I noticed that the camera creates a new file if a video file exceeds 2 gb in size (or 11 min of recording), the problem is that when you put them back together in post, there is a small glitch where the video goes over to the second video file.

Is this a problem with my camera or is this the same with all xa10's?

I sold my xh a1 because I got sick of all the tape errors, and now it turns out that I am not rid of the problem.

I don't have memory cards, does anyone know if the problem goes away if you record to memory card?

Also, what type or internal memory does this camera use? I checked the manual but it does not say anything about a hard drive solid state flash memory, it only says 64gb internal memory.

I'll try it out tonight.

What are you using to stitch the files together?

Cheers.

Adobe cs5.

How are you importing the video files?
Are you simply copying them from the camera, or using the transfer software supplied with the camera?
When importing with the transfer software, the divided clips should be automatically restitched together, and the clip naming (date + index number) should be preserved.

I recorded my iPhone stopwatch which shows tenths of a second. I then copied the two XA10 .MTS video files directly onto a harddrive then import into PP CS5.5 and yes, there is a glitch. Here's the time shown on the iPhone frame-by-frame. This occurs from files directly from the camera and the transfer utility which did not stitch the files.

Frame : Time as read on iPhone
----------
1 : 0.5
2 : 0.5
3 : 0.5
----------
4 : 0.6
5 : 0.6
6 : 0.6 (MXP only, picture goes out of focus)

[ next file ]

7 : 0.8
8 : 0.8
9 : 0.8
----------
10 : 0.8
11 : 0.8
12 : 0.8
----------
13 : 0.9 ...

Best I can tell is it's dropping frames 1-3 in the 2nd movie and replacing them with frames 4-6. So time is right but I'm losing 3 frames of data at the beginning.

On MXP quality, the last frame of the first movie goes out of focus. This does not occur on FXP. Both recording modes have the duplicate beginning frames problem.

I hope that helps.

This is common to any AVCHD camera, not just the XA10. You're losing a few frames around the join of the files if you just drag them both onto your timeline. The camera doesn't start a brand new MTS file, it is continuing the previous one, and some information will be missing because some of the frame data is in the previous file!

The individual files need to be combined into one large file, normally using the software that comes with the camera, before it gets into CS5.

See, for example:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/237095-avchd-combining-files.html

You can either get a tool (software that came with the camera), download something free from the web, or (if you're hard core), merge the files together using a DOS command. A bit of searching round the forum here should provide examples.

I see. I was just dragging files around. The Pixela Transfer Utility v1.0 that came with the camera doesn't stitch, unless I'm missing a setting somewhere, so I ran it through Avidemux in copy mode, output as .mpeg and that put back the missing 3 frames (edit: I'm not sure if that's the best quality output). The single glitched frame is still there but that's manageable. Thanks.

Pixela does not stitch files, sadly. Go here to download mts merger:

http://vontraining.net/download/

i use this free program here: MTS File Joiner (http://sites.google.com/site/mtsfilejoiner/Home)

it joins the files in seconds with no recompression. It was actually made for Vixia users, works like a charm.

The MTS file joiner works like a atom bomb. Thanks a billion.

i use this free program here: MTS File Joiner (http://sites.google.com/site/mtsfilejoiner/Home)

it joins the files in seconds with no recompression. It was actually made for Vixia users, works like a charm.

Excellent. It's fast and the output filesize is exactly the sum of the files I joined so no compression. Thanks.

Are there any file joiner programs for the MAC?

Is there a program like MTS File Joiner for the Mac?

this is interesting,
because I don't have any problem with long files from my HF G10, it does start new file every 2 Gb, this is a FAT file system limitation not the camcorder, but I don't have a single frame dropped in between the files;
although my G10 is one of the first ones and straight from Japan, but i don't think it makes any difference.

As Buba points out this is a FAT limitation so it shouldn't be an issue on a Mac unless you do have a hard drive formatted in that way. Not something you'd normally do for a Mac unless you wanted to share that drive with a PC user.

No idea if such software is made for Mac.

using one camera, you won't notice the drop frames, but with multicam you will see the drop frame in between the files !

this is interesting,
because I don't have any problem with long files from my HF G10, it does start new file every 2 Gb, this is a FAT file system limitation not the camcorder, but I don't have a single frame dropped in between the files;
although my G10 is one of the first ones and straight from Japan, but i don't think it makes any difference.

In my experience you can notice the "dropped" frame in some shots as a jump in motion and audio. Whether or not you notice it does depend on the video content (motion and sound).

I suspect the frame is dropped because the the continuation files lack some of the header found in the first file, and that expected header portion of the file may be ignore by some NLE software resulting on a lost frame or so of data.

Binary concatination of the continuation files to the base file eleminates this issue; e.g, using the DOS COPY command with the /B switch.

Thanks for the tip Don. The dos command works perfectly.

For those who do not want to look it up it works like this:

copy /b 00001.mts+00002.mts+00003.mts+00004.mts merged.mts

In this case, 1,2 and 3 are 2gb files. ( mine show up as 1,998,708 kb) and the 4th file will be less than the first three files, meaning you pressed stop record.

After the 4th file you need to type a name for the new file to be created too. In this case, I called it merged.mts, you can call it anything you want. If you forget to add the new name after the last file, what will happen is, 2,3,and 4 will be merged onto 1. So you will now have a 00001.mts file that has the other three files added to it.

You will not have any pausing or dropping of two frames between each of the MTS files this way as it will be one new 6gb+ file.

Canons solution as well as many other manufactures, is to use their software that came with the camera, connect the camera to the PC/MAC and use the joining software on the fly to import it to the system. I prefer to use USB 3.0 and transfer the cards individually and now with Dons dos command this solves the problem nicely.

using one camera, you won't notice the drop frames, but with multicam you will see the drop frame in between the files !
I'm sorry, i do not understand hows one camera is different from multicam shot, in terms of dropped frames?

This concerns me, I just got the XA10 and will be using it with a miniDV camera. Then I'll need to sync the footage from these two cameras in post production. If there's frames dropped, this could be problematic since the miniDV camera will record a full 60 mins of tape with no dropped frames........?

This concerns me, I just got the XA10 and will be using it with a miniDV camera. Then I'll need to sync the footage from these two cameras in post production. If there's frames dropped, this could be problematic since the miniDV camera will record a full 60 mins of tape with no dropped frames........?

A long video clip on the XA10 will consist of multiple files 2GB in length that need to be joined back together before editing. All AVCHD camcorders split the video in this way. There are many utilities that will join the files back together to restore the original clip without dropping any frames. If you have dropped frames, then you are doing it wrong. As mentioned above, the DOS/Windows command

copy /b 00001.mts + 00002.mts + 00003.mts + 00004.mts joined.mts

will join the pieces back together. No frames will be lost provided you join the right pieces together.

Never seen this; I import with the supplied Canon software and it doesn’t stitch them together or I haven’t been letting it if it does. I import them into Premiere and drop them on the timeline and they never miss a beat from what I can tell so far.