transfer very slow at DVinfo.net

Olivier Jezequel · December 7th, 2009, 02:08 PM

i am trying to copy 17go (arournd 500) of movies from my HFs11 to my computer, but the time of copy are insane.
I cannot transfer from the cam to finalcut because of access time very slow too.

I am using a mac pro so my usb are supposed to be fine.
Is it something other users have experimented or do i need to search for a problem somewhere in my config ?

thanks

Olivier Jezequel · December 8th, 2009, 10:40 AM

I have done further tests, but still everything is slow, when i connect finalcut to the cam, it is very hard to transfer as it keeps freezing while it refresh the connection often and that takes a while.
my test to tranfer some files on the disk didn't work as finalcut keep telling me the structure is not good even i keep the same structure.

Everything was fine with only few video in the cam
Anyone have an idea ?

Thanks

Kevin Bjorke · December 10th, 2009, 07:43 PM

connecting final cut to the camera?

don't do that.

copy to the computer

fastest copy seems to usually be copy internal mem to an SD card and then just stick the SD into the computer's reader. But a fast USB2 connect can still do well if you just copy to your computer's HD.

Don't edit "from" the camera. You will be (are) sad.

Olivier Jezequel · December 11th, 2009, 06:43 AM

I am not editing from the cam, i am just log and transfer the capture the files
it was fine with few files in the cam but i came back holidays with almost 300 and there is a refresh every minutes or so that freeze my connection and often stop the files to be copied.

i have tryed to copy from the cam to the disk with usb (i am surely usb2) and it is really very slow, i am talking about hours and hours for 15 Go in the cam
And after i cannot use my log and capture on my backup even if i kept the folders structure and names. As the quality of importing files from FC is better than converting using voiltaic i want to keep everything passing by finalcut.

it shouldn't be so slow... ?
thanks

Olivier Jezequel · December 16th, 2009, 05:42 AM

Nobody has experimented that ?
it is really a problem of refresh, the camcorder seems to refresh the connection very often and that is what is creating the slowdown even during a basic file transfer.

is anyone else use log and transfer on finalcut and have or don't have any problems of slow when the cam have a lot of files ?

cheers

Bruce Phung · January 13th, 2010, 12:33 PM

If you have a under power computer, sure it will a long time to transfer the footage. I got 3 computers, here is my experience

1) old Dell D600 Laptop 1.6GHz 1 gig ram will not allow my avchd to transfer- it will freeze
2) Dell Studio 15 Duo core 2.0GHz 2gig ram laptop transfer AVCHD fine 1hrs footage take about 15 minutes to transfer.
3) Desktop Core i7 920 6gig DDR3 transfer very fast, with either directly from the cam to Vegas or from folder to Vegas.

Olivier Jezequel · January 22nd, 2010, 12:48 PM

i have noticed that is is not really the transfer itself that is long, that is the refresh everytime from the cam that stop everything for a while that makes all slow. it is a camcorder issue for me, everything was fine with only few files in the cam.
What is the point to have 32 or 64 Go if it exponentially explode the refreshing time and stop you.

Dave Burckhard · January 26th, 2010, 03:38 PM

Oliver,

Welcome to AVCHD. Final Cut and nearly all other edit systems need to transcode your camera files before editing. This clobbers your computer processor hard and should be something folks buying into this codec should consider. Unfortunately, many people assume that if it's a file based, flash or hard disk based codec, the ingest time will be faster than it would be from a tape based system like DV or HDV. In fact, it can take four times the equivalent tape based time. Even higher end computers struggle with AVCHD but can struggle without stalling. I wish I had a nickel for every time I mention this to dismayed users of AVCHD cameras. I have an AVCHD camera. It's very nice. It's also a reason I shoot on an HDV, tape based camera for paying work. I don't have time to mess with the slowness.

Mitigating solutions:
As others mention, turn off all other processes including your browser when ingesting. Consider your ingest time and go hit the gym or grab coffee. Use the wait to research (on another computer) the next, far more powerful computer you're going to buy.

Wish I could be more helpful. On the other hand, the wait is usually worth it because the results from modern AVCHD cameras have the highest quality picture to price paid ratio I've seen yet. Really, it's remarkable and a reason why I have one for work where time isn't critical.

Dave

Olivier Jezequel · January 29th, 2010, 07:54 AM

Hiya,
no you got my problem wrong, i am fine with the tranfer time or conversion time, fair enough. My problem is the refreshing of my camera because i have more than 260 videos in it from my holidays.
when i capture something, or do nothing, every... let say 2 min the camera freeze for a minute or less then carry on, but if i don't pause my capturing during that laps, it will fail because everything is frozen.
I didn't had this problem with few files in the cam. So i wonder if i am the only one on that problem.
Capturing everything have been a real nightmare and a lot of time just wait that the cam is back online.

that freezing happen even when just copying files on the disk, but it doesn't fail, it just takes 3 time the normal time to copy

for the rest i am happy

Richard Hallowes · February 2nd, 2010, 02:03 PM

Have you tried a different USB cable? Once the computer and camera have connected to each other and been recognised then they should just work. To me it sounds like your computer and camera are not 'talking' to one another correctly and one is losing the other - hence the refresh on USB. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

I don't use a Mac, but on my Vista machine, the camera simply shows up as another removable hard drive called (in my case) CANON_HFS11 (T:) and it does not refresh at all. The editor I use also 'sees' the camcorder as a hard disk device. There is only a slight pause when the machine generates a new thumbnail, but we are talking a second or less.

Each file downloads straight into the editor with no issues. For faster speeds I transfer the data to a Sandisk Class 10 SDHC and put that into the computer's card reader.

Olivier Jezequel · February 8th, 2010, 08:12 AM

I will try with an other usb cable tonight. Have you tried with having 300 video in the cam ??
because when i had only few ones it was all fine.
I have to test with my cam disk cleaned, but i need to buy a blu-ray first to archive all of this... enoying
cheers

bill hansen · February 9th, 2010, 02:38 PM

I have the same problem with my Canon Vixia HG20 problem as Olivier, only perhaps mine is even worse. A 15 second clip will take almost 3 hours (yes, literally 3 hours!!) to transfer from the camcorder's HD to the computer's HD. The computer is a pretty powerful one, with plenty of RAM and a good graphics card (see below).

The software Canon supplied with the camcorder, Pixela, worked well enough under Windows XP Pro, but it doesn't work with Windows 7. In Win XP, I could also go to the camcorder's AVCHD/BDMV/Stream folder and drag and drop the MTS files and it worked beautifully, and reasonably quickly.

I've called Pixela, and they told me that they have no plans to support Win 7, that in the future all maneuvers with the Canon Vixia HG 20 must be done using Windows Live Movie Maker. I phoned Canon technical support and was told the same thing by them.

The camcorder's HD contains some videos which I must not lose. Is there any way these HG 20 files can be transferred to the computer at any sort of reasonable speed?

OS is Windows 7 Professional. Computer has Intel i7 960 chip running at 2.66 GHz. 6 GB of RAM. Graphics card is NVidia with 1 GB of onboard RAM.

The other use for this camcorder is recording dog sports competitions, and I have two important "shows" coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm at a point where I feel I must resolve this problem quicklyor abandon this very nice camcorder.

Olivier Jezequel · February 12th, 2010, 05:23 PM

hiya,
i am not sure that is the same problem, if i understood yours it could come from your os that is not supported, have you tried on a xp computer ?
is your cam hd have a lot of files or few ones ?

if when you load your files, it start, then stop around forn nothing during a while, then carry on a bit for stopping again a while, then yep, we could have the same issue.
if it goes that way when the cam have few gigs in it, i don't any point to make cam with 64 Go or more in it...
very enoying indeed

Olivier Jezequel · February 12th, 2010, 05:27 PM

hiya,
i am not sure that is the same problem, if i understood yours it could come from your os that is not supported, have you tried on a xp computer ?
is your cam hd have a lot of files or few ones ?

if when you load your files, it start, then stop around forn nothing during a while, then carry on a bit for stopping again a while, then yep, we could have the same issue.
if it goes that way when the cam have few gigs in it, i don't see any point to make cam with 64 Go or more in it...
very enoying indeed

December 7th, 2009, 02:08 PM	#1
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	transfer very slow i am trying to copy 17go (arournd 500) of movies from my HFs11 to my computer, but the time of copy are insane. I cannot transfer from the cam to finalcut because of access time very slow too. I am using a mac pro so my usb are supposed to be fine. Is it something other users have experimented or do i need to search for a problem somewhere in my config ? thanks

February 2nd, 2010, 02:03 PM	#10
Richard Hallowes New Boot Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Bedfordshire, UK Posts: 7	Faulty USB Cable/Bad Connection? Have you tried a different USB cable? Once the computer and camera have connected to each other and been recognised then they should just work. To me it sounds like your computer and camera are not 'talking' to one another correctly and one is losing the other - hence the refresh on USB. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying? I don't use a Mac, but on my Vista machine, the camera simply shows up as another removable hard drive called (in my case) CANON_HFS11 (T:) and it does not refresh at all. The editor I use also 'sees' the camcorder as a hard disk device. There is only a slight pause when the machine generates a new thumbnail, but we are talking a second or less. Each file downloads straight into the editor with no issues. For faster speeds I transfer the data to a Sandisk Class 10 SDHC and put that into the computer's card reader. Last edited by Richard Hallowes; February 2nd, 2010 at 02:34 PM.

February 9th, 2010, 02:38 PM	#12
bill hansen Tourist Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: New York, USA Posts: 4	almost no transfer, powerful computer I have the same problem with my Canon Vixia HG20 problem as Olivier, only perhaps mine is even worse. A 15 second clip will take almost 3 hours (yes, literally 3 hours!!) to transfer from the camcorder's HD to the computer's HD. The computer is a pretty powerful one, with plenty of RAM and a good graphics card (see below). The software Canon supplied with the camcorder, Pixela, worked well enough under Windows XP Pro, but it doesn't work with Windows 7. In Win XP, I could also go to the camcorder's AVCHD/BDMV/Stream folder and drag and drop the MTS files and it worked beautifully, and reasonably quickly. I've called Pixela, and they told me that they have no plans to support Win 7, that in the future all maneuvers with the Canon Vixia HG 20 must be done using Windows Live Movie Maker. I phoned Canon technical support and was told the same thing by them. The camcorder's HD contains some videos which I must not lose. Is there any way these HG 20 files can be transferred to the computer at any sort of reasonable speed? OS is Windows 7 Professional. Computer has Intel i7 960 chip running at 2.66 GHz. 6 GB of RAM. Graphics card is NVidia with 1 GB of onboard RAM. The other use for this camcorder is recording dog sports competitions, and I have two important "shows" coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm at a point where I feel I must resolve this problem quicklyor abandon this very nice camcorder.

December 8th, 2009, 10:40 AM	#2
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	I have done further tests, but still everything is slow, when i connect finalcut to the cam, it is very hard to transfer as it keeps freezing while it refresh the connection often and that takes a while. my test to tranfer some files on the disk didn't work as finalcut keep telling me the structure is not good even i keep the same structure. Everything was fine with only few video in the cam Anyone have an idea ? Thanks

December 10th, 2009, 07:43 PM	#3
Kevin Bjorke Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: San Francisco, California Posts: 43	connecting final cut to the camera? don't do that. copy to the computer fastest copy seems to usually be copy internal mem to an SD card and then just stick the SD into the computer's reader. But a fast USB2 connect can still do well if you just copy to your computer's HD. Don't edit "from" the camera. You will be (are) sad.

December 11th, 2009, 06:43 AM	#4
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	I am not editing from the cam, i am just log and transfer the capture the files it was fine with few files in the cam but i came back holidays with almost 300 and there is a refresh every minutes or so that freeze my connection and often stop the files to be copied. i have tryed to copy from the cam to the disk with usb (i am surely usb2) and it is really very slow, i am talking about hours and hours for 15 Go in the cam And after i cannot use my log and capture on my backup even if i kept the folders structure and names. As the quality of importing files from FC is better than converting using voiltaic i want to keep everything passing by finalcut. it shouldn't be so slow... ? thanks

December 16th, 2009, 05:42 AM	#5
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	Nobody has experimented that ? it is really a problem of refresh, the camcorder seems to refresh the connection very often and that is what is creating the slowdown even during a basic file transfer. is anyone else use log and transfer on finalcut and have or don't have any problems of slow when the cam have a lot of files ? cheers

January 13th, 2010, 12:33 PM	#6
Bruce Phung Major Player Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Rochester,NY USA Posts: 285	If you have a under power computer, sure it will a long time to transfer the footage. I got 3 computers, here is my experience 1) old Dell D600 Laptop 1.6GHz 1 gig ram will not allow my avchd to transfer- it will freeze 2) Dell Studio 15 Duo core 2.0GHz 2gig ram laptop transfer AVCHD fine 1hrs footage take about 15 minutes to transfer. 3) Desktop Core i7 920 6gig DDR3 transfer very fast, with either directly from the cam to Vegas or from folder to Vegas.

January 22nd, 2010, 12:48 PM	#7
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	i have noticed that is is not really the transfer itself that is long, that is the refresh everytime from the cam that stop everything for a while that makes all slow. it is a camcorder issue for me, everything was fine with only few files in the cam. What is the point to have 32 or 64 Go if it exponentially explode the refreshing time and stop you.

January 26th, 2010, 03:38 PM	#8
Dave Burckhard Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 73	Oliver, Welcome to AVCHD. Final Cut and nearly all other edit systems need to transcode your camera files before editing. This clobbers your computer processor hard and should be something folks buying into this codec should consider. Unfortunately, many people assume that if it's a file based, flash or hard disk based codec, the ingest time will be faster than it would be from a tape based system like DV or HDV. In fact, it can take four times the equivalent tape based time. Even higher end computers struggle with AVCHD but can struggle without stalling. I wish I had a nickel for every time I mention this to dismayed users of AVCHD cameras. I have an AVCHD camera. It's very nice. It's also a reason I shoot on an HDV, tape based camera for paying work. I don't have time to mess with the slowness. Mitigating solutions: As others mention, turn off all other processes including your browser when ingesting. Consider your ingest time and go hit the gym or grab coffee. Use the wait to research (on another computer) the next, far more powerful computer you're going to buy. Wish I could be more helpful. On the other hand, the wait is usually worth it because the results from modern AVCHD cameras have the highest quality picture to price paid ratio I've seen yet. Really, it's remarkable and a reason why I have one for work where time isn't critical. Dave

January 29th, 2010, 07:54 AM	#9
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	Hiya, no you got my problem wrong, i am fine with the tranfer time or conversion time, fair enough. My problem is the refreshing of my camera because i have more than 260 videos in it from my holidays. when i capture something, or do nothing, every... let say 2 min the camera freeze for a minute or less then carry on, but if i don't pause my capturing during that laps, it will fail because everything is frozen. I didn't had this problem with few files in the cam. So i wonder if i am the only one on that problem. Capturing everything have been a real nightmare and a lot of time just wait that the cam is back online. that freezing happen even when just copying files on the disk, but it doesn't fail, it just takes 3 time the normal time to copy for the rest i am happy

February 8th, 2010, 08:12 AM	#11
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	I will try with an other usb cable tonight. Have you tried with having 300 video in the cam ?? because when i had only few ones it was all fine. I have to test with my cam disk cleaned, but i need to buy a blu-ray first to archive all of this... enoying cheers

February 12th, 2010, 05:23 PM	#13
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	hiya, i am not sure that is the same problem, if i understood yours it could come from your os that is not supported, have you tried on a xp computer ? is your cam hd have a lot of files or few ones ? if when you load your files, it start, then stop around forn nothing during a while, then carry on a bit for stopping again a while, then yep, we could have the same issue. if it goes that way when the cam have few gigs in it, i don't any point to make cam with 64 Go or more in it... very enoying indeed

February 12th, 2010, 05:27 PM	#14
Olivier Jezequel Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: London Posts: 45	hiya, i am not sure that is the same problem, if i understood yours it could come from your os that is not supported, have you tried on a xp computer ? is your cam hd have a lot of files or few ones ? if when you load your files, it start, then stop around forn nothing during a while, then carry on a bit for stopping again a while, then yep, we could have the same issue. if it goes that way when the cam have few gigs in it, i don't see any point to make cam with 64 Go or more in it... very enoying indeed