Sorry I am very new to this video editing stuff. I have the video that isn't rendered yet. My problem is i dragged the first clip onto the timline, then put the next clip. Even though I did not create a pause in the video when recordeing it, it seems like the video on the computer "skips" or cuts out for a second between those two clips and you lose a word of 2 of what is being said. Is there a way to merge these clips that would eliminate that, or is it just how the camera made them and there is nothing i can do about it.

This is a problem inherent in cameras that record to a hard drive or sd card. The video is split during recording because all these systems use FAT32 format on media and FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, you do get a slight discontinuity, especially in sound, between clips.

I quite often record stage plays where there are long, continuous scenes. The best work-around I have found is to lower the bitrate on the camera to give about 40 mins of continuous recording and stop the camera wherever there is a break in the action, e.g. scene break.

It's a very annoying shortcoming but one, I suspect, that affects only a small proportion of users. If only there would use NTFS the problem would go away. I expect there is a copyright problem in doing so.

Using the Sony Picture Motion Browser software that came with the SR-11 to copy the video clips from the SR-11 to your hard drive will eliminate the gaps. The software automatically combines any clips that were broken up because of the file size limit.

I don't recall whether the software will let you open and combine clips that are already on your hard drive, but if you no longer have the clips on the SR-11, it might be worth trying.

This will work - go to a DOS prompt, move to that folder, and then do the following:

copy /b segment1.ext + segment2.ext + segment3.ext completevideo.ext

This will combine all the segments into a single file and eliminate the small gap Vegas sees when you go between segments.

Ah, the old DOS days - long forgotten (at least by me). Looked a great tip, so well worth giving it a try. Unfortunately, in my case (JVC Everio HD camcorder) it did not produce the desired result. The files were joined OK but the second segment had a lip synch problem. I was able to get a better result by slightly overlapping the clips on the timeline.

Perhaps the technique works better on files from other camcorders.

Why would anyone think that joining the files would work?

The OP said that there were words missing. LIkely from the time needed to finish writing the file and start a new file. Joining the files will not restore the missing parts.

Brighterside, I have clips from a panasonic camera that are multiple m2t files from a single run. When I drop those individual files on the timeline, there is a slight gap in the audio (the video plays fine) between the clips. After combining them like I described, everything plays straight through with NO drops in the audio.

The same thing happens to me when importing a DVD using File - Import - DVD Camcorder Disc. When there's multiple files, I get a slight gap in the audio. After combining them as described, there is no gap in the audio.

So, it has worked fine in my situations to restore the "missing" audio.

I just tried the experiment with my JVC Everio HD. I recorded about 50 minutes of constant audio and a timecode display. This resulted in two 4GB files and one 1GB file. Dumping them on the timeline as-is the first two clips ended in about half a second of silence. There was also one frame's worth of time completely missing at the end of the files. I then combined the files with the copy /b command and tried the combined clip, lining it up with the individual clips. The combined clip was perfect, no gap, no silence, no lost frames.

So, copy /b sure seems to work with this Everio's files.

I think the success of this method depends on how the camcorder switches to the new file. If it merely stops writing one file and begins writing the second then appending them together should work. If on the other hand the camcorder closes a file, then starts up a new recording with new headers in the next file, then there will be a glitch when they are stitched.

Hi Kelly.

As a matter of interest, does your Everio record in either MPEG or AVCHD and which did you use for the experiment? I'm wondering if MPEG works better with this method, as I used AVCHD.

Mike

Mike, as far as i know, only AVCHD. If there's a way to switch it, it must be buried in some menu i've never seen yet.

OK, thanks. Mine is a JVC Everio GZ-HD30 and can record in either mode. It was a particular reason that I bought it, as some (all?) software finds MPEG much easier to handle, but AVCHD gives a better file size to quality ratio.

Mine's the GZ-HM300BU.

It's most outstanding feature is that it survived being dunked in a lake with no ill effects.

Have you tried the Auto Ripple: place your curser over the Menu until you arrive at Auto Ripple.

Windows Live Movie Maker can also join, but only encodes WMV videos.

I use AnyVideoConvertor to convert to mpegII and edit with VMS10

I have had this problem for a long time. In Studio9 "quantize to frames" seemed to fix it but nothing seemed to work in Studio10.
I have fixed the problem by fading the clips. Find the fade preferences and set the fade to 0.03 seconds which is one frame then it will fade that partial frame and you never see the dark flash. The only other way is to zoom in on every clip and cut that last partial frame from each clip then they will snap together and not have those little blips between clips.
Dale

I also havd the hdr-sr11, and discovered the same issue (I record concerts). However, when let the Sony supplied-with camera PMB utiltiy extract my video, it patches it together correctly. I just extracted a continuous 1.5 hour clip, and PMB wrote one large file with no gaps or skips.

@jetdv;

The copy /b technique just worked perfectly with two clips (1st 4GB, 2nd 2GB) from my Panasonic GH3!

I am sooo happy about this. Even though the audio was not critical - I was using the GH3 as a second cam in a symphony shoot, with the production audio recorded on my trusty Sony HDR-CX550V, I had been fretting about the "gap" problem. When I dragged the separate clips into the timeline, there was no video gap, but there was about a 1/4 sec audio dropout - HUGE when dealing with classical music! The copy-joined clip is perfect, no dropout.

(BTW, I use Sony Vegas 9, 10, 11 and now 12)

I have been spoiled by the Sony PMB utility that imports the recordings directly from Sony cams, and seamlessly joins the multiple segments. Sony PMB is a real value-add for Sony camera, great little utility, can also get super-high res frame grabs and do lossless trimming.

Thanks again, jetdv! You saved my bacon.

Steve

Glad I could help.

Jetdv,

Thank you for your solution, it worked perfectly! Split .MTS files from an HDR-SR11 were merged very effectively and it got rid of the gaps. Here is what my cmd prompt command looked like:

c:\Temp>copy /b 00280.mts + 00281.mts + 00282.mts + 00283.mts + 00284.mts mergedfile01.mts

For those who might feel nothing is happening after you press "Enter", it needs to process the footage and it take a little while.

Regards,

Technically it's not processing. It's just copying. But they're huge files, so it should be expected that the copy takes a while. Think how long it took to copy the files from the camcorder's memory card over to the hard drive; this is pretty much the same amount of time.

A long time ago Jetdv gave us this a solution: copy /b segment1.ext + segment2.ext + segment3.ext completevideo.ext

12 years later I came across this issue when using Panasonic camera, and been puzzling me for months but the above works like a treat!! Lifesaver, thank you if you ever read this.

@Dave-Roberts, and we still use this technique every week at church.

A long time ago Jetdv gave us this a solution: copy /b segment1.ext + segment2.ext + segment3.ext completevideo.ext

12 years later I came across this issue when using Panasonic camera, and been puzzling me for months but the above works like a treat!! Lifesaver, thank you if you ever read this.

Nowadays you could also use a tool like Shutter-encoder, which can merge lossless lots of video-formats without typing codes, just drag and drop the files into Shutter-encoder, select "merge" and click start function.