Canon Vixia HG10 2GB File Limit Headache

[Dave Blackhurst]

It's such a simple fix to implement, I think once called to their attention they should have no excuse for not fixing it - even a guy who hasn't programmed in decades should be able to implement the fix in about 2 minutes...

I agree that "most" people won't shoot longer clips, but I'll be the first soccer mom who records juniors first play and it hiccups should be able to convince them <wink> it's an important thing to have WORK RIGHT!

It'd be a deal killer for me...

Lucky for the big manufacturers they have such talented "beta testers" <VBG> who cna figure out the tricks and tell them how to fix the little bugs!

[Aaron Courtney]

As promised, I am following up with this thread with new information. Since Chris' evaluation of the HF10 and the accompanying Pixela transfer software appears to indicate that the discontiguous file transfer problem has been fixed, I decided to follow-up with Canon and request a copy of the software for evaluation with the HG10.

Their email response seems to indicate that the Pixela software is now included with the HG10 because the person who responded to my request apologized for my not having received the software with the camera. I'm still skeptical, however, because without the cam tagging successive files that belong to one contiguous clip, how is the software going to determine which files comprise the original >2GB clip. Perhaps the cam is already doing this and Guide Menu is simply ignoring that data. Don't know, but hopefully will know very soon...

[Aaron Courtney]

Well I have some very disappointing news. Canon has decided to hang the HG10 users out to dry on this issue. They are not addressing it and refuse to accept responsibility for the problem, instead passing the buck to Corel. When I pressed the issue stating that the cam is useless for recording anything >17 minutes as it stands right now, the response effectively was "find different software."

This led to further discussion of the Pixela software, which the Canon support rep's official response was, "It's not supported with the HG10." Fine, I can accept that. When I asked for a copy, he told me Canon was not licensed to distribute the software with the HG10. He gave me a telephone number for contacting Pixela, which I did. I requested an eval copy of their software to try with the HG10. The Pixela support person then responded that they legally can no longer distribute their own software because Canon purchased the rights to the software, LOL! He recommended that I contact Canon's parts department in order to obtain a copy.

This prompted additional discussion referring to the ability of the Pixela software to correctly reassemble broken .mts clips back into the orginal contiguous clip presented in the cam's lcd. At this point he openly admitted to the software's 1 hour limitation, apparently meaning that if the original contguous clip exceeds 60 minutes in length, all you're going to get is 60 contiguous minutes. I don't know what is done with the remaining .mts files that, say, comprise a 90-minute shoot. What a joke. I told him this was completely unacceptable, and he mentioned he would submit the complaint to the software development team <-- which I'm sure he did because he appeared very sincere as opposed to the Canon support rep who continued to semantically dance around the whole issue.

So, where does that leave us with Canon's AVCHD cams? Well, we know the copy /b command does work with the HG10. I would assume it would also work with the HF10/100, but this remains unconfirmed. The Pixela software, according to their rep, will correctly reassemble the clips as long as the entire shoot is less than one hour in length. Who knows what happens at that point. Their software may totally mangle that splice point beyond repair; in which case you'd be better off not using their software and simply relying on the copy /b command if that's even possible with the HF10/100 since I'm wondering if Canon had to implement some form of data tagging to these .mts clips in the HF10/100 in order to get the Pixela software to correctly tag the .mts files that belong to a larger, contiguous file, thus avoiding choosing individual clips that don't belong to the longer file and tacking those on as well. I mean, you have to wonder how the software knows which clips belong together and which ones are individual takes.

This could indicate a difference between the HG10 and the HF10/100 in how the .mts clips are laid to storage since Canon apparently discovered this problem after the HG10 was released yet before releasing the HF10/100, and they may have implemented a firmware revision to the HF10/100 knowing they would be using the Pixela software instead of the Corel software.

I'd really wish someone with a Sony AVCHD cam would record a 90-120 minute clip and see how the PMB software handles that length because I was under the impression that somehow Pixela was involved in the Sony software as well. HEY, and ANYONE WITH A PANNY AVCHD PLEASE JUMP IN HERE and let us know how their current AVCHD cam's handle long recordings and the subsequent transfer to a PC...

[Dave Blackhurst]

Hi Aaron -
Ahhh, the ol' "corporate two step" one of the funniest dances on the face of the planet, unless you're the dance partner!

I'll switch the quality setting and let a CX7 run out of curiousity - never contemplated more than an hour (TAPE based mental limitation!!), but I have run an hour on a 4G stick, and it stitches fine. With an 8G I think I can get 2 hours at decent res, so I'll have to test.

Still want to try that copy/b hack, as it appears simple enough.

I think sometimes the end user has to accept that the designers have a specific viewpoint and simply never contemplate the creative possibilities (TWO hours on a single piece of media, who would think of such a thing <wink>!).

THIS is how technology moves forward. Someone creates an artificial barrier, and people with creative minds and stout craniums bust through it at some point and new and cool things happen... it's just tough being on the "bleeding edge" of the revolution. Patience is a virtue, obviously, but playing with new toys is fun with the right attitude! Pain reliever of your choice also sometimes helps....

My take would be if the copy/b hack works, who cares if the software guys didn't get enough Jolt cola and pizza to make it work right the first time? Wouldn't be the first time a "workaround" was required! That said, don't give up just yet, keep squeaking, and look out for that gigantic gooey glob of slippery stuff in case it comes your way!

Dave

PS - may be a few days before I get to run a test, and I'm going to guess that Panasonic owners just don't take long clips for some strange resason! I'm sure the same issues are there with file size and need to stitch...

[Aaron Courtney]

LOL! Thanks Dave, I appreciate your help.

[Michael Coniker]

hello everyone, i am new to this forum. i have the hg10 camcorder for just a few weeks now. overall i love the camera, however, i have a few questions that, after reading this thread, i am sure you guys can help.

1st- i am not sure how to implement the copy/b workaround to fix the seaming issue after 20 minutes of recording. could you explain a little more in detail on how to that application.

2nd- is there anyway to convert the .mts or .m2ts files into something that can be emailed or posted online. i cant seem to do anything with these files. i have a ton of clips from a recent rock climbing trip and i want to get some clips to my friends. i only have the coral software that came with the camera and it seems that making a dvd of just raw footage is time consuming and very slow and even too big for a dual layer, as the software won't allow me to burn more than 100 clips.

being new at this i am not sure what type of info you need. it seems you guys understand this camera better then canon. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

thanks
michael

[Aaron Courtney]

Hey Michael, first, assuming you're on a Windoze PC, simply open a command prompt, cd (change directory) to the path where the .mts files exist, and type at the cursor: copy /b <first>.mts+<second>.mts+<third>.mts <originalclip>.mts where <first>, <second>, and <third> represent the original filenames and <originalclip> represents the name of the contiguous clip that you desire.

It helps tremendously to have an editing software package or playback software that can view the original .mts files; otherwise, you're guessing about which files belong to which clip.

If you're going to want to do any degree of serious video editing, then you'll probably want to pick up a third party software package. Otherwise, you may want to look at/wait for Canon's DW-100.

[Michael Coniker]

hello Aaron,
thanks for the quick response, i will try it soon.
any info. on how to convert single clips to something more usable with the rest of the world. ie. email, youtube, facebook uploading.

this would make it so much easier to share videos with other people, rather then having to edit, convert and transfer to dvd and then give it to someone. i am sure you understand. it requires less work and isn't that what it's all about... more for less

[Florin Andrei]

I agree that the 2GB limit is stupid. But after spending a number of years in the computer industry, I think I understand why they're doing it. It's a Cover Your Ass thing. They're taking the path of least resistance and do not assume any risks, no matter how remote. "It ain't broken, so why fix it?"
Except, of course, it is broken, but in a more subtle fashion.

Also, in a crooked way, it's a "good thing" that they split the files the way they do. A binary copy is something one can do on any computer, on any OS, no matter what's the software. It's also a trivial operation. It could have been much worse.

It also explains the corruption at the beginning and end of the files - probably the last frame, or the last GOP or so, gets truncated, so either the video or the audio track, or both, get corrupted.

[Aaron Courtney]

Originally Posted by Florin Andrei

They're taking the path of least resistance and do not assume any risks, no matter how remote.

Yeah, they also don't assume any responsibility for their decision to have to rely on faulty third-party software. At this point in time, the only advantage AVCHD has over HDV is convenience in the acquisition phase. On every other point, it's second rate, IMO. With Canon's turnkey-less AVCHD implementation (unlike Sony's), HDV is arguably still the better option and by a wide margin at that.

[Kenneth Ross]

All,

I found this discussion yesterday after searching the web for info on the 2GB size-limited files produced by the Canon HG10. After reading the entire thread, I was happy to see that you had found a work-around solution that didn't corrupt the splice-points of the files. That got me to thinking about writing a Windows-base program to do the same thing. So... I did just that! It's not as slick and robust as it could be, but it does the job. Here's some info...

The program's first dialog allows you to select multiple files from the same directory. These are the pieces that the HG10 broke your files into. You select the files by clicking on the first one to highlight it and the depressing the "shift" key and click on the last one in the list. All of your files should then be highlighted. (this is just standard Windows file-selection stuff here, but in case there's someone that's not familiar...) Alternately, you can press the "Ctrl" key and select individual files until you've highlighted all that are in the sequence.

The program DOES NOT try to figure out if two video files actually belong in the same resultant file. I trust you to identify only the files that made up the original sequence. With that said, my program DOES make sure that the files that you select are processed in the right order. That is, in the numbering sequence as produced by the HG10. For instance, file "00055.MTS" comes before file "00056.MTS".

The second file-selection dialog allows you to specify a directory and file name for the resultant, contiguous file.

Once you've identified all files, the program goes about building the contiguous file. I currently use 10MB buffers for reading and writing data. This allows pretty fast operation. For a couple of segments, this amounts to about 3 minutes 11.5 seconds on my 2.3Ghz Core 2 Duo. It's single-threaded so it ties up one processor. If folks want a more robust operation, I'll try to find time to work on it and smooth it out. I just thought you'd want to get it ASAP...

There are 2 files to this program... the "MTS_FileJoinerProj.exe" file which is the executable and weighs in at about 30KB, and the "borlndmm.dll" file which is only another 24KB. Put them in a folder called "FileJoiner" and hook them up to your "Start" button by moving the folder to "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs". Start the program by clicking "Start->Programs->FileJoiner->MTS_FileJoiner.exe"

I haven't had any problems with it, but cannot guarantee its operation. Test it on copies of your files, just to gain confidence that it's working properly.

If you like it and it helps you, please consider throwing a couple of bucks in my Paypal account (thesuperstitions@gmail.com). Anything collected will be donated to my son's Cub Scout Pack (Pack 618).

Thanks!

P.S. As an aside... while I was reading the thread, I was shocked to see MY NAME as the author of a thread!! Turns out, the author, "Ken Ross" wasn't me! So... Hi Ken!!

[Frank Genus]

Hey Ken,

Do you know if it will work under Vista (particularily Vista 64)?

[Kenneth Ross]

It's just a plain vanilla Windows program so it should run under any version since Windows 95. I haven't used it on a Vista machine, primarily because my employer doesn't want to go to Vista and I'm in no hurry either.

Hope this answers your question... I'll be interested in your feedback after you've tried it.

Ken

[Kenneth Ross]

I thought that folks that inhabit this thread would be all over this program to splice together HG10 files. If anyone has used it, I hope that you found it useful.

[Jared Barta]

Testing it out currently...

Looks awesome, I was wishing I had some basic coding experience. I was considering taking one of the software programmers out to lunch or otherwise bribing them into writing something for this purpose. Hope it works!

J