hdr-tg3e spliting video files

[tommyten]

hello,

I asked tech support ages ago about this but was told it was my software, which i thought was odd as i use sony vegas.

anyway, i record a lot of concert footage, that plays back perfect on the unit, but if i take the memory card out and put it in my pc to rip the footage into vegas, it is split into different files and lengths and i get a split second loss of audio, but once its back in the camera it plays o.k. its only a small issue but it takes time to resync the footage up and to author to dvd.

many thanks

[Mick2011]

Hi tommyten, welcome to the Sony Forums

If I'm not mistaken, this isn't a software issue at all, or even a camera issue as such, but a limitation of the FAT32 card format you have to use with most cams.

Basically (and my understanding of it is very basic) FAT32 has a 2Gb filesize limit. Every time your clip gets to 2 gigs in size the cam has to momentarily 'stop' to create a new file. Nothing's lost, but as you've discovered, longer, concert-sized footage can need any number of re-synching fixes in post.

Workarounds include shooting at slightly less than highest HD resolution, which can produce quite radically reduced filesizes and let you record much longer individual segments.

You might also try importing with Sony's Content Management ultility which (I think) is on the software DVD. Let me know if you can't find it. This would appear to do the same job as the camera playback in joining the segments.. worth a try.

Hope that explains things a little and helps you get it sorted out.

Mick

[cmosse]

have you tried to import the video files with Picture Motion Browser? It will merge all the single files into one larger file while importing and I assume it will do so without introducing audio sync or drop out problems.