DOWNLOADING EDITED CLIPS FROM CAMERA

JohnJ wrote on 6/18/2015, 12:24 PM

Hello,
I use a Sony HDR-SR12E hard drive camera which allows in camera editing such as trimming and deleting unwanted material. The problem I have is that when I load the remaining required material into Vegas 13 the numbering and order of these clips is changed so that creating a project with the correct sequence is very difficult. This also occurred with previous versions of Vegas but now seems worse. Can anybody advise me how to overcome the problem, please?
Thanks,
JohnJ

Comments

wwaag wrote on 6/18/2015, 1:34 PM

First, a question. No offense, but why would you want to do trimming inside the camera? I can understand deleting clips, but it would seems pretty cumbersome, at best, to do trimming inside the camera rather than doing it inside Vegas.

Second, do you (or can you) use Sony's Play Memories software? It's pretty simplistic, but the one thing it does well is import clips onto your hard drive. It renames each clip according to its date code. E.g. 20150615132512.m2ts rather than 00x.MTS. That way you can easily sort according to when the clip was shot.

wwaag

JohnJ wrote on 6/19/2015, 2:51 AM

Thanks for your comments, you make some good points. This is my retirement project of making Railroad Bluray discs and as I am non technical I am having to learn as I go along. Sometimes it is not certain when a train will come so I leave the camera running to get the first appearance. On a long trip this can build up so trimming releases space on the hard drive
I am not familiar with Sony Play Memories software and I would like to know more about it.
Could you point me in the right direction,please?
Thank You

Peter Riding wrote on 6/19/2015, 4:03 AM

Sometimes it is not certain when a train will come so I leave the camera running to get the first appearance. On a long trip this can build up so trimming releases space on the hard drive

If you mean you wish to free up some space on the cam's own hard drive, why not just switch to using memory sticks instead?

If you mean that you don't want lots of space on your editing station occupied by footage you are never going to use, do you shoot AVCHD and are you familiar with downloading via the Device Explorer in Sony Vegas?

To bring up Device Explorer go to View > Window > Device Explorer. Thtis can download direct from a cam or from a memory card sitting in a card reader. Its purpose in the context of this answer is to download AVCHD files as one complete file rather than a series of files split into (approx) 4gb / 20 minute pieces. If you go to the actual files on the cam / card and play them using e.g. VLC Media Player you can decide which "sub-files" you want and you can delete the rest without affecting Vegas's ability to download the remaining as one big take.

For example if you set your cam rolling and the train doesn't come along for 45 minutes, if the AVCHD files are split into approx 20 minute sections you can safely delete the first two parts so in effect your footage will start just 5 minutes before the train arrives.

I do that all the time for wedding ceremonies when often I have to start unattended B-cams a long time before the action starts so as not to risk missing the opportunity to start them nearer the actual time.

Pete

wwaag wrote on 6/19/2015, 9:35 AM

Now I understand why you would want to trim your files to conserve space. I agree with Pete that using multiple memory cards may be the way to go since they're relatively cheap today.

Here is the link to the Play Memories software from Sony. It's a free download.

http://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/www/disoft/int/download/playmemories-home/win/en/index.html

wwaag

JohnJ wrote on 6/19/2015, 10:10 AM

Thanks everyone. I tried the Device Explorer and while it made it easier to identify the dates it still mixed them up and changed the clip number. The clips when viewed in the camera are in the correct sequence and date even after editing but for, example, no.50 in the camera was renumbered 62 in the download and was therefore out of sequence. I don't understand how or why this happens so I will try the the playmemories download next week, although I am not confident it will be any better. Multiple cards may indeed be the answer

Arthur.S wrote on 6/21/2015, 5:09 AM

Just a little word of warning re Play Memories software. I tried it with my new Sony camera (RX100 M3). Whilst I quite liked the software, it completely bogged down my system. My laptop was taking forever to boot into a usable state. Even uninstalling it took nearly an hour! Obviously something about my Win 8.1 system wasn't compatible. Google showed I wasn't alone with problems though.

wwaag wrote on 6/21/2015, 9:48 AM

No problem with Win7 64. In thinking about your problem, the Play Memories software might actually be useful for trimming in that it doesn't completely re-render your file like trimming in Vegas. It's more akin to a smart render. I do a lot of filming in the car with a camcorder mounted on the dash and sometimes forget to hit the "stop" button. In that case, a few seconds of video that I wanted followed by minutes that I didn't intend. I'll give it a try just to confirm that it smart-renders the trimmed clip.

wwaag

set wrote on 6/21/2015, 11:14 AM

Arthur, I never had any issue of slowing the system.
I usually 'download' avchd using Playmemories, except XAVC from Sony PXW-X70, Sony Catalyst is required.

JohnJ, the file count may different because of FAT32's file size limitation, the long-recording video file must be splitted to several smaller files, and here the file number increases.

Also, have you ever deleting a clip in camera?
If you ever deleting old clips inside camera, then record again, the new recording is replacing an older video previously deleted.

Set

wwaag wrote on 6/21/2015, 2:14 PM

Just a follow-up. Playmemories does indeed smart-render your trimmed clips. It's way, way too fast for a re-render. It seems to render only the start of a clip and then the end if you've done a cut.

wwaag