Anyone having JVC GZ-HD7 .TOD file conversion problems/compatibility

[TrueNorth]

Try using Quicktime 7.3 as it works with both iMovie08 and FinalCut Pro. Look at the JVC web site to see the process. One hint is to let the computer start the transfer rather than the camera. Pacifist is the software that will backdate to Quicktime 7.3 for you.

[monique]

thank you , i am trying now to download form the apple side the quick time 7.3.1 , what a shame i have the new version on my mac and i hae do downgrade it .... ajaja ... ok i will see if then it works ... thank you

[ARMIZZZ]

How to convert .TOD Files To .AVI is REALLY SIMPLE!!!

Just see this tutorial of 3 mins in YouTube:

http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=tKjGFtFiUkk

[monique]

ehy excuse me for this amount of quesions , but i was aski ng myself , if i would record directly on 1440CBR , and not on fhd modus, i can transfer the movies with fire wire directly to i movie 8. i read on other internet pages that there is anyway not a big difference of quality between them both..so like this at least i could work with fire wire.i would like to not lose quality while importing vidoes to mac. does somebody know if i movie 7 is really better that the 8`thanks to everybody

[monique]

hey,
so okay i downloaded quicktime 7.3.1 ..but honestly i still didnt understand what i have to do with this programm..so now i have my tod files on the mac, i have imovie 8 and quicktime 7.3.1 ...and now ?? how do i get my files in movie? and as i am already disturbing i anted to ask you , is final cut pro much better? and is it possibile to use adobe premier pro ? thanks

[warith]

In addition to the software that is included with the camera (Power Director), another video editing software that allows direct import of .TOD files is EditStudio Pro 6 from Media Chance. You can download the trial and test yourself at mediachance.com. The software is $89 or you can bundle it with their DVD Lab Pro 2 Software - But a word of warning, while EditStudio Pro 6 is very easy to use for a "novice", DVD Lab Pro 2 is not for casual users, it is very in depth and "novice" users may get frustrated.

So the straight answer to the question is, try EditStudio Pro 6 from Mediachance, we directly imported .TOD files and found them easier to manipulate and use than with PowerDirector.

[gac126]

here's one solution I found on youtube for MAC users. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP_TD0yWhPE)

It's all in spanish but all you need to know is that the guy is using a program called ffmpegx (http://ffmpegx.com/download.html) to convert the TOD files to .MOV files. I tried it and it works. Quicktime and iMovie both read my converted movies just fine.

[skier448]

Ok well for mac users running Mac OS X 10.5.x the cd that JVC gives you is made for 10.4.11 witch will not run on 10.5.x so heres how you get around this.
Install the software off of that CD. Then go to JVC website. Support and search GZ-HD3 or what ever your camera is. One search link will return.
Farther down the page there will be a link.(also below is the same link)
http://www2.cli.co.jp/products/ne/update_qtc_for_gzhd7/qtc3e_update.htm
from there download the application, install, restart.
Imovie '08 will not work with the .TOD but
Imovie HD will, witch you can download from apple.

[marcuskeeler]

I also have attempted to get into hard disk and Solid State video technology but with poor results.

Right now I have 3 HD cameras, the Sony CX7, the JVC HD6 which we are discussing here, and a tape based Sony FX1.

I struggle to find any advantage at all to NOT using tape. With tape i simply have to run my tape at 1:1 speed to get it all on the PC/MAC in whichever native codec the NLE prefers.

With File based Camcorders, i have to transfer the files to the PC/MAC and then spend hours pissing around with recoding before I can edit them, and they always suffer from degradation of some kind in the recoding process.

The JVC GZ-HD6 i have is simply trash. The screwed up TOD files are hopeless. Renaming them might work for some PC users but I'm a MAC man and nothing I do (within reasonable limits) works. I simply refuse to go through this retarded demux-mux/recode trail.

Additionally, the idea of buying some third party program is abhorrent to me.

The JVC is currently on Ebay for whatever I can get for it. Quite honestly I'm amazed i haven't driven my truck over it. Had I not bought bought it in the States whilst visiting, (I'm in Ontario) I would have returned it the second day.

The sooner these tight-ass companies decide on a unified codec, or at least provide usable no-loss plug ins for high end NLE's, the better. You can get away with low end camcorders being problematic because the casual users are happy to use the crappy software provided, but as you get to higher end stuff like the HD6, videographers just can't afford the time & quality loss impact on the work flow.

[zeduardo]

I also have attempted to get into hard disk and Solid State video technology but with poor results.

Right now I have 3 HD cameras, the Sony CX7, the JVC HD6 which we are discussing here, and a tape based Sony FX1.

I struggle to find any advantage at all to NOT using tape. With tape i simply have to run my tape at 1:1 speed to get it all on the PC/MAC in whichever native codec the NLE prefers.

With File based Camcorders, i have to transfer the files to the PC/MAC and then spend hours pissing around with recoding before I can edit them, and they always suffer from degradation of some kind in the recoding process.

The JVC GZ-HD6 i have is simply trash. The screwed up TOD files are hopeless. Renaming them might work for some PC users but I'm a MAC man and nothing I do (within reasonable limits) works. I simply refuse to go through this retarded demux-mux/recode trail.

Additionally, the idea of buying some third party program is abhorrent to me.

The JVC is currently on Ebay for whatever I can get for it. Quite honestly I'm amazed i haven't driven my truck over it. Had I not bought bought it in the States whilst visiting, (I'm in Ontario) I would have returned it the second day.

The sooner these tight-ass companies decide on a unified codec, or at least provide usable no-loss plug ins for high end NLE's, the better. You can get away with low end camcorders being problematic because the casual users are happy to use the crappy software provided, but as you get to higher end stuff like the HD6, videographers just can't afford the time & quality loss impact on the work flow.

I totally agree with you.
It is unfair that JVC wont pay license for mpeg but they wont our money.
Technically speaking this camcorder is good, but no support from adobe premiere make it unusable.
I will return it to store.

[yuzz]

I also had some trouble with the .TOD files. I used VirtualDub with AviSynth to convert everything I needed to AVI before editing the whole thing in Premiere. In order to not forget and/or help some other GZ-HD7 users, I wrote a little page with instructions.

[marcuskeeler]

Unfortunately your link works as well as the TOD files themselves lol

[marcuskeeler]

YAY !!!! my Crappy HD6 sold on Ebay. It's gone.
Geez, I feel SOOOOO good !!!

Sorry, had to share that.

[jschaap26]

'Convert to MPEG with MP2 Audio' option, select the destination, and hey presto! - full-quality mpeg2 file(s).'

This method doesn't work for Premiere CS3. I get an error when I try to import the file. Any thoughts on why?

[mattoct]

Hi jschaap26, You probably need a MPEG/HD plugin e.g. Mainconcept

[jschaap26]

I assumed that it would be built into CS3... where can I find such a decoder?

[mattoct]

Hi jschaap26, The only plugin I am familiar with is Mainconcept HD Pro - demo version avaiable here http://www.mainconcept.com/site/prosumer-products-4/mpeg-pro-hd-7850/demo-version-7854.html - works fine with full 1920 x 1080 mpeg.

[3dmuses]

For anyone using Sony Vegas Products, TOD files were supported from v.7. In the explorer window click the 'browser'con and select 'all files' and they magically appear and can be just popped on the time line. They are indeed MPG files but lic. issues prevent the use of the MPG file extension

GB-)

[dcsaeger]

Hi. I too have this camera and I use Adobe Photo Elements and Sony Vegas and they both work fine for importing. I just make sure I chose file type as "ALL" than import the .TOD file. After editing it's exported as an MPEG, or WMV, etc.

[Russellh]

Yes I'm Back...and after using my GZ-HD7 for awile now I'm finding that the "LUX" or low light capability is really poor. Ive done a few Weddings recently, and i'm disapointed with the outcome of the Reception video quality.Is it my corder settings ???????I dont think soooo.but when your doing such an event ...one doesnt want to have a BLAIRING light in everyones face while recording ,So any answers as to How,what ,or why to can correct the problem would be Excellent......Thanks. Maybe a "GOOD LINK" to accessories would be nice also

[mattoct]

Hi Russellh, I have also found that the standard 'Auto' mode will not produce acceptable results in low light conditions - in 'Manual' mode, increasing 'Brightness' can help as well as decreasing 'Shutter' speed - although with the latter you have to be careful with any large amount of rapid movement in the subject frame i.e. could result in 'stutter'.
Brightening during Edit can obviously provide a remedy - I tend to use a mixture of all three depending on the subject matter.
I believe it is a characteristic of the 3-CCD configuration - single CCD/CMOS setups seem to perform better in low light - but don't ask me for any technical explanation!

[ta418]

AH ha I figured it out ok...

Step 1, open up the Program Power Cinema NE for Everio and hookup your camera via usb cord it came with.

Step 2, click playback pc not backup, then click copy/edit button on the program, select your camera's HDD

Step 3, push select all or which ever videos you want to copy then click Copy/Advanced function

Step 4, Now click on create Disc (not copy files...cause all you'll get is TOD files)...it will open up the producer but it will convert the files to mpg and they will work without any problem.

But let it generate the video files...once it finishes it will prompt you to make it into a disc. Just close out of it and open up C:\MyWorks where the file will be at...or if you changed the save directory just look in there and the files are there

Note: I tried watching them in windows media but it didnt work so i opened it vegas 7 and it works so just open it in a video program

[luos3m]

Hi All

Have a JVC-GZ-HD7 for a year and finally mastered a complete workflow for HD onto Blu-ray. I have gracefully copied many suggestions from this and other boards. Did not check if my solutions add to existing art, but just thought I shared my learnings:

A collection of tips tricks and workflows to produce HD and SD DVD’s using the Matrox RT.X2 video editing platform
on Adobe Premiere CS3 using footage from a JVC GZ-HD7 HD camcorder

with many thanks to many many people
posting solutions on Matrox, Adobe and other fora

1. Setup:

• Motherboard: Asus P5E3-Deluxe (RT.X2 qualified)
• Processor: Pentium Quad Core 3GHz (Q9650), no overclocking
• Memory: 4Gbyte
• Disk subsystem: 4*750GB disk (Seagate), configured as 2*1.36 TB (both RAID 0);
• C and D drive on first Raid disk, E drive on second disk
• C drive 100GB, D drive 1.26TB, E drive 1.36TB
• Media imported on E drive, D drive used as scratch disk for Premiere and as output for renders and media exports. E drive used for output of Encore
• BD-ROM drive: LG GGW-H20L, firmware YL03
• Matrox RT.X2, using Xtools 3.6
• Adobe CS3 with update 3.2.0 for Premiere and 3.0.1.008 for Encore


2. Gettting footage ready for import in Premiere

This workflow is needed to get the HD content of the Everio converted into a format that the RT.X2 can work with. After a lot of dabbling around I found out (at least that is my most educated guess) that the TOD files that the Everio produces (which are supposed to be MP2 compliant HD 1440-1080i), are in fact not completely MP2 compliant.
Some posts on the internet say you should just rename the TOD to MP2 and then PPCS3 will import them. Although that is true in some cases, it is definitely NOT true in many others. Try using your camera for an entire holiday, which will end you up with many TOD files (as manu as shoots you took which can easily be more than a 100). When I tried to import all these files after renaming to MP2, PPCS3 crashed on many of the files.

So, having a lot of time on my hands because I was changing jobs I finally settled on this workflow:

2.1. Getting footage from JVC onto your machine

I did not get Firewire to work, but instead just use USB which works like a charm, so I did not bother too much trying to get 1394 to work. The Device control function embedded in the RT.X2/Adobe Premiere CS3 just does not pick up the device (in my case).

2.2. Making sense of file names;

The file naming of the JVC-HD7 is a little bit awkward (MOV00x), where x ia hexadecimal). When applying sort orders in file browsers (Windows Explorer as well as CS3 file windows), this results in ordering not according to footage shooting date and time. This is awkward.

Using a freeware utility (‘File Rename’ by J.M. Falcao; search the internet for ‘file_renamer.zip’), rename all files in your media directory by adding date and time at the front of the filename. This way, when listing on name, the files will show up chronologically.

If your TOD files end up being spread over more than one PRGXXX directory, this renaming will allow you also to put them all in one directory.

2.3. Concatenating the TOD files from the JVC

The Everio breaks long takes up into segments of 4Gb (due to its internal file system). To get it back to one scene, you need to concatenate the files back. The software supplied with the Everio does do this, and this is described well in various threads, but I found that at the concatenation points, it messes up the audio (a small hickup).
After googling around, I settled on a workflow using the freeware utility MPEG Streamclip.

• Get the MPEG Streamclip software from www.squared5.com. I use version 1.2. Also install the Quicktime Alternative player quicktimealt181.exe from www.filehippo.com
• Import all the TOD files belonging to one scene into Streamclip. It will automatically concatenate all the clips and where needed fix the timecode or data breaks.
• Select option to export the resulting clips using the option ‘Convert to MPG with MP2 audio’• Select a new destination directory

Note: this entire step has to be skipped if you don’t have ‘broken up scenes’. You can find this out by the messages that MPEG Streamclip gives. If it does not complain about broken time codes, you gave segments that belong together.


2.4. Fixing the TOD files and preparing them for import in the RT.X2

So I found out that apparently the JVC does not always follow MP2 compliancy rules. In earlier stages of my workflow development, I experimented with having MPEG streamclip output to TS with MP2 audio. PPCS3 never crashed on import of these files so I thought I was happy. Later however I found out that every now and then, Streamclip makes an error in this conversion to TS, switching frames. That is, when I import the resulting file from Streamclip in PPCS3, I see discrepancies.
They don’t happen when I output MPG with MP2 audio, but in that case PPCS3 many times crashes on import. So all of this made me suspect the TOD’s file format was wrong, so I needed a utility that made 100% MP2 compliant streams. Streamclip did not do that trick always, so although I don’t know if it actually makes errors or PPCS3 does not know how to interpret MPG files, the end result was not satisfactorily, so I needed something else.

After googling around (and lot’s of testing of different apps!!), I settled on following workflow.

Note: this step is always needed: the previous step, concatenating files, can be skipped if you don’t have ‘broken up scenes’.


• If you did not do the concatenation step, using the rename utility, rename all the TOD files to MPG
• Buy a license for VideoRedo ($60) ( a GREAT utility)
• Start the batch processor of VideoRedo (Tools/Start Batch Manager)
• Select destination type MPG and destination folder as you wish. Make sure to do this before the next step, as VideoReDo works a little bit specific here. All files added AFTER changing the destination directory will be put in the new directory. You can do this multiple times in one batch job. Quit neat if you want to leave the computer on at night to do a load of different encoding jobs.
• Select all your MPG’s as input file (select file type mpg to have them show up)
• Select ‘Save and Execute’
• VideoRedo will now batch remux all files and create fully mpg compliant files
• Then rename the resulting MPG file(s) to M2V. That way Premiere will recognize the format without need for indexing.

Now you can use the resulting M2V files in RT.X2.

2.5. Making files Matrox native compliant

Two things brought me to continue some tweaking work:

• The resulting M2V files are accepted by PPCS3, yet still they are indicated on the timeline as ‘needing to be rendered’ (red line). Although this is not a showstopper, it does mean that PPCS3 is using system resources over and over to display these files and when exporting. I wanted the red line gone, but since I don’t capture using the Matrox RT.X2, they will always show up red.
• When you do a lot of shoots (typical holiday shooting), you end up with many, many small files. When importing all of this in PPCS3, it gets sluggish and sometimes even complains about system resources.

What I ended up doing is following:

• Import files groupwise (for example per day of shoot).
• Drag them in chronological order to the timeline
• Export the timeline as movie using the appropriate Matrox I-frame 1440-1080i AVI preset at highest quality settings. This converts the timeline from MP2 to I-frame. So the resulting filesize increases, but it is handled much more smooth by PPCS3, your exports run much faster. This does do re-coding, but at maximum quality settings, I have not been able to see quality impact in HD

3. Do your PPCS3 thing

With all these tweaks, I can use the footage in PPCS3 and export as either H264 or MP2 BD compliant streams. I use Encore for mastering and have produced 4 different BD-s now playing very well on a BDP-S350 from Sony.

[qpdbqp]

Hi, luos3m,
I just registered on this (wonderful BTW) site, just to say thank you !!!

Keep up the good work -much appreciated !!!

[luos3m]

Thanks. I am now moving to CS4 and Vista 64 bit to get the most out of my machine. If it changes the workflow I will let the board know

Lucien

[dmakaroff]

I find myself quite regularly wishing i had returned the HD6 i bought last summer within a week of buying it. I should have gone straight back to the store as soon as I found out that JVC had pretty much screwed over their consumer HD users by making the clips uneditable. I understand it would be a severe threat to their prosumer models to allow HD6's and 7's to "play well with the other children...." namely adobe premiere and final cut pro. So they, in effect, disabled their editing capabilities and really only allow people to easily play their footage on HD televisions or on the small screen the cameras come with. Thanks JVC. You gotta know that this user will opt for one of your competators when I do make the switch to professional gear. (i hate to sound cynical, and believe me - i know it is possible to edit .tod files after conversion. but, let's face it - why should we have to go through all that b.s.?)

[minidv2dvd]

anyone know where i might download a short .tod test file? or could someone put one on a filesharing site, please. i need it for my test files folder if possible. thanks.

[stevie_uk]

Im using sony vegas 7.e its fantastic and you can play and edit the files off the bat! the latter versions of vegas dont have support though! I strongly reccomend getting this program!!

[nbandit]

Honestly,
I have found that editing this footage in Vegas (or Sony Movie Maker $120) is the easiest. I do not have to convert the footage at all and what is best is that the footage comes into Sony Vegas uncompressed at 1080i. If you are using a beginner type NLE (pinnacle, Cinewhatever, or God forbid Windows Movie Maker) Vegas has a moderate initial learning cure but even the Sony Movie Maker version is pretty powerful once you understand the controls (main limitation is only 4 tracks of video/audio). This partnered with After effects makes for a pretty impressive tool set. I do love this camera although I can see where i will grow out of it in a couple of years. Better lens support would extend the creative boundaries of this device in my opinion.

[aportman]

I hate to be so negative being that from the posts several of you just bought the camera, but if i knew back when i purchased what i know now ($1000.00 - purchased when initially released), i would have never purchased it. It is the biggest pain trying to simply play back what you have recorded. I will try some of the below suggestions/recommendations, but if it doesn't work this time, I am putting it on ebay. the camera is brand new and rarely ever used because it is so ridiculous and painful to use.

thanks for the recommendations!