Hi David,

I am not sure how you are importing from the SD card. Are you selecting it through the import tab and navigating to the card, or are you clicking on the record button in the preview monitor and selecting the card as a camera?

I had trouble at first using the SD card as a camera as a test, something I would normally never do. It crashed but did save the files to My Record. The second attempt worked fine. But this is definitely not an organized way to import the files onto your computer.

Using the SD card as a drive and importing files into MEP using Computer under the Import tab, probably does not actually move the files to your computer and MEP may be trying to write to your SD card but cannot, and should not. See the Note on page 21 in the manual. MEP will always need access to the files it imports, and if it can't find them it will ask you where they are the next time you open the program and try to edit your video. If you have erased them from the SD card, then the files will be gone, lost forever. It is best to always copy the files to your computer first and then import them into MEP.

I strongly suggest that you use the Transfer Utility that came with your Canon camera. It will import the video files to the destination that you provide, automatically creating a folder for each date, into which it will place all of the videos taken on that date. This is much quicker and more organized than importing into MEP and depending on it to save your files. Make sure that you have a backup of all of your files as well. Hard disks do fail, accidents do happen.

Another method to backup any files that you use in a video is to use the MEP command to copy all of the source files used into a backup directory. See page 218, Backup copy, in the manual. Lastly, you should read the manual.

Bottom line, import the files onto your computer first, then into MEP.

Hope this helps.

John 

I import from SD all the time. Just hit the red record button below the video monitor. Then choose AVCHD. This brings up the AVCHD import window. Choose your video source from the pull down window (The drive that is your SD card). Enter where to save the files, and select the videos. Click import and let MEP do the work from here.

I import from SD all the time. Just hit the red record button below the video monitor. Then choose AVCHD. This brings up the AVCHD import window. Choose your video source from the pull down window (The drive that is your SD card). Enter where to save the files, and select the videos. Click import and let MEP do the work from here.

That's exactly what I expected.  I get an error message.  What kind of video files are you importing?  I think it worked before I upgraded to 2014 plus.

Hi David,

I am not sure how you are importing from the SD card. Are you selecting it through the import tab and navigating to the card, or are you clicking on the record button in the preview monitor and selecting the card as a camera?

I had trouble at first using the SD card as a camera as a test, something I would normally never do. It crashed but did save the files to My Record. The second attempt worked fine. But this is definitely not an organized way to import the files onto your computer.

Using the SD card as a drive and importing files into MEP using Computer under the Import tab, probably does not actually move the files to your computer and MEP may be trying to write to your SD card but cannot, and should not. See the Note on page 21 in the manual. MEP will always need access to the files it imports, and if it can't find them it will ask you where they are the next time you open the program and try to edit your video. If you have erased them from the SD card, then the files will be gone, lost forever. It is best to always copy the files to your computer first and then import them into MEP.

I strongly suggest that you use the Transfer Utility that came with your Canon camera. It will import the video files to the destination that you provide, automatically creating a folder for each date, into which it will place all of the videos taken on that date. This is much quicker and more organized than importing into MEP and depending on it to save your files. Make sure that you have a backup of all of your files as well. Hard disks do fail, accidents do happen.

Another method to backup any files that you use in a video is to use the MEP command to copy all of the source files used into a backup directory. See page 218, Backup copy, in the manual. Lastly, you should read the manual.

Bottom line, import the files onto your computer first, then into MEP.

Hope this helps.

John 

I expected MEP to act as the file import utility by writing the files to a designated folder on my hard disc and deleting them from the sd card and, as I replied elsewhere, I recall doing this successfully before upgrading to mep 2014 plus.  Regardless, I'm using the Canon utility now.

Thanks!

Hi David,

I also have MEP 2014 Plus. I tried again using the import method directly from the SD card that JohnnyO and I described - from AVCHD. My files are .mts from my Canon HFR21 and I had no problem this time. I looked carefully at all of the options under Advanced settings and Import options at the bottom of the AVCHD import screen. It should work for you.

Perhaps you can post the error screen that you get and the steps you took to get there.

Importing through MEP is a nice method that gives you control over location and filenaming and getting organized from the start rather than the Transfer Utility method of using the date and time for file names and dates for folder names.

John

Hi David,

Strange. Try doing it again but this time uncheck the "Import into Movie" box at the bottom of the screen.

Did you try to just import 1 file as a test? If not, try to import the one shown in your posted screen.

John

Hi David,

Strange. Try doing it again but this time uncheck the "Import into Movie" box at the bottom of the screen.

Did you try to just import 1 file as a test? If not, try to import the one shown in your posted screen.

John

I tried multiple single file imports and unchecking import into movie as well as the usual restart the program, reboot the computer tactics.  In a perfect world, I would like the files to connect without that one frame jump.  This particular project is an academic lecture, so my academy award isn't at risk, but I'm happier when things work as they should.

David

David,

You wrote: "In a perfect world, I would like the files to connect without that one frame jump."

Have you tried the option under  "Program settings >> "Video/Audio"  to crop imports a given number of frames at the start and/or the end?

Regards,

Carl 

Hi

I think the reason that fle cannot be imported is that it is in 3 parts, the file is split because the size exceeds the 2GB file size limit of the SD card format - the total file size is approx 5.7 GB and has to be rejoined which IIRC can only be done by the camera software.

John

Hi

I think the reason that fle cannot be imported is that it is in 3 parts, the file is split because the size exceeds the 2GB file size limit of the SD card format - the total file size is approx 5.7 GB and has to be rejoined which IIRC can only be done by the camera software.

John

 

An alternative if, as in my case, no "camera software" is supplied, is to find and download the free "tsMuxer" which I have successfully used to "join" several mts files of a continuous event, in this case a wedding, which the 2gB limit per file had split, with a degree of "discontinuity" at the file boundaries.  Once joined by tsMuxer the now continuous files (up to 13gB) play without any "interruption".  (One word of caution: you have to be careful how you set tsMuxer to carry out its work.  If anyone needs further info I'm happy to supply.)

Jeff

Hi

I think the reason that fle cannot be imported is that it is in 3 parts, the file is split because the size exceeds the 2GB file size limit of the SD card format - the total file size is approx 5.7 GB and has to be rejoined which IIRC can only be done by the camera software.

John

 

I used the software provided by Canon to import the video on an external hard drive.  Not only do the MTS files transfer but CPI (clip information files) http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/cpi which I always thought are used to disguise the file boundaries.  Thanks for that term by the way.  Part of the difficulty describing the problem is a lack of terminology on my part.

By the way, I have a new screen shot to illustrate just what that file boundary looks like on the time line.  Note that I am zoomed into individual frames, and that the gap does not extend one full frame of the video.  I've tried doing a one frame dissolve and deleting the one "partial" frame.  Neither technique results in a seamless joining of the clips.

David,

You wrote: "In a perfect world, I would like the files to connect without that one frame jump."

Have you tried the option under  "Program settings >> "Video/Audio"  to crop imports a given number of frames at the start and/or the end?

Regards,

Carl 

The clips I'm trying to join are separate only because they were recorded to a SD card and the card has limits to the size files it can store.  So I have an hour and forty minutes of continuous video that has been divided into five clips.  Cropping the clips results in what I'm trying to avoid, which is a jump in what should be continuous footage.

David

HI

. . . . I've tried doing a one frame dissolve and deleting the one "partial" frame.  Neither technique results in a seamless joining of the clips. . . .

That it what I would expect to see when the clips have not been joined up correctly. 

I suspect the camera ends/ starts a 2GB segment regardless of whether there is a full frame ( I frame) is at the end or beginning of the segment.

When a Predicted frame ( P frame) or Bidirectional predicted frame ( B frame) is at the file boundary a complete frame is not built to end/start a segment - hence the gap.

The Canon software should offer the option to rejoin the clips ino a continuous video file.  Check with Canon.

HTH

John