How to get iMovie/Avid work with Canon Vixia HF G20 MTS files perfectly

The Canon's Vixia HF G20 features a Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens with an 8-Blade iris for more professional-looking video and stills. It has a 30.4 - 304mm (35mm equivalent) focal length. The camcorder is also equipped with a Canon HD CMOS Pro image sensor that supports improved low-light performance and a wide dynamic range. And the excellent camcorder shoots 1920 x 1080 Full HD video at 60i, in native 24p and 30p. With the 24p frame rate option you can give your footage a cinematic look.

However, while enjoying the stunning HD image quality, many folks are having problems when importing Canon Vixia HF G20 video files into iMovie or Avid Media Composer for further editing. If you're in such a situation, you can read on the article to learn more, which mainly shows you how to get iMovie and Avid MC to recognize Canon Vixia HF G20 footage beautifully.


As we all know, the Canon Vixia HF G20 captures Full HD 1920x1080p videos in AVCHD format. The AVCHD delivers stunning picture quality, but it not an ideal editing format for both iMovie and Avid Media Composer. So you'll get crashed or other issues when using the 1080p MTS files in Avid/iMovie. To achieve your goal smoothly, the easy workaround is to convert Canon Vixia HF G20 AVCHD mts footage to a more editing-friendly format, such as Apple Intermediate Codec for iMovie, DNxHD for Avid.

First you need to download Brorsoft MTS/M2TS Converter for Mac, a powerful hihgly-quality Canon Vixia MTS Converter, player and editor. It's free, clean and safte to install and use. With it, you can effortlessly transcode Canon HF G20 MTS to DNxHD, Apple Intermediate Codec-ensuring ensuring maximum editing quality and efficiency when working with Avid Media Composer, iMovie.

So, what does the workflow look like?

1) Launch the mac Canon Vixia Video Converter for Mac, and then click the "Add" button to load the .mts videos. You can also use the drag-and-drop method to load the 1080p .mts files to the application UI.



2) Click "format" to open the output format drop-up list to select "iMovie and Final Cut Express--> Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC)(*.mov)" as the output format for Mac iMovie.



And choose Avid Media Composer -> Avid DNXHD (*.mov) for Avid Media Composer.



3) Click the "Convert" Arrow button on the main interface to start Canon VIXIA HF G20 AVCHD to AIC/DNxHD conversion on Mac.

And now your files will be converted into AIC or DNxHD .MOV files ready to be imported to iMovie or Avid Media Composer. You're done.

Additional Tips:
If you want to edit Canon Vixia MTS clips in Final Cut Pro X or FCP 7/6, you just need to choose the "Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)" as output format in the scond step; For Adobe Premiere Pro, choose Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas> MPEG-2(*.mpg) as output.