I have bought Sony HDR-CX115 camcorder that captures on AVCHD. The final files are MTS files. I would like to edit these files in final cut express 4, but they are not compatible... I really need to do this for a client asap, so any help would be very much appreciated!!!

From the quoted words of one Sony HDR-CX115 user, we learned that this user wanna edit Sony HDR-CX115 MTS in Final Cut Express 4, but the user found the AVCHD format is not compatible with FCE natively. As a matter of fact, Final Cut Express 4 does not support real-time editing in the AVCHD format that it only allows for transcoding AVCHD to Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) provided that the camera is actually attached to the computer - it cannot convert AVCHD files stored elsewhere and is currently for Intel processors only. Besides, if you move the MTS file out of that structure, you can't use Log and Transfer. The Log and Transfer function expects the MTS file to be in an AVCHD file structure.

In that case, if you want to transfer Sony HDR-CX115 MTS in Final Cut Express 4, you have to transcode the MTS files to AIC .mov in advance. You can get the MTS to Final Cut Express Converter to help you to convert Sony HDR-CX115 AVCDH .mts/.m2ts files to FCE 4 recognized format Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) on Mac OS X, and during the converting process, the video quality won’t be reduced. Thus, you can edit the MTS files without reducing the video quality.

Step 1: Import Sony HDR-CX115 MTS files to the Mac MTS Converter program.
Launch the Mac MTS/M2TS Converter for FCE 4 and load the MTS files to it.
Tip: If you wanna join MTS/M2TS files for Final Cut Express, please tick the "Merge into one" box.

Step 2: Select AIC .mov as the output format for Final Cut Express 4.
Click on Format > iMovie and Final Cut Express > Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC) (*.mov), which is the FCE favorable format. Then you can set the output folder as you want.

Step 3: Adjust audio and video parameters for FCE 4.
Click the “Settings” icon and you’d better set the video frame rate as 30fps, video size as 1920*1080 to keep the best quality for editing in FCE 4.
Note: Please click “Edit” button and deinterlace 1080/60i MTS files in the Video Editor.

Step 4: Start to convert Sony HDR-CX115 MTS to AIC for Final Cut Express on Mac.
Click the “Convert” button; it will convert Sony HDR-CX115 MTS to AIC .mov for FCE 4 on Mac immediately. You can find the process in the “Conversion” interface.

Within minutes, you can get the converted video files from the output folder effortlessly. Now, it’s time for you to import Sony CX115 MTS to FCE 4 for further editing on Mac.

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