A 2 hour non-stop recording producing 5 files on a sdhc card instead of one! why?

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eric geurts lakin

Active member
I did a non-stop recording of about 2 hrs and ten minutes on a Transcend 32 GB sdhc class 6 card. When I finished, I expected there to be just the one file. When I looked at the card, there were infact 5 seperate files! each consisted of 3.99 GB and were roughtly about 26 minutes long (give or take a few seconds) but I never stopped recording! so why has the recording been split up into 5 seperate files? whats more, when I transfered the files to my editor, there was a fraction of a second missing at the start of each file. Which means 4 cuts in the recording when I had the recorder on continuously for 2 hrs and ten minutes! I am starting to get worried as I have promised to record a school concert that lasts about one and a half hours without a break.
 
Fat32 format. only makes 4gb files. all card formats (except P2?) are restricted by fat32. I am not familiar with the camera enough to know if there is any way around it, but with other cameras you can make the bitrate smaller so it will be longer between cuts. i.e. 4GB= 12min of video on Canon DSLRs but with Magic Lantern you can extend it to 1hr by using lower bitrate, but you lose quality by doing so. I think the HMC150 has variable bitrate settings but I don't know to what extent.

My best recommendation is to just stop and start manually when there is a break in the action, even if it's just 2 seconds. I did a trick at concerts where I had a friend hire me to shoot a 8 min song and wanted multiple angles and I had myself and my GF, so I had her run a continuous shot with a HD handycam I had, with a walky-talky I would tell her when she could zoom and when to leave a steady shot so I could run around the stage to get another angle. Not easy, but possible. I wouldn't generally recommend doing this for any important client though.
 
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What I'll do then is that I'll simply stop recording when the audience begins to clap, then resume recording after a second or two. I'm so glad that I tried out a long recording test before-hand and discovered this unknown limit of 4 gb files. Thank you very much indeed for your reply!
 
There is just one more thing. If my hmc 151 records about 26 minutes (per 3.99 GB) of video onto an sdhc card with the camera locked onto the same non-moving object. Does anyone know if I will get less "minutes" (per 3.99 Gb's) if I pan-around, zoom-in, film people moving about etc?
 
eric geurts lakin said:
whats more, when I transfered the files to my editor, there was a fraction of a second missing at the start of each file.
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What editor are you using, and how are you importing? Assuming you transferred the entire 'PRIVATE' folder, a lot of editors should be able to recognize and import it all as one big clip when you import the first clip
 
I'm using Magix movie edit pro 17 plus. I insert the sdhc card into my card-reader as usual, import the whole "private" folder. Then I click onto "stream" which opens up the various mts files, then I place the mts files straight into the Magix time-line. This always works well for me. I just tried again to place the "3.99 GB" files onto the time-line, and the sound appears to be seamless except the video part, which starts to play seamlessly for about 2 milliseconds?, then there are about 10 milliseconds? of darkness... then the video plays on as normal.,
 
Maybe this answer is clearer then my previous answer above. I can only import one mts file at a time. When I import the first (of 5) mts files, only the first one goes into my time-line. If I import the lot in one go, then they still appear as 5 seperate files on the time-line. I also discovered that the sound at the end of each file cuts-out a fraction of a second before, then resumes as normal from the start of the next file... but the video part, is cutting-out at a fraction of second after the next file starts, then resuming again as normal.
 
-The 4GB is not an "unknown limit". It's common knowledge and is a limitation of the file system and has nothing to do with the camera.
-Never heard of Magix movie pro...any professional NLE will transparently stitch the files together for one seamless video.
 
There are also programs out there that will stich it together, then you can put the whole thing in your NLE... A good NLE will do it for you with an appropriate 'importing' function.
 
Phil1076 said:
-The 4GB is not an "unknown limit". It's common knowledge and is a limitation of the file system and has nothing to do with the camera.
-Never heard of Magix movie pro...any professional NLE will transparently stitch the files together for one seamless video.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my money is on it being the editing program and not the camera. For only $100 USD, I wouldn't expect that much out of it... at least not on the level of Premiere, Final Cut, Avid, or the other much more expensive editors.
 
Yes... I also suspected that it might be the Magix editing programme that is at fault, I also tried Sony Vegas and that was disappointing. So maybe I'll just have to bite the bullet and fork out some serious money on a more expensive "proper" editor.
 
I just downloaded a trial version of Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5.5, then using the NLE's media browser, I imported the numerous "3.99 GB" files (which had now become just the one file) and to my great relief,
the recording that I did is now completelly intact. So I realize now that it was the Magix editor all along! Thank you very much you people for helping me out with this problem.
 
Good News! Its not actually that its Magix fault... Its just that continuous MTS files cant be dragged in and butt up together. They need to be stitched together with appropriate software.
 
eric geurts lakin said:
I just downloaded a trial version of Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5.5, then using the NLE's media browser, I imported the numerous "3.99 GB" files (which had now become just the one file) and to my great relief,
the recording that I did is now completelly intact. So I realize now that it was the Magix editor all along! Thank you very much you people for helping me out with this problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, make sure you use the media browser (instead of dragging over the .MTS files by themselves). Also, maintain the PRIVATE directory structure if copying the files to another location.
 
Search here for a little utility that a very nice DVX member wrote upon my request. Ii is called AVC Merge and will stitch the files into one before you put them in your NLE.
 
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