Question about a low end Sony Handy Cam AVCHD file structure?

J

j1clark@ucsd.edu

Veteran
I have a low end Sony HDR SR11 and it has a 60GB internal disk for recording.

I use it for capturing lectures and really am not interested in any real 'quality', just document the lecture...

Anyway... I copy the AVCHD file structure to my 'archive' disk, then import the appropriate MTS files into Premiere...

Now the question...

I find there are duplicate XXXXX.MTS files, which are about 2 or so GB, all of which seem to be 'identical' in that when I import several into Premiere, then look at the length, and the shuttle back and forth
in their respective timelines, or even put two of them into a sequence and compare 'time location' for 'time location' they are identical...

So, my question is 'what gives'... is this some sort of weird optimization and it uses up the 60 GB many times as fast with the additional media files... is there some 'hidden' reason that I'm really missing chunks of video
because the camera was alternating writing to these files (sort of like in 'raid' mode???).

Or noone has really looked at this sort of thing...

Any info would be appreciated...
 
All of your MTS files are part of the same clip. As far as Premiere sees them, they are all just one single continuous clip. The max file size for Sony AVCHD files is 2 GB. So if you shoot a clip longer than that, AVCHD will end up spanning the clip across multiple 2 GB files.

Obviously, that is what happened here.

In the future, use Premiere's MEDIA BROWSER to instead look at your files. It will correctly show just the one single clip, which you can then right click on with your mouse, and select to import.
 
Or use the Sony PMB software that came with the camera. That will transfer the files to the PC as a single m2ts file renamed to the date and time the clip was taken and the software will put it in a folder named as the date the transfer took place. You can then use these clip files in Premiere. Using this PMB ( current version is called PlayMemories ) you will not have any sound or video sync issues when the FAT32 MTS files are joined for clips that last longer than the 2G files size limit for FAT32 format. Most cameras use the FAT 32 file format as it is efficient for small memory sizes so this will be the case for most cameras not just Sony. I use all the time to transfer the files from my cameras, then backup the directory, then edit.

Ron Evans
 
Ron Evans said:
You can then use these clip files in Premiere. Using this PMB ( current version is called PlayMemories ) you will not have any sound or video sync issues when the FAT32 MTS files are joined for clips that last longer than the 2G files size limit for FAT32 format
Click to expand...


People only experience sound or video sync problems if they have incorrectly imported their clips into their editing software.

What I do is to copy the entire PRIVATE folder from my SDHC card to a folder on one of my hard drives. That way I am sure that all of the AVCHD metadata is also included. I then use the Media Browser in Premiere CS6, and it then correctly identifies all of the clips as actually being one single video. I then right click on that, choose import, and everything is synced just fine as it is brought into Premiere.

The Sony PMB software is probably a good choice for folks that want to do a direct USB 2.0 transfer from their Handycam to their PC. However, I simply put my SDHC card into a USB 3.0 card reader, and the transfer to my hard drive goes dramatically faster. Especially if you have a SDHC card with a fast read speed.
 
I still use Sony Transfer software with my SDHC cards with a USB 3.0 reader that way I get all the advantages of the logging software so that I can look up by date etc and have the data backed up from the directory dated the date I transferred to the PC. I agree that video /audio sync issues come from incorrectly transferring the files. I have never experienced any sync issues always transferred with the Sony software. Currently have NX5U, NX30U, CX700, XR500, SR11 camcorders also HX30V and GoPro cameras. SR11 and XR500 are hard drive camcorders so need to be connected to USB port, the others use removable cards. I have CS6, Vegas 12 and Edius 6.07 all of which will do a transfer as you describe but I still prefer to keep the transfer and backup separate from editing.

Ron Evans
 
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