Currently I have a Mini DV tape camera that has some problems so it is time to upgrade. My thought is to go with and HiDef Hard Drive based camcorder. I have been to a few stores and have tried to get an answer to my question and have gotten many answers but none the same. Currently what I do is to take a full DV tape and transfer it to a my PC as an avi file. I name the file based on the date such as "08 May - Sep". Usually we shoot about 4 or 5 hours of video a year, therefore we have 4 to 5 video files per year. The video is kept on a server which is accesed using Media Center Edition with a remote. My question is this; Will I have a new file each time I push the record button on a hard drive based camera? For instance if I am at my daughters soccer game and I recored a few minutes, pause, record, pause, etc. will I end up with 15 files that encompase one game? My concern is that this makes the video somewhat difficult and inconvinent to view as opposed to my old method, all of the sudden I have 500 files per year instead of 5.

Mike

They could have as easily just appended video to a single file, but there is utility in keeping them separate, at least until they get onto a PC and edited and/or combined. Individual clip files on the camera are easy to play back, to delete, and they have separate metadata with them such as the time taken.

When you get them on your computer for processing and storage, you can do anything you want with them, of course, including combining them into a slingle file.

IMO, the current behavior of a separate file for each clip is the correct one.

IMHO, having them as seperate files is much more convenient.

In the DV/HDV world, I used to put all my files in one directory for the year and I had to split each events I had on a tape, which was an extra step than needed to be done manually. Sometimes, like on weddings, I had to merge them anyways, because of the length of the shot was longer than 60 minutes (which was pretty annoying since I has to switch tapes during the event).

With AVCHD, with a HDD-based camcorder, I get a clip for every start/stop, so I'm guaranteed that all my events are pre-split correctly. If I want, I can record 2 hours in a row and have one long clip, something that HDV and DV will never be able to offer me. And as for the multiple clips, I just put all the relevent files in a subdirectory for an event instead of putting them in all in a yearly directory. The good thing for me about this is that it mirrors my photo directory structure now. Worst case, if you don't like that, as bernthp pointed out, you can simply merge them together quickly and losslessly using software.

Can you pause recording for 10 minutes and restart, and it's still the same file?

Worst case, if you don't like that, as bernthp pointed out, you can simply merge them together quickly and losslessly using software.

Based on what you are telling me here this should solve my problem. So are you saying that if I go to my daughters dance recital next weekend and take 6 to 10 video segments when I get home I can take all ten, merge them into 1 with no loss in quality?

Mike

Based on what you are telling me here this should solve my problem. So are you saying that if I go to my daughters dance recital next weekend and take 6 to 10 video segments when I get home I can take all ten, merge them into 1 with no loss in quality?

Mike

Yes.

Ultimately, AVCHD container is a variant of a MPEG2 transport stream container, and there are tons of tools that lets your split and merge those. All that's needed is to find one that supports that specific variant.

From the little research I did on the subject, Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6 (HD Pack) might do that natively. While VideoRedo doesn't support it right now, they're in the process of support it. You might want to look at this tool too: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/tsMuxeR

Also, here's a thread where you will find more options:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=976996

Bottom line, it's possible, and it'll only get easier in the future, as many editing applications will support it.

Can you pause recording for 10 minutes and restart, and it's still the same file?
No, it is (rightly) a different file because it is not continuous with the beginning. It has a different timestamp.

Actually, I was thrown off by the fact that there's not even a pause button while recording. :) So bernhtp is completely right on this. Just start/stop and no pause.

One take == one file, what can be better? I hate getting one long one-hour file from an HDV tape.

I've only had my SR-12 for 3 days now and haven't had a chance to play around with it that much but what impresses me is the fact that each individual file may be broken up each time you hit record to start/stop recording but it breaks it down by each day. So what I recorded on the first day is neatly organized as (May 10), what I recorded on Saturday is in a seperate section and what I recorded yesterday is in its own 'folder'. Each one telling you the total time of what you recorded with that date stamp (16 min/8/36). I haven't yet started editing/putting together a project, but I figure it'll be much easier to do it this way and even merge the files together then having to go through the MiniDV tape and manually cut and make smaller files out of one large file.

What are you guys using to capture a whole DV tape into 1 file? There's a freeware program called WinDV that pulls the files off your camcorder (1 file per take) and even names them according to the date and time they were taken, like:

2008-05-20 @22-39-25.avi

It works very well and doesn't drop frames.

http://windv.mourek.cz/

The positive aspect of this "split files" feature is, it will be very easy for me to edit/delete out 5/10 minutes of video of my feet walking on some street/park ;)

In the DV/HDV world, I used to put all my files in one directory for the year and I had to split each events I had on a tape...

I have been trying to do this but always find it difficult to deal with New Year's Eve recording!

I have been trying to do this but always find it difficult to deal with New Year's Eve recording!

What personally bugged me the most was the fact that the time stamps on my capture files was the time I captured them, not the time I recorded them on my camcorder. I know, there are some tools that can do that for you automatically, but I just like concept of having the creation date be really the date and time that I recorded, without any hacks, like I get with AVCHD.