.MTS files-convert or different editing software?

First, Thank-you for your help and for taking the time to reply. I've been pulling my hair out all weekend trying to figure this out and I greatly appreciate your help.
<b>




"tried a number of converting software". Can you please tell us which transcoders you have used so we don't re-suggest something you have already tried?</b>I tried Handbreak, clipwrap, iskysoft, and 5DtRGD lite. Handbrake worked perfectly for me in converting a clip once but recently hasn't been working so perhaps I need to play with the handbrake settings again.

When does the "pixelation" happen?<div>The pixelation occurs when there is medium/quick motion and only appears on the object that's moving. When I watch the .MTS file in VLC the area that has motion is very pixilated but then when I turn "deinterlace on" everything looks sharp and there is no pixilation with motion.

Can you please provide some specs on your Mac? RAM, CPU and available hard drive space are a place to start.
I'm running Mac OSX 10.7.5 on my Macbook Pro. It has a 2.7 GHz intel Core i7 and 4GB 1333MHZ DDR3. I have 30 Gigs of free space on my computer and an extra external drive so I can make more space if needed.

Also, the camcorder manufacturer and model - and ideally, the "video quality" setting" when the video was captured will be useful. As well, the video environment - that is, was there fast action/motion that was recorded?
-The camera: Sony CX550V
-Setting: HDFX (1080/60i AVD HD 24m)
-I was shooting in full auto
I'm doing a bit of wildlife filming and the camera was mounted on a tree and a black bear walked by and rubbed his head and neck on the tree-so I certainly wouldn't consider it action/fast motion compared. I really don't need to convert a ton of clips, just here and there for uploading it online and showing a quick demo of what I shot. However the quality is the most important thing to me and I want to demonstrate my work online with short clips in a quality that looks good and is professional.

I suggested HandBrake in an earlier reply. Did that not work?
</div> I converted an MTS video a couple weeks ago and it came out perfect. No motion blur, crystal clear quality, the file imports into imovie-I really couldn't have been happier. Then recently I tried to convert another MTS file and when I compared the converted video to the old MTS file it looks like the converted file was taken with a bad camera phone. The original MTS file has incredible detail and really pops out-you can see every hair, eyebrow, etc.
I deleted and reinstalled handbrake and spent hours and hours messing with the settings and converting videos. When I import the file I converted with handbrake a few weeks back (that looks good), it takes ~10 minutes to import into imovie, but when I import the file I recently converted thats the same length it only takes ~1 minute. So perhaps it's a setting with handbrake-I didn't think I changed any handbrake conversion setting until the file gave me the motion pixilation and the quality didn't look good.

So I went back through with handbrake...watched more then a few youtube videos about interlacing and making sure I get the highest possible quality and I'm still not happy with the converted file. The original MTS file looks incredible-the quality and detail jumps out of the screen-it looks like someone with a nice camera from National Geographic shot the footage. However, when I view the handbrake converted file the quality isn't there. Like I said-it looks like I used a bad camera phone and when you compare the videos you can really see the difference. I also have a PC I can run on mac....is there any PC freeware that can edit MTS files directly? Thanks again.

You said, "The original MTS file looks incredible".
Question: What is playing back the file - the camcorder or the Mac (using VLC Player)?

You said, "when I view the handbrake converted file..."
Question: The transcoded file is on the Mac... What is being used for playback? What file type is the transcoded file and what is in that container? For example, is the converted file a MOV file with h.264 video in the MOV file type?

I *think* you hit the nail on the head - the good HandBrake transcoded file used settings different from the current settings. That's why the transcoding time is so different (shorter) now. HandBrake trancodes and compresses. The trick to keeping high quality video is not compression. That would also answer the appearance change you report ("the converted file was taken with a bad camera phone"). More compression = more discarded video data = reduced video quality. Which leads us to the next item...

If your MacBook Pro is running on only 30 gig free space on the start up drive and 4 gig RAM trying to edit/transcode/render high definition video, you are very close to crashing the system. In a former life I was an IT manager but won't go into details here... The start-up drive provides "virtual memory" because there is never enough physical RAM. In addition to providing a place for the operating system to work, it provides space for the video project files and video editor and whatever applications you have running to move around. With everything on the internal drive, the operating system and video editing activitiess are fighting for CPU cycles because of "page swapping" (lack of real RAM) using the hard drive as more RAM. Other operating systems have the same issue. If you have an external drive available, you want to get the video project files (or MTS files to be transcoded, etc) on to the external. This will free space on the internal that the systems needs to work. The least amount of free space you want on the internal drive is about 20% of the internal drive's total size...

I was finally able to get my clip into iMovie!!!!! I converted the MTS file, then opened the converted file in quicktime and then had quicktime share the movie with iMovie...not slick but it worked. I ended up using a free software called "MacX Video Converter free edition" that seemed to keep almost all the quality of the videos I converted. However, Even after I converted the videos I couldn't import them into iMovie without quicktime. I tried the following formats and imovie still wouldn't import them:
MP4 (h264)
MP4 (mpeg4)
Mov (h264)
Mov (mpeg4)
M4v (h264)
M4v (mpeg4)

I thought for sure some of these file types could be uploaded to imovie but when I go to: File/import/movies and select my converted video it looks like it uploads almost immediately but doesn't actually work and if I try to drag the clip into an imovie event it says the clip "the file was not imported because it is not compatible with imovie". So it seems to be working for the moment if I convert the file and then have quicktime convert the file...any reason why Imovie wouldn't import the converted clips in the format above? I'm stumped and if there's a way to make it simpler I'd be for that. Could it be the codec for the audio or something like that?

These answers I wrote before I got it to work but I figured i would post the answers anyways.
Question: What is playing back the file - the camcorder or the Mac (using VLC Player)?
My mac is playing the MTS files back using VLC. I mentioned before I get pixilation with motion until I turn the "deinterlace on" function-then it looks perfect.

You said, "when I view the handbrake converted file..."
Question: The transcoded file is on the Mac... What is being used for playback? What file type is the transcoded file and what is in that container? For example, is the converted file a MOV file with h.264 video in the MOV file type?
I tried a few things but I usually converted the file to a MP4 with h.264. Once the file was converted to a MP4 I watched it using Realplayer.

<div>The least amount of free space you want on the internal drive is about 20% of the internal drive's total size...
Thanks for the advice-didn't know this and will put it to good use!
</div>

your success. Odd you need (what seems to me to be) an extra step... but it works for you and that is the important part.