Why is Device Explorer AVCHD Import so SLOOOOW?

Sidecar wrote on 3/9/2011, 6:16 PM
Downloading about 2GB of AVCHD files from Canon HFS100 via USB. It is taking forever.

It's only about 12 minutes of HD video. It's been downloading for ten minutes and is only 10% done. It's going to take an hour to download. I could digitize from tape in real time MUCH faster.

Any harm in simply copying the files to the hard drive via a fast card reader and then importing them into Vegas 10c? What do you lose? Metadata? Something else?

Comments

monoparadox wrote on 3/9/2011, 6:41 PM
That's the way I do it. Not sure how Canon handles it, but Sony Content Manager that came with my AX2000 brings it off the card the same as off the camera.
Sidecar wrote on 3/9/2011, 6:57 PM
I aborted the Device Manager import, quit Vegas and plugged in a very fast Transcend SCHD card reader that came with a card I bought a while back.

Pulled all 60 clips (2.97 GB) into a folder in about two minutes.

I opened Vegas and imported all 60 clips in about another minute.

The only difference I can see is that, importing via a card reader, the clip "names" are simple sequential numbers ("00001") while the Device Manager names each clip "00001_20110308_124912.mts" which adds/preserves the date and time the shot was taken.

But that little bit of extra data comes at a tremendous cost: it's like USB-1. I see the card read indicator on the camera blink every ten seconds or so, then it sits and thinks.

No thanks. Card reader it is.
PeterDuke wrote on 3/9/2011, 8:06 PM
If you are recording to a memory card rather than hard disk, there will be a file size limit of 2 GB due to the FAT32 limits. Long clips will therefore be segmented into sub clips to conform. Supplied transfer software usually glues the sub clips back together again during the transfer.

I always use the supplied PMB to transfer AVCHD from my Sony camera because the files are renamed according to shooting time and date, which is invaluable to me. Transfer time is certainly long but not as long as deleting the files after the transfer. Why should deleting a stack of files on a hard disk in a camera take hours?
csw wrote on 3/9/2011, 9:44 PM
Out of curiosity, have you tried using the device explorer to import from the Transcend card reader? I'm wondering whether it's the camera's USB port slowing things down.