Editing & Joining 2 GB AVCHD clips in Vegas Pro 13

prejto wrote on 10/20/2015, 12:04 PM

Apologies if this is an elementary question. I've just started to use Vegas Pro 13.

I have a 4 camera recording session of a live chamber music concert to edit. The files came from a Sony HD recorders. The AVCHD files all split at 2 GB into multiple files. If I place the files on the time line they do not play smoothly from file to file over file breaks.

Is there a way to open the AVCHD files so that Vegas sees them as a single file? Or, must I convert or join the files with a 3rd party program?

Thanks very much for any assistance!

Peter

Comments

OldSmoke wrote on 10/20/2015, 12:54 PM

Connect your camera via USB to the computer, open VP13, press CTRL+ALT+7, this will open the device explorer. You should see your camera and files. The device explorer will combine split files into one file without audio or video drop outs. It may also work plugging the SD card from the camcorder into a reader and then use the Device Explorer.

wwaag wrote on 10/20/2015, 1:17 PM

Another option is to import your media files into Sony's Play Memories software. It will combine these 2GB files into a single file.

wwaag

Chienworks wrote on 10/20/2015, 2:14 PM

The simple option i've always done is to use a DOS concatenate command. In a DOS command window type in something like this:

copy \b 00000.mts + 00001.mts + 00002.mts + 00003.mts combinedfile.mts

This will concatenate the first four files (from the camera) into one single file. This works perfectly with *most* AVCHD streams. Make sure the resulting file is ok before you delete the original camera files, just in case this doesn't work with your files!

PeterDuke wrote on 10/20/2015, 5:13 PM

I like the Play Memories Home method best because it is a no-brainer of what to concatenate AND the files are renamed to shooting time-date. It is easier to carry out than the clumsy DOS command, and the concatenation is done once and for all, unlike the Vegas import method.

Play Memories of course only works with Sony cameras. Panasonic, for instance, is less helpful with their software.

prejto wrote on 10/22/2015, 11:31 PM

Thanks everyone for the replies and most helpful suggestions. I've been traveling and just returned from the USA to Australia so have had no chance to experiment further with this issue until now.

Unfortunately I do not own the Sony cameras. The files were given to me as copies (including the file trees) directly from the SD cards off each camera. I did try some Sony software that seemed like it would do the same task as Play Memories but there was no option to open a disc. Perhaps if I had copied the files to an SD card I might have succeeded. I assume that Play Memories might have the same limitation.

I just tried the ctrl + alt + 7 open and it worked once I figured out that I actually could navigate to a folder even though no device was connected. Problem solved. THANKS!!

Peter

PeterDuke wrote on 10/23/2015, 12:28 AM

It looks like HJSplit will do the trick, but you would need to have all files to be joined in the same folder and with the same file stem name. The files should have .001, .002, etc. extensions, in the order to be joined.

If you only have a few files to join this would be OK, otherwise it may be a bit tedious. You would also have to determine which files should be concatenated, and which left separate. The easiest way is probably to sort the Windows Explorer display by file size, and all those files with about 2 GB size would be candidates. (Note that for Panasonic cameras, all chunks of a split file, except perhaps the last, are about 4 GB.)

There are a few other concatenating programs with GUI that would save renaming files first. I'll track down the ones that I know about if you so desire.

In the meantime I suggest that you put the complete file structure on an SD card and see if Play Memories or other software will read it. It then is a no-brainer, as I said before.

The file structure should start with a PRIVATE folder, containing an AVCHD folder, containing a BDMV folder, containing STREAM, CLIPINF and other folders and files.

EDIT

You edited your post while I was composing mine.

I am glad that you are glad.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/23/2015, 6:36 AM

> "The files were given to me as copies (including the file trees) directly from the SD cards off each camera."

This practice is so critical that it warrants repeating.

You ALWAYS want to copy the ENTIRE contents of the camera card to your hard drive. A lot of people navigate into the card structure and copy the video files out. This is a very bad practice that I use to do myself. Copying the entire card file tree ensures that any software that can read cards will be able to read that folder in the future and use the metadata stored in that file tree to reconstruct the video exactly as the camera shot it.

Good thing you had the whole file structure. Everyone should be doing the same. I now archive the entire AVCHD file structure from my Sony camera when I backup my cards.

~jr

rs170a wrote on 10/23/2015, 7:33 AM

I now archive the entire AVCHD file structure from my Sony camera when I backup my cards.

+1,000 to John's comment. I do this every time with the contents of my camera cards too. It just makes life a lot easier :)

Mike

david-pedd wrote on 10/26/2015, 4:44 PM

I have a Panasonic camera (and Vegas 12) and tried the CTL+ALT+7 and it would only "see" the first file (there are 3).

Any clues to get it to see all 3?

PeterDuke wrote on 10/27/2015, 7:29 PM

"You ALWAYS want to copy the ENTIRE contents of the camera card to your hard drive. A lot of people navigate into the card structure and copy the video files out. This is a very bad practice that I use to do myself. Copying the entire card file tree ensures that any software that can read cards will be able to read that folder in the future and use the metadata stored in that file tree to reconstruct the video exactly as the camera shot it. "

If you concatenate the parts of a single shoot when you first copy your files to the computer and rename each shoot to its creation date and time, as I outlined in my first post, what else is there on the card that you might need later? The useful metadata, such as camera settings and GPS, is contained in the .m2ts files, and can be seen with say DVMP Pro.