.MTS From GH2 4:2:0 Madness! Please help

I cant find any way to convert my Panasonic GH2's .mts files. Every way I try ends up with color loss and making the files HUGE.

I upconvert the .mts with Cineform Neo Scene from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 but I am on a PC so sadly Neo makes an .avi not a Quicktime.

Neo Scene is the ONLY program to get the color depth correctly matching the original .mts file. EVERY program I have tried
to convert with ends up loosing color data. The file gets big but at least the color is correct.

The original .mts is H.264 so WHY can't I find any program to simply convert this into an H.264 mov?? It should not be this difficult.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

p.s. Will pond5 begin accepting .mts format soon?

After MUCH headache it appears that different players are displaying the colors differently.
Quicktime displayed colors that looks very washed compared to
the original .mts file. VCL Player matched the original.
Media Player Classic (321) has minor differences but not as bad as QT.

I had the same issue when I was converting from .mts to QT PhotoJPEG or MotionJPEG. The colors and quality didn't seem to match when you played them in QT or WMP. When using them in an editing program (Adobe CS5 for me) they turned out fine and seem to show fractional to no loss of quality or color. Like you I found out the hard way but after half a day of searching it did make sense in the end. Good luck!

Files converted to PhotoJpeg and MotionJpeg will always be humongous compare to the original .mts or h.264 files. Quicktime in a PC will always show loss in color saturation. My camera outputs h.264/mp4 files which I trim in the camera then convert to h.264/mov using the freeware recommended by P5: Streamclip. Although I have Adobe CS4, I seldom use it for stock video footage unless I am doing a time-lapse of if If I need a lot of color correction.

Thanks. More on this. It appears to be a known issue with QT gamma and H.264 videos. I'm still looking for a solution but it is looking more like the video encoding is fine and that QT is just displaying it wrong.

I have the Panasonic TM700 and transcode with Neoscene, my PC loves .avi and I edit in Vegas pro and render as photojpeg. AVCHD and H.264 are heavily compressed, finished clips are going to be substantially bigger than in camera files.

I am trying Premiere CS5.5 and outputting with PhotoJPG at 80%. The result are like you say MUCH larger but until
pond5 excepts native .mts files this will work.

The gamma still is off when viewed in QT 7.6.9 on PC but is fine in VCL Player.
I think it is safe to assume that the video is fine and the problem is QT playback only.

PhotoJPG color is ok at 80% but starts to get dark at 75% and 70% outputs.
That may help someone trying to nail down export settings. I had 60 seconds clock in at 1GB at 80%.
So I plan to start with that and adjust as needed.

Thanks all.

A lot of people are saving at 90 to 95%

I believe that one day in the near future, we will be able to upload the original unspoiled unmodified camera video file and that buyers will be happy with them (faster download, original quality, and less storage space). I am talking about Sony and Panasonic AVCHD files, Canon's Mov/h.264, JVC Mov/mpeg2 and Nikon's MP4/h.264. IMO

I am having problems exporting EX1 camera files (1920x1080) to MJPEG. The results are very poor (any movement is very jerky). Anyone else use CS5 and willing to share settings?

Thanks