What do you use to download your SDHC card to your computer? When I look at the card with my computer there are 3 main folders, DCIM, MISC and PRIVATE, and within these there are more folders. I don’t know what folder or files I need to download. Is there a program I should be using that will copy the correct files?

Thanks for helping a GH2 noob.

No, just poke around, find the video files and drag and drop into the location you want them. Your photos, if you have any, will be in a different folder. I think the folder the video is in is the stream folder. If you have Windows 7 you will see thumbnails. If you don't, you won't.

I'd have to dig out my gear and get a card to find the location, but you can find them with no problem.

Thanks Jeff, I wonder why there are so many folders that are of no value?

Norm

It does seem weird to me as well, but they must have a reason for being there, or at least you would think so.

I'd like to know about this too. Why so many folders? One for pics and one for vids.

The folders contain parsers so that your editing program can see the correct files - ie, video.

You should not extract the video files out of the folder but instead copy the complete folder to your drive. For example, Final Cut Pro needs the entire folder in order to use Log and Transfer window which will convert the GH2 files to ProRes. This is the workflow I use.

Good information Jon. Norm and I use Vegas, so we shouldn't need the other files, correct? I've been ignorantly just dragging the files from their folder, but to no ill effect.

I've been dragging out of the stream folder to Premiere with no problem.

Thats because your NLE's can work with AVCHD files.

Thats fine if you never work with clients. But what happens if the clients asks you for the raw files and they cannot open them on their system? Thats when you need the complete folder.

So as a precaution I drag the folder on to my drives - I can rename this with a date-title etc. Then I can process the files within my NLE.

Jon, which folder/s are you draging to your computer?

The Stream folder has my video files on my GH2, TM700 and GH1 .

I haven't yet had the opportunity to use this workflow yet (I'll be trying it out on a project next week), but from input from Vegas users online, you can create one uninterrupted file if you choose, but you need to do this before copying the video files from the card onto your computer. To import "un-joined" files as a joined file: Import via Device Explorer in Sony Vegas. If files have already been copied to PC, use TSMuxer to join files (www.smlabs.net/tsmuxer_en.html). There are likely similar options with other NLE's.

Thanks Jeff, I wonder why there are so many folders that are of no value?


It's the AVCHD file structure and reflects the Blu-Ray specification. You can burn the file structure as-is to a disc and it'll play on most Blu-Ray players.

Thanks Kin, excellent information, didn't know that!

Do you all use single slot card readers,i do as i find it easy to load my footage with them to the external drive i store my GH2 footage on.

On a Mac the best workflow is to clone the card to a disk image file (.dmg) using disk utility or a simpler to use app like AnyToDMG. Then just use Log & Transfer in Final Cut to grab the video clips from the disk image. L&T understands the card directory structure but will not work properly & may even crash if you muck it up by e.g. deleting files (it's OK to delete files on the camera just don't do it on the computer).

Alternatively & particularly if you have mucked up the files on the card then you can use ClipWrap which re-wraps the .MTS files on the card into a .MOV QT file that FCP can ingest.