>directly from the SD card as .MTS files

My understanding of media from SD cards is that you need to copy the entire folder from the SD card to your data hard drive, and then import the files from there

I don't really understand how it works, but I've read that "metadata" is contained in the folder structure itself, and that metadata is required

You might try a forum search for metadata... I know I read about that sometime in the past month or so, but did not save a link

http://forums.adobe.com/search.jspa

Jim Simon wrote:

 

Even all that doesn't always work Christian.  I have some AVCHD from a Panasonic camera that doesn't show any native timecode within PP either.

Which camera, and is it always not showing timecode, or just once in a while?

I've worked with 8 different AVCHD supporting cameras from Panasonic and Sony and never once had an issue with timecode using the correct workflow. This is with something in the neighborhood of 800 hours of footage. Roughly.

I had one clip on a shoot once that didn't have the proper timecode (I record free run T/C set to 24 time so I never ever see 00:00:00:00 in my work). Everything had proper T/C except this one clip. When I saw that pop up on the clip when I was syncing three cameras, I went back and looked at the clip that was still on the SDHC by putting it in the camcorder. It didn't show the T/C on the camcorder and I asked the shooter about it, and he said "oh, I forgot to sync until after the first segment." So that was a human error rather than a metadata error.

Jim Simon wrote:

 

HMC70.

 

Never shows it.

Weird...we never had any trouble with the HMC70 and it was always a B-cam (was later replaced by an HMC80 but is now replaced by an AC130). Syncing timecode in CS4 and later was fine.

I do remember some people having issues, seemed like maybe there was a setting on the HMC70 where you could not get timecode, but I don't remember anymore. That was 2008 or 2009.

podieopos wrote:

 

Which causes some other difficulties. The camera starts naming the clips from scratch after inserting a new SD card, starting with 00001.mts again, creating the danger of errors with double filenames...

Any solutions for that?

This is the single biggest problem with AVCHD, in my opinion, and it makes no sense to me why it works this way - especially having worked with P2 media which shares a lot of the same metadata controls but also has unique file naming.

The general workaround is to make sure that you put your SD contents for each card in it's own unique folder on your hard drive. How unique you want to make that folder is up to you. For me, a typical project is this:

• D:\ drive (or whatever letter you have)
  • Project folder (so something like "197 HS Graduation Project 2012")
    • Video
      • ReelA_01 (this folder is for the 1st SDHC card from camera A)
      • ReelA_02 (this is the 2nd SDHC card from camera A
      • ReelB_01 (1st SDHC card from camera B)
      • ReelC_01 (1st SDHC card from camera C)

You get the idea though...unique folder for each card so I more or less know where everything is.

I create a similar folder structure for the bins inside PPro, so I have:

• Video
  • ReelA_01
  • ReelA_02

Again, you get the picture. It's important to keep track of your media because one day you might move your project or your media files to a different drive or into a different directory and have those clips go offline inside PPro. You'll be able to reconnect all your lost media successfully IF you have kept good about your media in the project bin as well as your hard drive. Come up with whatever naming system or directory structure you want, but my advice is to make it as clear and understandable to you as possible and to be CONSISTENT every single time.

podieopos wrote:

 

(still it is amazing to need a workaround lijke this in a professional environment...)

I agree. It's really Panasonic at fault here because there's been no reason given as to why they can't design the camcorder with a unique identifier option, even if it's just random as opposed to something like a preset "ProjectName_Clip0010.MTS" or similar.

Of course, P2 workflows have their own considerations, but file naming conventions aren't one of them. In all cases, it's about wrangling the file format to keep the data fully intact, and there are no other solutions at this point that seem to be able to help much.

Adobe actually has taken some of the hassle out of it by offering the Media Browser panel that is especially useful in CS6. It's not really Adobe's problem to solve with the on-disc media management but perhaps they will implement some solutions in a later iteration if Panasonic or another company hasn't taken on the task by then.