JVC Everio GZ-HD7AA How to Covert .Tod files

[Ben Griggs]

Hi Kate,
I was recently using an Everio that put out .MOD files not .TOD I’ll guess it’s not going to be much different.

You need the proper codecs on your computer to open them, the K-lite codec pack will contain the proper one. With the codecs installed it should open right up in your normal video viewing program.

If you just need the .MPG extension just replace the MOD or TOD with that by right clicking the file in explorer and choosing rename, you will get a warning but nothing to worry about. It is tedious if your renaming hundreds of files I use a mass file renamer for that mess.

In short, install Codecs and rename the file extention.

Cheers
Ben

[Ben Griggs]

[Dave Sullivan]

If it’s any help, I’ve been using ‘ffmpegx’ to convert my .tod files, and it seems to work pretty well.
Not the ideal workflow, but hey, the quality is pretty good!!

All the best

Dave

Creative Cow leader/JVC camera & deck forum host

[Shawn Pinner]

Hey Kate.
I have been using the HD7U for about half a year now, and it is quite annoying when it comes to TOD files. As far as creating music videos and short films, I finally bought a Blackmagic Intensity Pro capture card and am quite happy with the workflow so far.
But for an easier workaround, use the Cyberlink Director Program. It is the video editing software that came with the camera. Don’t use any of the other programs.

Plug HD7 in to PC via USB. Select playback on pc on the camera itself.

Close producer, which usually opens automatically, and open Director. After setting up your project go to file/import or right click in the library and selec import.
Use the browser to look in the hard drive of the camera in the SD Video folder and select the tod files from the folders of your choice. Select open, or import.
The program will import files to your pc and automatically change the files to mpg, which you can use in Adobe Premiere Pro or any dvd burning sofware. You can also convert the files to avi and other mpg compressions in this program by dropping them on the timeline and selecting produce movie, then select the compression of your choice.

This does take a while depending on the amount of files and I have had a couple of files drop audio, but that was not often. Hopes this helps. Let me know.
Later

Shawn Pinner
GOEFILMS.COM

[Kate Heading]

Hi everyone,
thanks for your posts. I’m still trying to work my way around what you’ve posted.
Shawn – I got the Cyberlink program with the video, but now have a new computer and no cyberlink. I don’t remember it having the director program, it just kept on asking me to upgrade to cyberlink pro to be able to download the video. I would plug it in by usb and then turn the camera on to the little pic showing to download to pc, and it just wouldn’t do it.
When you say you bought a capture card – what is that for> I’m a little confused.
I wish we’d never bought the stupid video camera!
Is there something I can download now that I don’t have the cyberlink program handy? I’m not sure where I put it after I loaded it on the last computer.
Thanks for your help everyone! Keep me posted on other ideas as you see fit.
Cheers
kate

[Shawn Pinner]

The Cyberlink programs that came with my camera were Power Producer, Power Cinema and Power Director. I had the same problem as you with it wanting to upgrade and I was told it was because I did a custom install, so I completely uninstalled it and reinstalled it, and it worked. Not sure if that was your situation.

The capture card allows me to capture video from my camera using the HDMI, AV cable, S Video, or RGB out of my camera giving the option for uncompressed HD and SD video as well as compressed DV. It cost me about 400 dollars after taxes and everything. It totally avoids the TOD issue and I am very happy with it so far.

You can still back up your files to your computer just by connecting the USB and browsing the hard drive on the camera as you would a regular hard drive on your pc. Then just highlight the files you want and drag them to where you want them, or copy and paste them.

Cyberlink is the only software that I have seen out there that works with the TOD files. It may be worth it to buy a copy of Power Director so you can convert your files to usable codec.

Shawn Pinner
GOEFILMS.COM

[Kate Heading]

Hi,
Ben – I’ve download the Codec Klite Full version. Can you tell me what exactly on there I need to install for the TOD file conversion? It says that “Less is better”.
Thank you, in urgency,
Kate

[Ben Griggs]

Hi Kate,

I am not sure what you mean by “less is better” I will assume your talking about the codec installation. As far as I know .tod are nothing but renamed .mpeg2 files, so just make sure a mpeg2 codec gets in there. All of your media players will start taking advantage of codecs immediately.

Still like I said before you will have to rename the files from .tod to .mpg (or if you really need to .mp2 so you remember the compression)

Again, like I said before, my experience is with JVC Evrio .MOD files. Just a MPEG2 that is named differently by JVC.
Best,
Ben

[Gary Brown]

I was looking at this camera to replace our staff cameras for the schools cable channel. In my research I was told that Sony’s Vegas has been able to edit .TOD files since version 7e. We are currently using Vegas Pro 8. (if I had a small .TOD file I could verify this capability.)

There are full featured demos of Vegas Pro 8, available at Sony Creative Software. I would probably follow the backup-files-to-PC-harddrive workflow and then just drag them to the time line. My question to youis is, ‘can I copy the files off the memory directly to the PC?’

The manual says I can’t ‘play’ them but can I just copy them? Anyone?

GB-)

“Better, Faster, Cheaper … Pick Two!”

Gary R. Brown, SCVE
Video Systems Engineer
Portsmouth Public Schools
Portsmouth, Virginia
23704-2135

[Sean Harper]

I used to struggle with this Camera a lot but now I just wait a long time for the video to load.

The camera should have come with a disc to install the program Power NE for Everio as well as PowerDirector Express.

to get the .TOD converted to .MPG click file in PowerDirector Express
import and go to the folder containing all of the .TOD files and select all of them and click open:) It will convert them to .MPG files

and since you have Vista it will either be in your videos or someplace else:)

Hope this helps and the program even comes with the camera:)