Horrible Video Transfer Times to PC
 

I hope someone on this forum has an idea of what I can do.

I have an HG20 and for the PC (Quad Core, 8GB RAM, Windows 7 64bit).

I can connect to the HG20 and see the video clips on the hard drive.

I perform a copy and paste action to transfer a given clip to a folder on my hard drive. Clips are from 550MB to 1.5GB (not too large). It should take minutes on a USB2.0 connection, but instead takes 2.5 to 3 hours to transfer a single clip. For some reason, it transfers at 20 kbps. This is entirely unmanageable. I know I could probably go out and buy an SDHC class 6 card, and perhaps it would work better. However, the HG20 has a nice 60GB Hard drive that I would like to make use of.

Has anyone else had this problem .... and has anyone found a resolution?

I am in the process of transfering 2 clips that are no more than 5 minutes each, and the transfer box is stating that it could take 18 hours. It is transfering at 16kbps at the moment. This is absolutely terrible and unacceptable.

One possibility would be an inexpensive SDHC card reader, and transfer from that rather than the camera. This is the procedure we used at the website I used to work for, it works great.../Battle Vaughan

Is the camera on a USB hub or sharing the USB bus with any other devices? Do you have the same performance even when the camera is the only USB device connected?

Do you have the USB mode on the Vixia set either to 'computer/printer' or 'connect and save'?

Have you tried other USB cables? A different USB port?

With regard to the SDHC card suggestion from Battle. Are you recommending that I put a card in the camcorder, and transfer the hard drive content on the camera to the sdhc card, then take that sdhc card and place that in a card reader on the PC?

With regard to comments by Geoff: I have tried multiple USB cables (as supplied by Canon), but perhaps they are not good. I could try to locate a thicker higher end cable. There are multiple USB devices on the PC. This is a brand new Quad Core PC with a total of 6 USB ports (4 rear, 2 front), but I do have a wireless keyboard device, speaker, and printer that share the available USB ports. I have not checked to see how the camera performs as the only USB-connected device. That would be an interesting test. I will tell you this, I just put a flash drive in the remaining front USB port, and it transferred a 155MB file in about 3 seconds (quite fast). Both video clips that I am trying to transfer are 983MB combined, and it will take close to 18 hours. That leads me to believe it is the Canon Camera and not the PC (but I am open to suggestions and things to try).

I would definitely try your front USB port, as is sounds like it's on a different bus...? I'd also take off as many other peripherals that you can while you try it. Try swapping other USB cables you have on other devices...?

That idea of copying the files in the camera from the HD to the card and then using a card reader - sounds like a good idea if you need your files pronto for a deadline...

Geoff, you are on the right track with the USB. With the same cable, I plug it into my laptop and the transfer rate is fast. I talked with Canon, and they suggested I try different USB ports. I was using the front port on the desktop, but if for some reason, it is under-powered, or there is interference with other devices on the desktop, then that could be a contributing factor. I am going to try some experiments and let you know what I find.

Jeff, I jumped to the conclusion that you were recording to an sdhc card, forgetting the disk drive in this particular model. For sure, our experience with sdhc cards is that they work better fed direct into the computer by card reader. I must confess I have no experience with disk-drive cameras so don't know what problems they may entail, except to say that the earlier ones used odd codecs that required a lot of processing, and that is why our team never used that type of camera. The HG20 may, of course, be completely different, and I apologize that I am no help in this case...../BV

If the Antivirus program is running. It will slow down the transfer. Typical I have Antivirus program disable during transfer or convert.

Also maybe the USB port you are using is usb1.1 not 2.0 ?