Udo's Techblog

I hadn't used my JVC camcorder in ages, now I reconnected it and discovered that I can't use the camera's raw video files (which have a .TOD filename extension) on the Mac. Uselessly, JVC has included an import filter on the driver CD, but all it's good for seems to be viewing the files in QuickTime. Now, there are several reports on the net about this and people seem to have experienced different outcomes, probably based on the actual camera model. Whatever you do, don't listen to the people who are trying to sell you shady converter software. Here's how you can make it work:

Try this before anything else

So here is a list of things you should try in order before you actually use the solution below. First, try to install the QuickTime component on the JVC driver CD, it's called something like "QuickTime Component for Everio.pkg". In some cases that seems to enable iMovie support (though I can't for the life of me see how since iMovie wouldn't recognize the .TOD extension even if it would know how to interpret the content).

If that doesn't work, try giving the video file the extension .MPEG or .MPG instead of .TOD - that might work since .TOD is technically an MPEG-2 transport stream container. Then again, it might not.

Forcing it

OK if the previous measures did as much for you as they did for me (=nothing), there is an open source command line tool that will rescue you, it's called ffmpeg and it will transform pretty much any video file for you. ffmpeg is only distributed in source code, which means you have to compile it yourself, instructions on how to do so can be found on the ffmpeg website. But if you do, it is very important that you enable fAAC support during compilation. This is a major hassle as you have to get the AAC library separately and then pray that it compiles. You can also get a decent ffmpeg binary from within the shareware tool ffmpegX. Whatever you do, once ffmpeg is installed, you can start converting your .TOD files.

In order to convert your uncooperative .TOD files, you have to open the Terminal and go to the directory where the file is located. ffmpeg can support a large number of different formats, try this one first and type

ffmpeg -i MOV001.TOD -acodec copy -vcodec copy MOV001.mpeg

This will transform a file MOV001.TOD (replace with whatever name yours has) into a standard MPEG file that has the same name.

Now, for me that didn't quite work so well, even though it's the preferred option. If you can make it work, you should use it, because in this mode your actual video is not re-encoded but instead re-packaged, which has clear benefits when it comes to quality and speed. But if you're getting a lot of "buffer underrun"-type error messages and a zombie MPEG file at the end, it's time to actually transcode this .TOD abomination into submission:

ffmpeg -i MOV001.TOD -sameq -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec aac MOV001.mp4

This will create an MPEG 4 file iMovie can actually understand, but it has to use AAC for its audio encoding.

Now a word on JVC marketing. Maybe your camera, like mine, has a 1080p sticker on its case, meaning that it should be able to record non-interlaced 1080 HD video, otherwise known as Full HD. Yet, when you open the resulting files on the cam's disk, you'll notice that the video "inexplicably" has interlacing going on. Those scanlines should be removed from the video before you do anything with it since iMovie or Final Cut will take the choppy lines and make them even worse. To remove the lines, add the option "-deinterlace" to the ffmpeg command line:

ffmpeg -i MOV001.TOD -sameq -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec aac -deinterlace MOV001.mp4

And yes, this was the part where you just discovered that your camera actually has half the resolution as advertised. But hey, at least it's better than SD. Speaking of which, if you can't get ffmpeg to work with AAC or you don't care about preserving high definition in your iMovie project, you can create a .DV file out of your .TOD like this

ffmpeg -i MOV001.TOD -sameq -target dv MOV001.dv

Anyway, once you have figured out what works best for you, Folder Actions are your friend, because now you can automate this process and finally forget this whole nightmare of how you got here in the first place.

Good luck. We're counting on you ;-)