avidemux which usually is my Swiss army knife for video conversion could not handle the .MTS files produced by the camcorder - at least not the version which are currently available in the Ubuntu repositories (avidemux 2.5.x).
After visiting the avidemux homepage I was pleased to find out, that version 2.6 can handle that format.
This post describes how to compile avidemux 2.6. It mostly reflects the process laid out in the avidemux wiki with some additional information to avoid some pitfalls.
I tested it on vanilla installs of Ubuntu Natty and Precise and the compilation works like a charm. Please keep in mind that you compile from nightly builds and not all functions are implemented yet (May 2012, git revision 7949).
Requirements:
First we need git to pull the source code:
sudo apt-get install git
For the core application
sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev gcc g++ make cmake pkg-config libpng12-dev fakeroot yasm
For the GUI (QT4)
sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev
For the common plugins
sudo apt-get install libaften-dev libmp3lame-dev libx264-dev libfaad-dev libfaac-dev
For the PulseAudio plugin
sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev
Download the source
git clone git://gitorious.org/avidemux2-6/avidemux2-6.git
Compile it
cd avidemux2-6
bash bootStrap.bash --deb
This will produce four .deb files in the ./debs folder.
Install it
cd debs
dpki -i *
Run it
avidemux3_qt4
Configure it
Sometimes you have to select the correct audio device in Edit - Preferences - Audio - AudioDevice:
Links:
avidemux homepage + wiki
