We would love to provide SDEs at weddings. We're just too busy. If I had an app on my laptop (or even better on my camera) that plays the raw avchd files consecutively? I'm thinking that I could copy the files from the card to the laptop and put the best ones back onto the card. Would that work? Does the Playstation do that?

Hi Dana

Panasonic tell you not to copy stuff to the card the normal way as the thumbnails get corrupted BUT you can use HD Writer to do the job I believe???

I'm assuming your HMC170's have an HDMI output..they surely must have as my HMC72's have one and the software that came with the camera does have a writeback feature. However one assumes you will write to a fresh card not your precious raw footage????

Should look awesome at the reception!!!

Chris

The free "VLC Media Player" will play AVCHD consecutively.
Open the player, go "media>open folder" browse for the folder with the avchd files & hit play. It displays the filename on start of each clip, so you could transfer the contents of your card to the laptop, preview, identify & delete unwanted files & then VLC will play the remaining (desired) files consecutively. Meanwhile, you haven't tampered with your source card at all.
A simple way to do this.

Wow! Cool things from Australia and Hawaii!

@Chris,
I don't remember getting any software with my HMC150, but I do have HDMI, and even if I had to edit on a laptop, I would rather do the presentation from my camera to avoid any popups or hard drive dizziness!

@Robert,
I just found that VLC is also available for Mac. I will try that. Are you saying that it will put up the filename at the beginning of each clip? That would kill any presentation unless I could eliminate that text.

Thanks guys!

It does display the filename for a second or two @ the beginning of each clip.
May be a way to kill that, but I've never looked for it.

Hi Dana

I never found a way to kill the file name on VLC player but it does a good job playing raw files!!!

Did you look at the free software Panasonic have on their website???? They should have something there.

https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm

Your other option is to use a standalone media player..they are pretty cheap now (under $200 here) and have a built-in HDD plus will play from card or USB and have HDMI output too. That way you could do a quick edit and copy the footage directly to the player and leave it running at the reception which would also leave your laptop and camera free for use!!

Chris

MTSMerger might be the ticket, but I could never get it to work. It's designed to merge the M2t files to ease editing (kind of like what you can do in Log and Capture). If I could take the choice clips off many cards and stick them in order on an MTSMerger, then I could take the one large M2t file and stick it on a cam-formatted card and play it through my HDMI port on my HMC150.

I suppose I could also use MPEG Streamclip to edit the m2t files in order to cut the rough ends off the clips...

So I'm at a wedding and have 30 minutes to put together a show. I pop my sdhc cards in the multi-reader, and launch fcp, Log and Transfer to preview the clips. Noting the ones I want and the time total, I open MPEG Streamclip to cut the clips, saving them to a new folder. I put them in order and take those clips into MTSMerger to merge into one m2t file, saved to a formatted sdhc card that I haven't written to. My keeping track of time codes I match it with a loosely syncopated song of the same length. I have the DJ start the song at the same time as I play the M2t file on the camera.

The PS3 does a WONDERFUL job at playing AVCHD/mts files.

Windows Media Player 12 plays AVCHD mts files natively on Windows 7 PC.
I point to AVCHD->BDMV->STREAM folder and play with Windows Media player. They play without an issue.

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2009/11/26/ps3-wins-holiday-season-with-unbelievable-bundles/
The PS3 is perfect for that and if you must have a program than download this at the bottom.
Splash - Next Generation Player (http://mirillis.com/splash.html)

@ Bhanu
Does it play clips back to back seamlessly and w/o titles?

Thanks!

What's wrong with Splash? It seams like what your looking for.

@ Bhanu
Does it play clips back to back seamlessly and w/o titles?

Thanks!

Dana,
The titles(filenames) are not shown in full screen view mode in media player.
I select all the clips in the stream folder and right click and select add to the Windows Media Player list. They play one after the other with a black transition.


Thanks
Bhanu

Hmm... Well I guess it's an option, but with the black separators it would be hard to sync with music and make it look natural. It sounds like I'd need a timeline to do it right, but if things go wrong this would be a good Plan B, provided that I could fade in and out as more of a video slide show.

I'm going to test the time it takes to bring the clips into the timeline and render a completed video to see how much time it really eats up. If I got it transferring before the Grand Entrance, then I could film that, edit, eat & Edit simultaneously and hopefully have it ready to render before the first batch of events. Once rendered, I'd just plug it in for the show.

I'm late to this thread, but I'll add another recommendation for Splash:
Splash - Next Generation Player (http://www.mirillis.com/splash.html)

It will play clips consecutively and provides excellent visual quality (better than VLC in my experience).

Download VLC Player,it's free.

The PlayStation 3 supports AVCHD.

How to Edit, Convert and Burn HD footages to Blu-ray disc? (http://www.pavtube.com/guide/edit-convert-burn-hd-footages-to-blu-ray-disc.html)

Get Movist instead. So much more stable. I never looked back after discovering that little player

One more voice here for Movist. If you are using a Mac, Movist is the smoothest, fasters player out there. On my 4-year old MacBook Pro, everything else struggles with the compression, with jerky playback. Movist sails smoothly through any AVCHD file I throw at it. Not to mention, it automatically plays back all files in the same directory. I just double-click on any of the files in the folder, Movist opens and plays all subsequent clips one after the other.

I don't know what works best in Windows.

Interesting thread. Thanks Bob for pointing me to "SPLASH". I have been trying for ages to get a program to play AVCHD files consecutively on my PC. So I downloaded "Splash".

Previously, the best I could do was within windows explorer to select these files (highlight), & then press "enter". This works, - (sort of), but there is an annoying gap between each clip. However, I downloaded "Slpash Pro" (Mirillis). and although it is a bit awkward in the way it opens it does play the VIDEO smoothly & continuously, BUT, no sound !

I went into the settings for audio & it is set for "stereo" - correct, (output mode), & audio shows " audio 01 " Video also shows " video 01 " but I cannot get sound.

If I open with VLC it plays fine, - video & audio, but with this one I cannot get the files to play continuously. - Any suggestions for either or both programs ?

RonC.

Just adding to my previous reply, I am using windows 7, 64 bit with an Intel i7 CPU.

RonC.

I'll add one too...

Cyberlinks PowerDVD 10
Which Plays both my Blu-Ray (Discs + Raw M2TS & ISO Files) and my Panasonic HDC-TM700 MTS files.

The best 3D video, Blu-ray player & DVD player software ? PowerDVD 10 (http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdvd/overview_en_US.html)

Good Luck,
Bud