[Stephen Crye]

Hi Al;

You are correct about “no camera can produce a single continuous file” – that is where Sony Picture Motion Browser (PMB) really shines.

Sony cameras, just like the Canons, can’t save a clip file on the card that is bigger than 2 GB, which is the limit of the FAT file system that is used by SDHC and also CF cards. So, during long recordings, the camera is forced to create a succession of 2 GB files. All those files together comprise the entire recording, from the time you press the record button until the time you stop.

I just looked at the raw contents of an SDHC card that I used for a medium length shoot where I recorded continuously for about 45 minutes. When PMB imported the recording, it created a 3.66 GB file on my computer (Windows 7) named 20110317173355.m2ts. (note the nice naming format of yyyymmddhhmmss ). That imported, assembled file was built from from two raw files, 00264.MTS and 00265.MTS, located on the SDHC card in G:PRIVATEAVCHDBDMVSTREAM . 00264.MTS was created on the card on Thursday, March 17, 2011, 5:33:55 PM

It would be wonderful if PMB could consume the raw Canon .mxf files – but it can’t – at least the version I have can’t. It won’t even show the files. This will complicate my life if I buy the XF100, because I will be producing vids with footage from my HDR-CX550V and the XF100.

Well, if this was easy I guess grandma would be the expert – oops, there are probably plenty of grandmas on the Cow who know a lot more than me! 🙂

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

Thanks Jim, I think we are getting closer (see other posts in this thread). I don’t want to feel your pain if I get the camera!

That Panny you mention is the other cam I am considering as a replacement for the NX70. Wondering about the low-light and lots of other things. How did you like it? Any chance to compare the low-light performance to the NX70 or similar Sonys?

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

Thanks, Brian!

I’m still wondering about obtaining seamless transitions between the sub-clips. I think it is possible, but would still appreciate additional details.

From Robin Davies-Rollinson, a TV producer and videographer in the United Kingdom, via a Vimeo private message. Robin owns an XF305 and uses Vegas 10. I’ve been pestering him for details, and he has been very helpful:

“Hi Steve,
I’ve just been looking at some Canon files from an awards event that I covered earlier this year. The files indeed were all about 2GB. They were separate, not stitched together when I opened them up in Vegas. If I drop them one at a time onto the timeline, Vegas wants to make a small audio mix betwen the clips. However, if I lassoe all the consequitive clips in the Media Assets pane, they end up stitched together cleanly on the timeline and play perfectly, without any frame drops.I guess one can get Vegas to combine them all as one single event…
The Canon also produces a nice file name for each clip, eg. 20110713004503.”

I’m still corresponding with Robin (he had to sleep, it is late in the UK), and will hopefully have more clarification tomorrow.

Thanks again,

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

You are welcome!

For so long I have been a consumer of the Cow forums, enjoying the help from others but not contributing. Last week I realized I need to take the time to scan the threads and help where I can. I’m pretty green when it comes to video, but I know a few things.

Make sure you get a good, full backup of the XP drive before you start. Never had any problems with the dual-boot procedure, but better safe than sorry.

For a file-based backup, I use a great little command line utility called xxcopy. Free for personal use, cheap for commercial. It is a bit complicated, but once you get the hang of it, very reliable. It won’t do a full clone the way GHOST does, but it will grab every file, and save your behind if you ever need to start from scratch. Years ago I figured out the command line that I use to copy my c: drive to a USB drive, now I just run it without thinking:

xxcopy c: g:xp-backup /FF/KS/H/E/R/Y/BI/ZY/ZE /Oag:xxcopy-xp.log

That line is a little dangerous in that it will delete from the DESTINATION only any files that are in the destination but not in the source. In other words, if I delete files from C: that I know I don’t want in the backup, they will also disappear from the destination. (I typically only do this after I archive the files onto two separate blu-ray disks and store one at one location and other at a different location)

https://www.xxcopy.com/

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM lots of big fast SATA drives. Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 build 133 Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

Hi John;

I just dropped the HXR-NX70U off at UPS. Sad, but at least a have closure (or will once the $$ come back :0 ) On various other forums, many, many people are reporting they are returning them for refund, then buying cams from the competition – Canon, JVC, Panny. Surely Sony realizes they have goofed! I would still consider the “NX75” if it fixes the problems, because if the darn thing would just work, it would be fine. I selected it based on the feature set, never dreaming it would be a buggy turkey of a camera.

Stand by for my open letter, will post in the Sony NXCAM forum.

Thanks for sharing my pain!

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM lots of big fast SATA drives. Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 build 133 Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

Hi Angelo;

Don’t give up yet. Lots us of drop huge .avi clips into Vegas and don’t have crashes. I routinely edit .avi files that are 30 minutes long (or longer).. Some of them are hundreds of gigs in size. My system is almost three years old and is underpowered by current standards.

My apologies if the following is obvious or trivial, just trying to cover some foundational items.

I assume you are using 10e? 10d crashed a lot but 10e has been much more stable for me. Sorry if I missed that in your earlier posts. Suggestion: put your system specs into you Cow profile and include that with your posts.

More RAM does not help Vegas render faster. 12 GB is plenty. Suggestion: download and install Process Explorer:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

Set it to run when your system starts so you always have it. Configure all the little systray icons to display (Options, Tray Icons, check all of them). It will show you that Vegas is not consuming huge amounts of RAM, but probably lots of CPU (good). You can also display bigger versions of the graphs when the program is maximized.

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM lots of big fast SATA drives. Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 build 133 Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

Hi;

Slow motion is not trivial. You must start with footage that contains enough information to slow down.

Here is a thread you might find interesting:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/298/702

BTW, I had a CX150 at one time. Cool little cam.

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

Hi Angelo;

I created a video tutorial on using Huffy and Virtual Dub for time lapse. VeeDub is Da Bomb for decimation. Get HuffYUV installed first before working with VeeDub, because then you can use it to render the .avi clips, and take advantage of the lossless compression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRjzA9IYStc

Regarding using your old .avi files, try just dropping them into the Vegas timeline. Should work like a charm. If it does not, let me know and I will try to help.

Keep in mind that .avi, although huge, will have the best quality. Rendering to other formats like .wmv will introduce generation loss. You can mix clips of different types in Vegas. I show some of that in my tutorial.

Good luck and have fun!

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 Sony HDR-CX550V

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[Stephen Crye]

Thanks Al!

Just to be clear – you can use the utility to create a single, giant file on your computer, that contains all the information contained in the several raw < 2GB .mxf files that comprise the recording, from the time you pushed the record button until the time you stopped the recording?

What kind of file name is given the giant file?

Thanks again,

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 Sony HDR-CX550V

[Stephen Crye]

John, it is with bitter irony that I have found the thread you started over a year ago, unanswered. Had I found it before I bought the NX70, I might not have made that purchase.

Tomorrow I am sending my NX70 back for a refund. A big part of the problem is HORRIBLE auto-focus.

Tomorrow I plan to start a new thread with an open letter to Juan Martinez. I’ll post a link to that letter here.

You are not alone!

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400 MultiTB SATA 8 GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2 Sony HDR-CX550V