Sony FS100 divides long clips and doesnt record audio at end of clip. Help?

B

Budgieboots

Well-known member
Hello,

I recently did a wedding ceremony in which I recorded continuously for 40 minutes.

Instead of giving me one long 40 minute file of the ceremony, it divided the clips into lengths of about 11 minutes and 47 seconds.
At the end of each clip, the audio cuts out for about 4 frames, then resumes once the next clip begins.

Is there anyway to avoid this happening? Some words that are being spoken are being cut out.
 
If you're Mac based, have you tried ClipWrap? There is a specific function to select multiple files and join them.
 
MattDavis said:
If you're Mac based, have you tried ClipWrap? There is a specific function to select multiple files and join them.
Click to expand...

I'm on a PC using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

The problem is that the audio information is not being recorded on these long takes that the camera is automatically dividing into clips. It would appear that when it divides the clip, it loses about 4 frames worth of the audio. Which, isn't much but when a person is in the middle of saying a word, it wipes out a portion of the word being spoken.
 
I've not noticed this... Will investigate, but if so - appalling. Totally unacceptable. EX1s split clips perfectly, would expect (nay, have blissfully assumed) FS100 to do this too.

Recording a 15 minute clip right now (cam's mic pointed at noisy road to give it something to chew on).
 
Right: just checked. It's a workflow thing, not a limitation of the FS100. Phew, had me going for a moment!

I recorded a 26 min 44 sec clip in a fairly noisy environment where any drop or discontinuity in sound would be blindingly obvious. Used ClipWrap to join the two segments (the first one was the maximum 2.12 GB file, the second a 1.48 GB file) and wrap then into a QuickTime mov (no transcoding, so we're getting the original files, just butted up nicely and presented in a format my Mac will understand).

Playing back around the join point at 15:44 (1080p25 FH format), absolutely clean. No gaps, thumps, clicks or anything. At risk of sounding like a cereal commercial... Nothing added, nothing taken away. You wouldn't know there was a join there.

I would consider transcoding your clips - although 'editing native' sounds like a good idea, it's very taxing on the system and it now sounds like there's issues with joining clips 'live' so to speak. On the PC, I believe CineForm NeoScene does a similar thing to ClipWrap. Maybe worth downloading their trial and using it on your current edit. It may be absolutely fine.
 
On PC, just use the content management utility provided by sony with your FS100. It will show you all your clips, and the longer one spread in more than one file are presented as one clip. You select it, the software recombine the part VERY fast. And you end up with one .mts file, with no join, no frame droped, that you can edit natively on Premiere or Vegas.
 
Budgieboots said:
I'm on a PC using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.
Click to expand...

OK I'm worried...

Maybe CS5.5 is different than CS5, but for me, I haven't noticed any problems... however in the one shoot I've done with long clips since getting my FS100, I wasn't really using or checking the camera sound. I'll try that this weekend.

So in CS5.5, what happens for me is this:

* I copy the entire "AVCHD" folder from the SD card (or from the camera via USB) to my hard drive
* I put it in a sub-folder named for the day's shoot
* I import the subfolder into PP which creates a similarly-named bin in my project
* Now, PP auto-joins the clips, but (oddly) creates "phantom" clips for the second and onward split pieces. So, for example, for a 35 minute clip I see 4 clips, matching the 4 files created by the camera, but in PP the first clip contains all the footage, joined together; the following 3 are like copies of this, but slightly shorter...? You can tell the "phantom" clips because the "shot date" meta-data field is blank.
* I remove the 3 copies from my PP project -- not the hard drive -- and use the combined clip as normal.

I gave Sony's Content Manglement Utility a brief try and uninstalled it. I have a very low opinion of manufacturer-supplied software, and it looked like garbage to me. Honestly I don't see what it does that drag-and-drop can't do... but if I'm missing something, I'd love to be corrected.

Hope this helps. I'll do a test with sound this weekend.
 
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Why is the clip being split into pieces, sorry if I've missed something here, but I have recorded for over an hour continuously and it was 1 file..?
 
I think any one of us who've used a FireStore (also spookily an FS100) get a bit of a 'terrible stirring in the force' when we hear of dropped audio over split clips...

Following up on Jean-Philippe's note, I'd like to wave a little FCP-X flag here, and in processing a clip on a Mac in a few different ways, got these results:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...n-the-office&p=2428324&viewfull=1#post2428324

It's been such a non-issue since ownership, I struggled to remember if I'd actually TESTED it.

BTW, +1 on CMU opinion. XDCAM Transfer it absolutely ain't.

LiamR said:
Why is the clip being split into pieces, sorry if I've missed something here, but I have recorded for over an hour continuously and it was 1 file..?
Click to expand...

If you look at your camera's file structure, you'll notice that there's lots of files at 2.12 GB - that's the maximum file size the camera's file structure can handle, so it splits long files up into a series of 2.12 GB files (about 15.75 minutes on a PAL system), which your ingest software will recognise (or not) and seamlessly join (or not). Your workflow is obviously spotting these split files on the card and joining them.
 
On a PC, both Content Management Utility that comes with the FS100, and Vegas Pro NLE that I'm using, stich the split files seamlessly. When inserted individually to Vegas timeline, at playback the clicks at transition is unavoidable; When the stitched file is inserted, there is no clicks whatsoever.
 
MattDavis said:
If you look at your camera's file structure, you'll notice that there's lots of files at 2.12 GB - that's the maximum file size the camera's file structure can handle, so it splits long files up into a series of 2.12 GB files (about 15.75 minutes on a PAL system), which your ingest software will recognise (or not) and seamlessly join (or not). Your workflow is obviously spotting these split files on the card and joining them.
Click to expand...

Ah ok, that makes complete sense now, yeah I just put my SD card in the MBP and FCP does it's thing.
 
In Premiere Pro, import using the media browser (bottom left box on the screen) and nothing else...do not drag directories....do not drag just the .MTS files....don't do anything else because "it's always worked for you that way".

I'm surprised people still have these questions and don't read Adobe's documentation on AVCHD workflow.
 
AtticusLake said:
So in CS5.5, what happens for me is this:..

Hope this helps. I'll do a test with sound this weekend.
Click to expand...

OK, just ran a quick test, and I can't see/hear any glitch across the join when I let Premiere Pro auto-join it. I tried with audio both in Dolby Digital and in PCM. So, it seems good to me.
 
Phil1076 said:
In Premiere Pro ...do not drag directories....
Click to expand...

The problem is, importing files into Premiere doesn't make copies of them. So unless you copy them to your computer first (e.g. by dragging), then as soon as you eject the SD card / camera USB, the files are gone.

I definitely would prefer if PP would organise your files in one place for you, but there you go.
 
Hey good news guys,

I did a test and imported the media first through the Sony Content Management Utility.
Problem solved!

Previously, I was opening up the card like a USB stick and just copying and pasting the .mts files over.

I've learned my lesson and I won't do it again :tongue:
 
Budgieboots said:
Previously, I was opening up the card like a USB stick and just copying and pasting the .mts files over.
Click to expand...

That's the issue. You need more than just the .mts files -- those other files in the AVCHD folder tell Premiere (or CMU, or whatever) how to join the clips together, as well as containing meta-data like timecodes, GPS info, etc. So you need to copy the whole shebang. My post yesterday morning shows the workflow I use.

Drag-and-drop copy works great for me as I said, so I still don't really know what value CMU adds....
 
I can confirm that you do not need to use Sony's CMU if you have Premiere CS5.5. You must use the Media Browser to import the clips properly. The file size limitation isn't the only thing you'll encounter. If you don't use Media Browser you won't get your metatdata, so no Timecode either.

Again, a good workflow for this is to copy your entire SD card to your working project folder. Then import in Premiere using Media Browser. Shouldn't have any problems after that.
 
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