In our production workflow, we use many types of image and video files.  Apple’s Quick Look framework allows the user to see a fast preview of video, stills, documents and other files by selecting a file and pressing the space bar. This is a great way to see more information about various video files, and one we use daily in our production workflow. However, some of our cameras shoot to a format called AVCHD, which uses the MTS file extension, and Quick Look can’t decode these files natively, or even play them without the VLC Player from VideoLAN.

That’s where Shedworx’s HD Quick Look comes in. The HD Quick Look plug-in uses the ShedWorx AVCHD converter to make a thumbnail image from the first frame of the AVCHD file. This happens in seconds, and only needs to be done once per file, regardless if different computers access it from our servers. In the conversion process, the colors don’t always come through correctly, but it is enough to see the slate, framing or location of the shot. It has been a huge time saver.