hi, normcross, I'll try again, perhaps I missed something but the encode seemed fine.

orbspider, mkvmerge can be CLI and a simple script made to batch convert, but the question is if you remux and test a file with mkvmerge does it help? :-) No point looking at batch remuxing with mkvmerge if it doesn't. :-)

**EDIT**

normcross, yes you're correct frames do repeat but it appears to be a decompressing error with ffmpeg/libav as suggested earlier rather than a problem with the source, using DGAVCDec + Wine, a free MS Windows tool from Donald Graft, http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DGAVCDec stepping through shows no duplicated frames.

Hi yellow, I totally agree with you that this is not the fault of the source files. I remember this happening sometime ago, so I just checked. Back in April I did some small alterations to an old Project, this is when I first noticed a problem when using leading frames of a clip.

Although these frames are there, they are not being treated as part of your clip. I suppose it's a bit like a mirage, we can see them but they are not really there, well, they are, but I'll try to explain.

If you zoom the timeline to frame level and cut off the two first copied frames, then step through the next two frames of the clip, they are still static and appear to be the same as the cut off frames. Cut them off again and step through the clip, they are still there, but stepping to the third frame there is a huge jump. In this instance, I have actually cut out four frames after the two rogue frames.

Bet that didn't make any sense at all :-)

It's not a great problem, once you know they are there. So using clips close to the leading and tailing frames need just a little bit of special attention on the timeline.

Just did my very last little test:-

Placed a 12 sec .MTS clip on the timeline and selected a six second zone from the centre.
Rendered to XVid4 and to H.264

XVid4 had 5 static frame at the start and 2 at the end.

H.264 had 2 static frames at the start and 5 at the end.

Oh, and audio seems to start from the very beginning, so XVid4 is more out of sync than H.264.

Also tried it with a build script version of Kdenlive from a month ago. Just used H.264 and it had 5 static frames both ends. Oooops.

But I'm still alive and well in mpeg hell. (Oh dear, assumptions again) :-)

orbspider, that's great, pleased to have helped. :-)

tested mkvmerge gui and with two tests the clips join up perfectly, no pauses or studder.

question is how to batch remux a dir of files -I'll be well happy when I find it out cos remux in the gui was simple n fast

yellow, may I have that batch script please?!

Actually I got one, which I made up, and it works... so will do testing
-------------
#!/bin/bash
for file in *.MTS; do mkvmerge $file -o $file.mkv;done
-------------

(execute that with a Thunar custom action right-click or other file browser script, i.e. /home/username/remux.sh %F)

---after testing
-a project with 19 clips (MTS remuxed .mkv), most of them cut up to shorten the rendering
result: absolutely FLAWLESS, instant progress of next clips, and excellent quality achieved with h264 codec.
[edit: so I thought at first]

so, that is [almost] the winner for me. thanks yellow, you have saved me messing around with re-encoding and achieving no quality.
now I can get on with the back-log and keep shooting!

And I hope that this answer will help others with AVCHD/ffmpeg "frame-freeze" problems.

-----------
nb. I installed mkvtoolnix to use mkvmerge, from here http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/downloads.html

it's not quite over!
I discovered that the rendered projects are a little jittery from frame to frame, especially noticed with motion
but my kdenlive/mlt is only latest stable not from git -which always has fatal error time-out

can someone try remuxing the clip I uploaded and put through kdenlive @ hd 1080 25i to whatever and see if there's jitter/slow motion, cheers

if likewise jittery then the remuxed files are not being handled well either

I've had problems joining MTS clips without pauses between the clips. I've managed to join my clips, but they act different when I play them on different platforms. And I didn't manage to get the subtitles in the "baked" final large clip. Also I had problems with the audio/video sync (because some MTS clips has 1-4 frames with no video at the end and this added up on each clip so after 10 clips the audio could be 40 frames before the video).

The best I found was a Windows program called "FinalMate". But it wasn't perfect, I even got contact with their support and they made special versions for me to be able to join the MTS clips without pauses, but it failed...

Play in Windows Media Player in Win7: Good, no pauses, good pic (a little to much color/contrast though for my taste), got subtitles.

Play on my TviX 6500 media player: Average, some pauses, good pic, no subtitles

Play in Linux/VLC: Average, some pauses, good pic, got subtitles but at work place in the frame

So, I gave up. I think the only way is to re-encode the MTS clips. But I'd be glad if I'm wrong and there was a way to perfectly merge the MTS clips! I'll take a look at mkvmerge.

I've never had audio-sync issues

I checked a rendered file from July last year (direct from MTS) and there are subtle clip change pauses
so I've had this problem a long while.
what annoyed me was the dvd's that i gave people had these pauses all the way through (but not 100% of clips)
I will probably have to put up with it!

unless I can figure out a mkvmerge command line option that fixes remuxed files to render properly

...I've tried nearly all of them and no difference, still got stuttering play after render

The video below was made recently from .MTS clips. Sections of most clips were rendered to .avi in Kdenlive for stabilising in VirtualDub, that was all.When rendered, nearly the whole video stuttered at clip change, so I had to just redo the Project, but with changes to how the clips changed over. If you watch it, you can actually see one that I missed. Couldn't be bothered to do it again.

http://vimeo.com/46867310

If I edit the MTS in kdenlive and cut off 4 frames of each clip I don't have any stuttering, but it's a time consuming and boring job... Plus the video gets recompressed = not optimal. I have to double the bitrate to get the same quality as the original MTS clips when using MP4 (original = 9Mbit/s and I have to use about 18Mbit/s in MPEG-4).

btw, nice video normcross!

Hi OpenThinking, Thanks. I don't think I explained very well. It does not matter if you convert the .MTS to whatever, or in my case render out a small selected section of an .MTS clip, new static frames then appear on the freshly rendered, lets say, .avi clip.

Cutting off the frames is not always successful. My, I hope, temporary workaround is simple. If I want to use the leading edge of the clip, I must overlap it by the preceding clip by at least a couple of frames. Not cut it. The tail end of the clip works fine by just dragging the clip back by five or six frames.

It's a nuisance, but it works for me.

My .MTS clips used to work perfectly!! Now they don't. So, in conclusion, this must now be a software problem. Here's hoping.

what we need is a survey to find out how many persons use AVCHD with kdenlive...
of those, currently, how many get paused frames at clip joins after rendering
and how many have no problems whatever (except for crashes!)

and do the developers know what causes this problem?

otherwise we are just wondering if we are the few with a nuts app/system/machine while every one else is enjoying bliss!

@norm, I didn't notice a glitch, nice shoot!

Sorry, wrong thread.

@ orbspider, thanks for that!

Yes, it would be nice if anyone using AVCHD clips and NOT having this problem would come on here and say so, please, anyone?