How to move HD camcorder footage to external hard drive

[Bev2015]

Hi

You'll have to forgive me, I am new to HD files and AVCHD and I'm so confused.

I have just purchased a new Panasonic HC-V770 full HD camcorder. I've recorded some footage in 1920 x 1080/50p (the top quality, I think). When I watch the footage back through the camcorder and the hdmi connected to my blu ray player the quality is awesome. Now comes the tricky bit. I want to store my footage on an external hard drive and not lose the quality. Is there an easy way of doing this? My blu ray player does support AVCHD files (Pioneer MCS-838), but I've tried just copying the BDMV folder to the external and the quality is awful - too much distortion etc. There is some software that came with the camcorder - HD writer i think it's called. I don't want to edit any footage just want to shoot and store really but keeping the quality that I see when i play back through the camcorder.

Any help is appreciated, but be gentle - I'm a newbie (and old lol!)

Bev

[turk690]

...but I've tried just copying the BDMV folder to the external and the quality is awful - too much distortion etc....

Copying the BDMV folder and its contents to the external drive is all there is to it, you got that. To play it back properly, however, you have to have a computer with decent recent specs. It would be helpful if you give some info about what you are using now: processor, chipset, graphics, memory, how many hard drives there are and how they are connected, operating system. If you are using a laughtop, problems about AVCHD can be compounded many fold.

[Bev2015]

I don't want to watch the footage on a PC - I use the external for watching through the blu ray player.

Bev

[turk690]

What model is that external drive and what model is the blu-ray player?

[Bev2015]

What model is that external drive and what model is the blu-ray player?

The blu ray is a Pioneer MCS-838 and the external drive is a Seagate 2TB.

I know the player recognises the external because I have footage from my old camcorder on there too, just AVI's.

Bev

[newpball]

I don't want to watch the footage on a PC

You can go the easy way by hooking up a PC to your TV through HDMI. The PC does not have to be super high performing, for instance you could use a NUC like unit.



http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1032193&is=REG&Q=&A=details

[Bev2015]

So I'm a bit confused now. All I want to do is store the footage on an external drive, then i can watch it through my blu ray player like i do with my older footage.

B

[newpball]

So I'm a bit confused now. All I want to do is store the footage on an external drive, then i can watch it through my blu ray player like i do with my older footage.

Nothing to be confused about.

Blu-ray players are good at playing blu-rays, yes they do other stuff on the side and some much better than others. Needless to say I am not too impressed by what the engineers produced on the side for those boxes. For instance having a flexible media player able to use user loaded codecs in firmware or local permanent memory is a concept way beyond their apparent imagination.

Contrast that with using a computer through HDMI. You can view anything you can view with a good media player and you can load any codec you need, now and in the future.

[julitomg]

Hi
This is what I´d try (and you don´t have to buy more equipment): Download MkvToMp4 , look for tutorials and how to´s in this site (or the developer´s ), it´s free and will allow you to repackage your .mts files into .mp4 container without reencoding (that way, full quality is preserved, just make sure to configure properly to do so), then copy the mp4´s to your external drive, conect it to your bluray player and see if it has less problems playing them. You´ll find your .mts files in the STREAM folder of your PRIVATE/BDMV structure

[Cornucopia]

Ignore newpball's fearmongering & derision:
Your camera records in AVCHD, so it also is (naturally) an AVCHD player. You are playing this out via HDMI to your BDplayer/receiver combo unit. The combo unit sees the UNCOMPRESSED & decoded video coming in through the HDMI so all is well.
When you transfer the data to a HDD, the camcorder is no longer your player. Since a plain HDD does not include an embedded "player" app, the USB/External filesystem player in you combo unit is the one that has to do that job. It has certain requirements regarding filesize, format, etc.

Here's the kicker - unlike generic avi or mkv or even mp4 files, AVCHD is a system of files and their accompanying metadata files. Just like with DVD-Video and BDMV, these files have to be taken as a whole unit, not just on a file-by-file basis. Attempts are made to use just the M2TS files, and sometimes they are successful, but sometimes not. This often depends on how the content was recorded and/or edited in the camera.

If you stay with including the whole file structure (from the root on down) of the AVCHD title, I'm betting your combo unit's player should have no trouble playing it. Now comes the gotcha...

AVCHD structures its files so that it looks like THIS. Note that the data in in the PRIVATE folder just off the root.

The problem: If you have more than one "title", how can you store multiple titles on a single HDD and still be able to access them properly? Only 1 title at a time can be in that PRIVATE folder (or AVCHD folder, as the manual requests).

What you would have to do would be to make a folder off the root called "TITLES" and copy each title's folder structure into their own title ("Kid's 1st birthday", "Family reunion", "ski trip", etc). Then, when you want to watch a particular title, you copy (NOT MOVE) that title's BDMV folder to the HDD root's AVCHD folder (overwriting what might have been in there previously). A little bit extra effort, but you will always have each title intact, should you ever want to do anything else with it (such as editing a compilation or authoring to a Blu-ray disc).

If you decide you don't want the hassle of this method and don't care anymore about retaining the original recordings' continuity, you can always convert (via free apps or not) from AVCHD to MP4. If it is done right, it won't lose any video quality either, as the AVCHD specs match those that the "USB media player" app in the combo unit expects for MP4. However, you might need to convert your audio as (at least as far as the manual is concerned) the LPCM or AC3 format is not acceptable to the combo's player app when using MP4. Let us know if you decide to go this way and we can give you some options (Handbrake comes to mind).

Scott

[turk690]

...and the external drive is a Seagate 2TB.

Though you did say some files play off the Seagate, I'm still interested in knowing if it's a 2.5" drive that gets its power off the same USB connection or it has an separate power brick.

[Cornucopia]

yes that could be a confounding problem.

Scott