, to get 1080P MKV videos playback on popular mobile devices will certainly be of great fun. Which is the best device for us to enjoy videos? Well, let’s take a have a look at two of the new favorite in the consumer electrics market:

Xperia Z is the brand new flagship smartphone of Sony. After the HTC Butterfly, the Xperia Z is the second phone to sport a 1080p display. The phone sports a 5-inch TFT display that has a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels and a pixel density of 441ppi. The screen is bright and vivid, and text looks extremely crisp while app icons and images look sharp. Images and videos look spectacular thanks to the addition of Sony's BRAVIA Engine 2.

The Galaxy S4, which has been announced to be unveiled by Samsung at its own exclusive event in New York on March 14, is expected to have a full-HD 1920×1080 display (up from 1280×720 on the S3) — and the display might even make the jump from 4.8 inches to an edge-to-edge 5 inches. It remains to be seen whether the underlying tech will be AMOLED or LCD, though reports suggest that Samsung’s AMOLED production line isn’t ready to produce 1920×1080 5-inch displays, while the LCD production line is raring to go. Maybe this will mean that the Galaxy S4 can finally compete with the iPhone in terms of image quality and accuracy.

As has been talked about above, these brand new devices will probably be able to play videos in a wide range of formats like MPEG4, WMV, MP4, DivX, XviD, FLV, H.263, H.264, AVI (divx), MKV, etc. However, that doesn’t mean they can recognize all MKV videos, since MKV is only a container format which could be consist of various different video codecs, so sometimes we may encounter the format compatibility problems, especially when we try to play 1080p MKV with these devices like importing MKV to Galaxy S4 or 1080p MKV to Sony Xperia Z. In this circumstance, we’ll need to convert 1080P MKV to H.264 MP4.

Tips: If you want to do the conversion, such as to convert MKV to Galaxy S4 and convert MKV to Sony Xperia Z MP4, you may need this smart and professional Video Converter (Video Converter for Mac).