Vegas 7e & 8a not reading files from CX7
 

Hi - doing some testing with the little Sony CX7... may have found a glitch - hoping if anyone else has a similar config they can replicate.

camera is CX7, Sony 4 and 8 G MS duo (both tested, both show same prob)

Record a file that will fill the stick in HQ - half an hour is enough. Plays back in camera fine, so the data is there...

Transfer files via a reader to the computer - a long video is divided into files a little over 2G long - 4 G stick will yield 2 files, the 8 G should have 4...

Drag the first file to Vegas 7e, crash if there are already other .mts files on the timeline... or cannot read the file if dragged into a "fresh" project...
Drag to Vegas 8a, only get front or rear audio (not sure which), even though file size indicates should be audio and video...

Not sure if this is a Vegas bug or a camera issue, so I'm posting here in hopes that I can get other Vegas/AVCHD users to replicate or figure out what if anything is going wrong here... I'm befuddled!

Don't know if this applies to the SR series cams which also record AVCHD?

Anyone? Thanks for testing if you've got a similar configuration!

There's a thread on the Sony Vegas forum titled SOT: Sony's AVCHD cameras.
Check it out for some possible solutions.

Hi Mike -
Interesting thread, as SOME of the symptoms are similar.

Some more details - sticks are formatted in the camera (only way the 8g's seem to format - WinXP wants to format them at 3.52G, beginning to think the 8G are knockoffs...).

Workflow is shoot w/cam, put stick in reader, transfer files to Hard disk, drop on vegas timeline... first file in series comes up ONLY with front stereo audio in V8a, crashes or nothing in V7e. Other files are just fine. AAARGH. File size of the first file appears correct at just over 2G, yet ONLY the front audio channel seems to appear in Vegas - I think I'll try setting up a fresh V8 install on a machine that is a relatively fresh XP install just in case my Windows are so dirty things no longer work as expected (doesn't that happen RIGHT AFTER you do a fresh install....?!?!?!).

Workflow here seems SO simple, so I'm really scratching my head here. Got this cam because it's so compact, but it's really quite good, and would be NICE to use it from time to time as a backup/safety cam, and intrigues me for "fast" edit/delivery - since in theory you could shoot, download in 1/3rd real time, "speed edit", and output fairly fast...



UPDATE:
Fresh install of V8a on fairly fresh XP, transferred 2 files from 4G stick (roughly 30 min, formatted in cam) via new Sony reader... and the "first" file again produces only the single stereo audio track despite the file size being correct and the length on the timeline also being correct... beyond strange!! Beginning to think there is a bug in the CX7 file coding that ONLY affects long recordings, and maybe only if the MS Duo is out of the camera?? Life on the bleeding edge... ugh.

Now replicated the "bug" with files recorded in both Xp and HQ modes in the camera - first file in series on a long recording will NOT show up correctly in Vegas...

Any recommendations as to other (hopefully free) solutions that I might try to read the file with?? I'm sure the data is there, as the cam can play the whole thing back, and the file size is right... but looking like either the camera encodes the file wrong, or Vegas can't read it right...

Time to call Sony support...

Like to know if ANYONE can replicate this bug with longer recordings... I've eliminated most variables, except for the camera firmware... at least I *think* I have...