joined clips from ac130 not seamless

[Jglenn]

I just got an ac-130a and the clips over 4g play fine in the camera, however no matter how I try to offload them to my computer I get several frames of audio and video dropout between them. I am using San Disk, class 10 extreme 32 and 64g cards. They won't play seamless in the VLS player or in vegas pro 11, pinnacle 14 or Avid studio. Anyone have any suggestions for correcting this?

[LanceOregon]

You cannot just pull out the individual raw clips, place them on your computer, and open them up into your editor. Doing that will mess up all of the AVCHD format's metadata. This would happen with files from any camcorder that records using the AVCHD format. If you wish to copy from your SD card to your hard drive, you need to drag and drop the entire contents of the /PRIVATE directory from the card onto the disk. And then use the appropriate IMPORT MEDIA feature in your editor to load your videos. Under no circumstances attempt to open the individual clip files.

Fail to do either of these steps, and you will have this problem.

I'm not familiar with Pinnacle or Avid myself. But I know that this is definitely very easy to do in Vegas Pro 11 or Adobe Premier. In fact, if you go to the Sony Support website, you will find a document in their online knowledgebase with step by step instructions on what you need to do:

https://www.custcenter.com/app/answe...CCAM camcorder

[Jglenn]

Thank you for your response Lance. I have tried following the Sony white paper using the camera and the sd reader and. Still get the dropped frames. I also get dropped frames using Panasonic AVCCAM viewer. Is it possible that the camera is not writing some critical metadata to the clips to allow for them to be seamlessly joined? My computer is an HP with a 6 core processor and 16g of RAM, running Windows 7 professional in the 64bit version. I have also tried downloading Shotput as recommended by Panasonic and still get the dropped frames between 4g clips. Other than this offload problem I love the Camcorder.

[LanceOregon]

This is a very common issue with importing the AVCHD format, and it is usually caused by either the Metadata missing due to just copying the clips, or by corruption to the Metadata, or simply not using the proper import procedure in your software. Corruption most often happens when people use the same media on different cameras, without first doing a fresh format of the card. Metadata from different cameras then gets mixed together, which messes things up.

Did you use this card with other cameras? If so, that might be the problem. But most likely you are simply not importing properly in your software.

I use Adobe Premier myself, and could provide step by step instructions on the correct way to import AVCHD using it. But I am not familiar with any of the software that you are using.

I would advise posting in the Sony Vegas forum here, and see if some fellow Vegas users could advise you further.

There is no way that either your AC-130A or your computer is playing any role at all with this problem. They are definitely not where your difficulty lies.

I had this exact same problem myself when I first got my AC-130, until I found out the correct way to import AVCHD files in Adobe Premier.

Is it possible that the camera is not writing some critical metadata to the clips

The AVCHD metadata is not an integral part of the clips. It is recorded separate from the clip files. That is why you have to both have the entire /PRIVATE directory structure available, so that this additional information is available. And that is also why you need to use the correct import method. If you don't, then the metadata is never accessed.

[Barry_Green]

Lance is correct, and AVCHD is designed from the ground up to record long files (up to 12 hours) seamlessly.

If you're encountering gaps, it is invariably an NLE issue. You have to use the proper import procedure for AVCHD and that's different for every NLE. As Lance said, ask in the appropriate forum for your NLE. Good luck!

[Jglenn]

Thanks for all the input about importing the .mts clips. The cards I was using were san disk extreme class 10 and were new cards formatted in the camera. I talked to Panasonic support and was directed to a download site where I could get a .mts clip joiner. This worked and all the clips will now join seamlessly. I also found that the DOS system also worked, although it was a little more tedious than the file Panasonic allowed me to download. I still don't know why none of the other methods would work as I think I was following the exact procedures as outlined in the instructions. Thank you again for all the input.

[Chong Meng Yong]

Hi Jglenn, may I know where can I download the .mts clip joiner? I am using sony vegas 10. I wonder if I format my memory card to NTFS, the footage will able to record more than 3.99G for each file? Thanks.