PMB not seeing video files

[China_Sprog]

I'm running PMB v5.5 on Windows XP.

Whilst on holiday I used PMB on a laptop to take the videos off my Handycam HDR-CX115E so I could reuse the SD card.  Since returning off holiday, I have copied the files onto an external hard drive so I can use my desktop to edit them in PMB.  When I run PMB on my desktop, PMB does not show me any of the video files that are on my external hard drive.  I've tried adding the folders where the video clips are, ut they still do not show up.

Any help much appreciated.

[Mick2011]

Hi China_Sprog, welcome to the Sony Forums

When you import with PMB you convert the camera's original files to .mts format. Unfortunately PMB won't recognise .mts files for import (only the camera's native files) hence you won't see them when you try to re-import from your external drive.

One solution would be to get hold of some software which will convert the files to a format that PMB will recognise, such as .avi or mp4.

In future, if you can import to an external drive while you're on holiday, maybe you could make an exact copy of the data on the card as a backup instead, which will then be visible to PMB on your home PC, or at least make sure the backup is made on a laptop which you can later use to edit, to avoid having to do intermediate conversions.

Cheers

Mick

[China_Sprog]

Thanks for that Mick.

There we were thinking we were being careful on holiday.  We'll know for next time now.  Unfortuately, the laptop we backed up onto is one of those netbooks which we hook up to an external CD drive or external HDD.

All we really want to do is edit out the rough stuff and burn it onto a DVD.  Is there any free software that will do that and convert it into the correct format ?  I've had a look on the web and all the free software seems to be limited in use and limiting the size of your files.  Is there any other software apart from PMB that will play the Sony format .m2ts files ?

Thanks

[Mick2011]

It's a Sony-specific file format, so your options are limited to Sony-related apps like PMB. I think it's possible to burn to BluRay and play back on a PS3, although I've never tried it.

I believe WinDVD will play .m2ts, but try VLC first: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ It's free and plays pretty much every file type going

Cheers

Mick

[munchkin2]

You can export the files back to your camera using PMB, if they are still in the .mts format, and them reimport them to the computer in the new format of .m2ts so they can then be edited.

[chris198810]

Hi, Sprog. Since you've got your PMB,why not find a proper software to covnert your .mts file to .avi for PMB. If you think so, you can try this brorsoft mts/m2ts converter for mac. Once I applied it to convert 1080p avchd files to final cut pro on mac.