04-09-2020 01:29 PM - edited 04-09-2020 06:19 PM
I have a Vixia HF-M40 camcorder (really like the quality I get from it). I have been using the included Pixela VideoBrowser software on my Windows 10 PC without issue until today. I needed to convert a video to Apple/iPad format for someone else to be able to view the video, but it won't convert, giving an error saying that I don't have iTunes 9 or 10 installed (I don't have either installed only because iTunes is up to version 12 now). I went to Pixela to see if there were any updates to support newer versions of iTunes, but instead saw the notification that they have discontinued support for the software.
Is there another software which Canon recommends for importing and editing videos from the HF-M40 now? I realize the camcorder is old enough that Canon likely will not be supplying a new software, but I would like to at least try to get software which is recommended or at least verified to work with this model of camcorder.
Thanks.
04-09-2020 05:24 PM - edited 04-09-2020 05:32 PM
Your cam records in H.264, but it may be in some kind of proprietary "wrapper". If you have macOS 10.14 or earlier, there is still the older QuickTime 7 application included. I've used that many times over the years to work with footage from older cams.
However, this is no longer possible to use that version of QuickTime with macOS 10.15 (Catalina) since it wasn't 64-bit. You could try the main QuickTime Player application. Also try iMovie.
If you have Final Cut, Adobe Premiere or other such video applications, it's possible that could work with the footage.
Finally, some wrappers are just folder structures around the H.264 file. So if you copy the footage to your Mac and it won't open in anything, try to directly open some of the files that may be a bit buried in some folder structure.
04-09-2020 06:16 PM
Thanks for the feedback. You did help me realize that I left out an important bit of information in my original post. I'm running Windows 10 on the system I'm transferring the videos to. I'll update my post (if it lets me) with this information. At this time, I do not have Adobe Premiere, or anything else which can output the files I need.
04-09-2020 06:25 PM
Ah, when you mentioned iTunes, I had assumed macOS. But iTunes did indeed exist on Windows as well.
Now that I'm back at my computer, here's some more details on that "wrapper" concept.
From a 2011 Canon cam of mine, when I copied data from its SD card, it was all packaged up in a folder named "AVCHD". Inside that a BDMV folder. And finally a 'STREAM' folder with all the individual .MTS clips. Of course your cam may produce a different folder structure holding the footage.
Anyhow, if you right-click on the .MTS fies, does Windows provide a suggestion on what application will open them?
I just right-clicked on my Mac (I do have Windows 10 virtualization software as well), and these are the choices it gave me to open .MTS files:
Windows Media Player
QuickTime Player
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