How To: Editing HD Video in Linux
AVCHD capable cameras are fast becoming the most popular way to record your video — the size to quality ratio is leaps and bounds above other formats. Unfortunately video editing software hasn’t necessarily caught up with the latest trend in cameras, which can make editing your AVCHD videos something of pain.
Apple’s latest iMovie and Final Cut Express video packages can handle AVCHD, but what if you’re using Linux?
It turns out there is a way to simply and easily uncompress your AVCHD video thanks to the the m2tstoavi converter. The good folks over at fsckin w/ linux recently discovered a great post in the AVS forums which covers everything you’ll need to transcode AVCHD video into a format that any of the non-linear video editing programs for Linux can handle (m2tstoavi will also work in OS X).
Fsckin w/ linux walks you through the process of installing m2tstoavi in Ubuntu and then converting the actual video. The process seems simple enough, though we haven’t tested it yet (anyone who’d like to donate an AVCHD camera for testing purposes please contact me ASAP).
One thing worth keeping in mind though is that uncompressing HD video is a processor intensive task and can take a long time on older systems.
If you have experience editing HD video in Linux be sure to share your tips and tricks in the comments below.
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