I just moved from a MiniDV camera to a flash camera. As most of you know each time you hit stop and play you get a new file. In the past I would transfer one DV tape and save it with a file name, these are saved on our server can be watched using an HTPC running Windows Xp Media Center. Recently I took some video at my daughters horse show, there were 10 classes and I have 10 files which I would prefer to see and view as one event rather than 10. One of the reasons for purchasing the digital camera was to save time so if I have to spend a lot of time with editing software I have gained nothing.

Is there an easy, lossless, and inexpensive way to join and/or play all files togeather? I fear I will end up with hundreds of video files over the next few months and no practical way to view them.

With that said any suggestions for a device to view pictures and videos on the TV? An HTPC seems to be a little bit of overkill for me. What about Apple TV or an Xbox?

Mike

Mike

There are loads of free tools for cutting and joining media files with out loss.

You have not specified you file types ie codec type, frame size, bit rate. I could offer suggestions here if you provide more info.

There are also loads of stand alone media players that plug in to your TV.

eg, I have one of these nBox units - only cost $25 and works very well.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/236184202/NBOX_Media_player_plays_RMVB_AVI.html
Plays all SD video formats plus is a music player and a very good photo viewer. Just plug your USB stick / HDD or SD card in the side, and use the remote - it is that easy. This unit is small enough to keep in my laptop bag.

If you want something more fully featured, try the eGreat M34 (is better than the Wester Digital) http://www.egreathd.com/

BTW, HT PCs are pointless these days, IHMO. New laptops generally have HDMI out now, or there are a myriad of compact media players under $150 !!

What type of camera is it?

The PS3 can playback files natively from camcorders that record to AVCHD to camcorders from Sanyo. You can have it so it can playback new clips automatically. For example if you have 10 files, it will playback all 10 of them without you touching anything. The only problem is that the PS3 is not compatible with .MOV files. You would think that since it’s also capable of playing back WMV and DivX files that it should play back .MOV files as well.

On top of all that you get a good web browser, photo player, Blu-Ray player and a game system for $300.

Camera is a Canon FS200, files are MOD but I use the supplied software to import as mpg file.

Mike

Camera is a Canon FS200, files are MOD but I use the supplied software to import as mpg file.


The camera shoots in MPEG... I suppose MOD is just Canon's on-camera file format, rather than normal .MPG. They may be recording in a transport stream or something proprietary, then reformatting (not re-encoding) for the PC as a program stream file (.MPG).

Anyway, you're in luck, there are plenty of tools for merging MPG files without re-encoding. I use Womble's MPEG Video Wizard, which joins segments, also lets you do cut edits. Another good one is TMPGenc (http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/index.html). Both of these do quite a bit more, including encoding MPEG-2 and other formats.

You might also try the free "MPEG Joiner" here: http://www.321slideshow.com/mpeg-joiner.htm

Thanks Dave. I will give those a try.

Mike