Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR3 is a great HD camera, which can capture and store videos in AVCHD Lite format in .mts file extension. The AVCHD Lite compression provides HD video in small file size, comparing to the Motion JPEG compression. I am using MacBook on Mac OS X 10.5 with iMovie 8, but I could not import the family videos shot with my Lumix DMC-ZR3.

After googling, I was recommended to update to iMovie 9 for DMC-ZR3, and another solution is to transcode Lumix AVCHD Lite videos to MOV for iMovie 8 with Panasonic Lumix AVCHD Lite video converter. And Firstarsoft MTS Converter for Mac is the right Mac driver for Panasonic Lumix ZR3 AVCHD Lite 720p videos to iMovie 8/9/11.

If you encounter any problem loading Lumix AVCHD Lite to iMovie 8/9/11, Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express, just follow the steps below to make Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR3 videos playable, editable on Mac.

Step 1. Upload Panasonic DMC-ZR3 AVCHD Lite videos to MacBook

Connect Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR3 to MacBook via USB cable, and the camera will be shown as a device on desktop. Access the device and go to PRIVATE > AVCHD > BDMW > STREAM to find the AVCHD Lite .mts files. Copy and transfer the .mts files to MacBook hard drive disk to upload Lumix DMC-ZR3 videos to Mac.

Step 2. Load Panasonic Lumix videos to Firstarsoft MTS Converter for Mac.

Run Firstarsoft MTS Converter for Mac as the best Mac DMC-ZR3 MTS to iMovie converter, click the “Add” button to load the 720p .mts videos in batch, or drag and drop the video footage to application UI for importing.

Step 3. Choose MOV output format.

Click the “Format” option, and navigate the mouse cursor to General Video > MOV – QuickTime(*.mov) as output format. The Mac Panasonic Lumix video converter will rewrap 720p MTS videos to MOV for iMovie 8/9/11, keeping 1280×720 resolution with AAC audio.



Step 4. Convert Panasonic Lumix AVCHD Lite to MOV for iMovie 8.

Click the convert button under the preview window, and the Mac Lumix AVCHD Lite video converter will start converting Panasonic DMC-ZR3 proprietary 720p AVCHD Lite video to iMovie 8/9/11 MOV for iMovie 8/9/11.

When the conversion is done, it is easy to import Lumix DMC-ZR3 720p HD video to iMovie 8/9/11 for editing. You may also bring the HD videos to other Mac applications like QuickTime, FCP, FCE, Adobe Premiere Pro, Kdenlive, Apple Compressor.

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