Summary: Facing the problem importing Sony AVCHD files in Pinnacle Studio, you can fix the issues via transcoding Sony MTS/M2TS video to Pinnacle Studio compatible format first.
I record many video clips with my Sony camera, and I have trouble to edit VCHD (.mts) file in Pinnacle Studio. In fact, Pinnacle Studio 14/15/16 have add the AVCHD .mts formats as the input video, but v14 did not handle large AVCHD videos with great stability, and v15/16 just a little better. Plus, there are so many limits you are facing like the System Requirements: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66 gHz or higher required for 1920x1080 AVCHD editing, 2GB system memory required for AVCHD and more. So if you want to edit Sony MTS files with Pinnacle Studio, you will need to transcode the AVCHD .mts files to Pinnacle Studio supported format, like AVI.
Now I share the guide with you how to convert MTS/M2TS footage to Pinnacle Studio friendly format using Brorsoft MTS/M2TS Converter. With it, you can effortlessly encode/re-encode AVCHD footage shot by Canon, JVC, Sony, Panasonic etc. cameras for smoothly importing and editing in various non-linear editing systems (NLE), including Pinnacle Studio 14/15/16, Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Cyberlink PowerDirector, Avid Studio, Magix Movie Edit Pro, Windows Movie Maker and more. If you're using a Mac, please turn to its equivalent Mac version – MTS/M2TS Converter Mac, which can help you solve the AVCHD and Mac incompatibility.
1. Download, install and run the MTS to Pinnacle Studio Converter; click "Add Videos" icon to load your source AVCHD videos.
2. Click “Format” bar and choose "HD Video" -> "AVI HD Video (*.avi)" as output, which seems to be the best one due to the great video quality but small size. Of course, MPG, MP4, WMV are also the proper formats for Pinnacle.
3. Click "Settings" button if you’d like to customize advanced audio and video parameters like Video Codec, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, Audio codec, sample rate, audio channels.
4. Click the convert button, it will start converting MTS for importing to Pinnacle Studio immediately. Soon after the conversion, just click “Open” button to get the generated files for edit in Pinnacle Studio perfectly.
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brorsoft.com/mts-converter/index.html