Final Mate for Mac
Capture video footage from camcorder, join/split AVCHD without encoding, convert to Apple ProRes & AIC
Compact in size, light weight and fully featured, the Panasonic SD700 Professional Camcorder can be tailored to fit a wide range of individual needs. The Panasonic SD700 is geared for a wide range of applications where high image quality, extreme portability, and efficient workflow are of the utmost importance.
The Panasonic SD700 also offers multiple recording bit rates, resolutions and variable frame rates to expand creative flexibility, allowing users to work in virtually any production environment. And with infrared recording and true stereoscopic 3-D production capabilities, the Panasonic SD700 allows users to explore new creative outlets and emerging markets.
In order to test the performance of Panasonic SD700, I shot some videos in 1080 50p format. And I planed to import and edit MTS files to Final Cut Pro X, and finally play these videos on my Mac. I wondered if Final Cut Pro X supports MTS import, so I had a try and it turned out that 1080 50/60p MTS files were not able to be imported to FCP X while other resolution ratio of MTS files can be recognized by FCP X.
I believed I had to transcode the1080 50p videos to other formats, and I found a suitable tool to help me. Aunsoft Final Mate for Mac is a great camcorder tool which helps us convert or transcode MTS files to other video formats. For this time, I used it to convert 1080 50p MTS files to Apple ProRes 422, which can be easily recognized by FCP X and can be smoothly imported to it.
Following is the simple steps I did to test the performance of Panasonic SD700.
Step 1. Connect the Panasonic SD700 to Mac and import MTS files to Aunsoft Final Mate for Mac.
Connect Panasonic SD700 to Apple iMac/MacBook Pro via USB 2.0 cable and Aunsoft Final automatically ran soon after connecting. Then I was offered to choose backup MTS files in backstage or directly import them to camcorder resource tab. As I did not need a backup, I directly click the next button to import the selected MTS files to Final Mate for Mac.
Step 2. Choose the output format and path for MTS files.
I dragged and dropped the MTS files from resource tab to movie tab to create an output for conversion. Then I clicked the "Format" icon next to the movie, and chose the Apple ProRes 422 for output. Changing output path was not necessary, so I skipped and enter the next step.
Step 3. Convert Panasonic SD700 1080 50p MTS to Apple ProRes 422 for FCP X.
After finishing all the settings, I clicked the Export button to start conversion. When I was facing the conversion interface, I found there was an option giving me choices to change the path of temporary directories for Apple ProRes. I thought I need not have this change because the free space of my Mac hard drive was large enough to carry these temporary files.
All above were my converting processes, and importing Apple ProRes 422 files to FCP X were a peace of cake for me since I had used FCP many times.
