AVCHD - figure this one out

[cloudxsoldier]

OK, I'll try to be breif.

I have a Sony Cyber Shot that films in AVCHD
Two months ago I took a video on this camera in AVCHD format while on holiday
When I got back home I plugged the Card into my machine and COPIED THE VIDEO over to my computer.
- This file is STILL in AVCHD format both on my computer and still on the camera
- It still plays (both on the camera and computer as a AVCHD file) and I have uploaded this file to youtube
- The computer I used has no special conversion software or anything, it is a simple Windows 7 Machine and DOES NOT have the software that the camera came with on it.

Now, Everything I have read over the past 4 hours says this was an impossible task and that AVCHD files cannot be taken straight off a camera this way. Strange, because I did. I'm looking at the file right now.

So this is all great and good. Very happy.

My problem is:
Now when I plug in the card in to my computer the videos do not show up at all.
all the pictures i have taken over the past few months show up but the video files do not. But I can play them back on the camera. (all five of them play fine on the camera and all 5 of them are in AVCHD format. The forementioned video I took on holidays in once of these five videos)

Can ANYONE help me? Even the Sony tech support have no idea why they're not showing up and they also have no idea how I managed to take a AVCHD file off the camera via direct copy and paste to begin with.

Any help would be great.
Thankyou
Luke

[magillagorilla]

That's goofy. My Canon shoots AVCHD. If I recall it puts the actuall video files pretty deep in some nested folders. Does the camera have USB? Install the Sony software and let it explore the camera over USB. That should do the trick.

I really dislike using the manufacture software, especially the Pixela ImageMixer tool that came with my Canon. It's total crap. I use it to import my video though. I think there is a 4BG file size limit on the card (likely FAT32), and teh camera names the files something goofy. The import tool puts a readable date as the file names and stitches any fragmented videos back together in to one container. It may also be switching the video container, I know it is switching the file extension. The resulted uploads are in an MPEG transport stream container. I seriously doubt the import tool is re-encodeing the files, as that would take 8x longer.

[cloudxsoldier]

Thanks for the reply. I did manage to figure it out afer doind some more research.

For some stupid reason you need to copy EVERY FILE that shows up on the card.

Copy and paste them all into a file on your desktop.
After they have copied they show up in:
>Private>AVCHD>BDMV>STREAM

I'm not sure why it did this, but hey. Problem solved anyhow.

I hope this helps anyone who winds up with this problem.

Luke

[turk690]

Some of the files in the PRIVATE or BDMV folder are there to bridge differences in file systems, etc. between the camera that shot the wretched video and an OS like Windows 7 (and other programs that know and recognize them) and make the files appear painlessly.
For example, the Canon XA10 creates *.mts files which are in 2GB chunks as you continuously shoot. These files can only be opened individually in Windows explorer, but when imported into Adobe Premiere CS5, they appear as one big whole seamless file that represents the whole continuous shoot, with no audio or video gaps. This is in contrast to an SD Canon camcorder, the FS100, where the individual *.mod MPEG2 files stay as they are even when imported into Premiere, with audible gaps when joined end to end on a timeline.

[TreeTops]

You are correct. The video files are in the private folder for Sony Cyber Shot that films in AVCHD.
Look in this folder: PRIVATE>>BDMV>>STREAM>>and look for the mts files. They play just fine in Win 7 Windows Media Player

Edited to add this question: why are they in a private folder?

[magillagorilla]

turk690, thanks for the refresher. The 2GB limit was what I was trying to remember. I have a Canon HF100.

TreeTops, your method is fine until you get files that exceed 2GB. They you may have trouble stitching them back together seamlessly. It's not all that much trouble to let the software which came with the camera do the importing. While it's a mostly useless application, Image Mixer stitches the files together and puts them in a nice dated format in dated folders. That is actually handy.