Using Sony PMB to Transfer HD Video back to SR11 o

DLCPhoto wrote on 5/15/2009, 6:14 PM
(There is no PMB Forum, and thought this would be the most appropriate forum for this question.)

I have a Sony SR11, and can finally work well with the files using both Picture Motion Browser, and Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0b Platinum Propack (Vista 64-bit Ultimate system).

I can now edit the clips into a full HD/5.1 project, including rendering to .m2ts files. I can transfer them, using PMB, back to the SR11, which can then be connected to pretty much any HDTV, to playback these files in full HD.

Transferring these files back to the camera takes a long time - probably on the order of 8 to 10 times the length of the movie itself - so a 3 minute video will take a half hour or more, etc. Not a big problem, but made me wonder about considering other options.

With PMB, one other option is to transfer the file to a media card, such as a Memory Stick, which could then be put in the SR11 for playback (or PSP, but I don't have one). I then wondered if this would be any faster than transfer to the SR11's Hard Drive.

So - does anybody here have experience with transferring .m2ts files from your computer back to the SR11 and also to a MemoryStick (either on a computer reader, or in the SR11), that can provide a comparison of speed?

If it's much faster to transfer to a MemoryStick, I'll go ahead and buy an 8gb or so stick; if it's the same speed, I won't waste my time/money, as I still have plenty of HD space on the SR11.

Thanks.

Comments

salado wrote on 5/15/2009, 7:58 PM
yeah i also did this using PMB to put a .m2st file back onto my sony hdr-xr100.
The problem im having is that i made a test video with the vegas pro free trial (everything worked perfect) and of course I wasnt going to pay 500 dollars, But I later bought vegas movie studio platnum 9.0, but now I can not render movies as .m2st files without it crashing every time.

But anyway like you said it takes PMB forever to put them back on your HD camera. Havnt tried it to a media card yet.

I sure hope i figure studio platnium 9 out or else I just wasted 100 dollars.
DLCPhoto wrote on 5/16/2009, 4:00 AM
Having Vegas Movie Studio crash when rendering .m2ts files is a common, not quite universal, problem. This discouraged me for quite a whie from purchasing it.

However, I then saw the fix posted here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=650217

Encouraged by this, I went ahead and purchased, applied this fix, and I can now render .m2ts files without crashing. I've done a half dozen videos so far, lengths up to 6 minutes or so, and while it takes a while (probably 8 to 10x the length of the clip), it hasn't crashed yet.

Try it out and let us know if it fixes your problem as well.

And if you do have any MemorySticks, you can then try out the transfer, and see if it's any faster than going back to the camera itself.

Anybody else with experience to report here?
salado wrote on 5/16/2009, 11:42 AM
this did work....awsome
thanks a million (:

I was reaaly pissed the other night after buying sonys program and it keep on crashing

there must be a problem with sonys programs utilizing system ram, sony needs to figure it out, becouse we shouldnt have to use a third party software to make it work right. using the CFF explorer I havnt crashed yet. thanks to whoever figured this out.
stark60 wrote on 6/3/2009, 10:58 AM
I experienced transfering .m2ts files to MemoryStick via PMB and it took 50 min for a 6 min clip !
DLCPhoto wrote on 6/3/2009, 11:03 AM
Thanks for the (bad!) news. Perhaps even slower than transferring to the SR11 Hard Drive!

It shouldn't be that slow - I wonder what's going on to make it that inefficient.
stark60 wrote on 6/3/2009, 12:31 PM
One reason I think is PMB re-renders the movie (or makes a lot of checks) in order to be sure film format is OK for the camescope.
I think that because it's not the transfer itself that lasts so much but the time to "prepare" the file.


im2020 wrote on 6/13/2009, 10:18 AM
Following on from the above can anyone suggest why or how PMB can reduce my filesize by half when exporting AVCHD back to HDR-SR12?

1. I imported a 78 second AVCHD (1920x1080i) clip from my Sony HDR-SR12 using Handycam Utility, giving me a 165K m2ts file on my PC.

2. I used Vasst/NewBlue's AVCHD Upshift program to convert the AVCHD file into HDV format giving me a 589K M2T file. (I do this to give me a lossless, less compressed high definition file to smooth the editing process in Vegas.)

3. I edited this file (trimmed/removed a mere 3 seconds) using Sony Vegas Platinum 9.0b and rendered the result as type Sony AVC using template AVCHD 1920x1080 NTSC 5.1 Surround to give a 159K m2ts file.

4. I exported this file back to the HDR-SR12 handycam using Picture Motion Browser.

5. I re-imported the resulting file from HDR-SR12 to PC using Handycam Utility which now showed the filesize as 72K m2ts!

PMB took 35 minutes to complete the export. As a comparison I exported the output of Step 1 (unmodified) back to the handycam and the process took less than 2 minutes.

What rendering/reencoding do you think PMB is doing and how does it manage to reduce the filesize by half with no apparent change in media characteristics or in picture quality?

I should say that the output files from Steps 1, 3 and 5 all display the same headline media file information (AVCHD 1080i format, 1920x1080 Image Size, 16:9 aspect ratio, 5.1 Dolby Digital audio).

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.