JVC HD7 - Continous recording problem
 

I have JVC GY HD7 & I am pretty happy with.It is simple, discreet & robust. My very big problem is that when record I do long continuous recordings in FHD, the resulting files do not edit together seamlessly, leaving holes in the recording. Therefore an interview will have a few second hole between the end of 1 file & the beginning of the following one. I cannot believe this is normal. Has anyone got this issue? Is there a solution?

Is gap when you playback from the camcorder? Or, when you edit?

The JVC seems to have a 3.4 gig file size limit, so when I try to edit the files together to rebuild the sequence, each file does not match up.

As all the camcorders having a HHD formatted in FAT, the size of a data file is limited to 4GB.

During a continious recording, the GZ-HD7 closes the current file when this limit is reached and open a new file. This 'cut' point is not well undestood by the NLE softwares when the 2 files are imported on the time-line.

In fact, at a binary level, both files contain the correct data of the recorded flow: they are really like 1 file cut in 2 --or more-- separated other files.

So, you need to merge them back into 1 file to retrieve a normal file. If you have no specialized Tool to manipulate files (having in general a merging function somewhere), you can do as in the 'old-time' a DOS merge:
- under Windows, open the 'Run' window, and type into it the program name: Command
- you are now into a new window, in text mode, running a DOS environment,
- you need to know the path where are located your files; assuming that they are into the Directory 'C:\VIDEO', you need to change your current Directory by typing: CD C:\VIDEO
- now, you need to do a binary merge by typing: COPY /B FILE1.TOD + FILE2.TOD MERGED.TOD

Note: replace FILE1.TOD and FILE2.TOD by the real names of your files, and replace MERGED.TOD with the target name of file you want. If you type the same COPY command without specifying any target name, the 2 files will be merge into the first file. The same command can be done with more files than 2: you only need to add a + FILE.TOD for each additional file you want to merge.

This is interesting, I have this problem all the time too. Usually not noticable in the video, but I lose about a second of audio at the break.

Any Mac users know of a tool that will join them correctly? Will have to test the "join all files" function in MPEG Streamclip and see if that does it...

Thank you for this info. I too am a mac man & I have found an app that does what you say. Importing the two files into avid or FCP does not work. I presume that this operation can be done with files that have been downloaded from the cam or does it have to be done on the HDD of the cam?

For those on a PC, read the above. The DOS commands work a treat. For those, like me, that are stubborn mac users, here is a workflow that works for me.

1. Install the revelant QT codec (available from the JVC site)
QuickTime Component for Everio update patch exclusively for Everio

plus the latest version of VLC, MPEG StreamClip and either Jigsaw V3

FOR neXtSoft JigSaw File splitting and joining for Macintosh, PAR2 verify, UnRAR, TAR, GZip, utility for Macintosh, universal binary

or Split a& Concat

Split&Concat homepage

Please donate to these people who create these apps. We need them!

2. Copy all the TOD files that make up the sequence you wish to rebuild to a work folder.
VERY IMPORTANT. RENAME ALL THE FILES THAT YOU WANT TO JOIN THE SAME AT THE FIRST ONE, KEEPING THE FILE EXTENTION & ADDING 001, 002, 003 etc.

e.g. MOV01F.TOD.001, MOV01F.TOD.002, MOV01F.TOD.003 etc

What you are doing is making the above app think that this is some sort of compressed segmented file, like those often used in P2P download in RAR or PAR format. Once the app has identified the first file i.e 001, it will copy the subsequent numbers one qfter the other.

READ THE APP INSTRUCTIONS AS THEY WILL SAVE YOU LOADS OF TIME.

3. Open the .TOD files in VLC and check they are intact. QT may NOT read these files in their entirety.

4. After reading the apps instructions, use either of them (I used Jigsaw). It will create a new file that will be the gigabyte sum of the files that are joined.
5. All being well, the concated file will be complete. Check it in VLC. Do not use QT as it may show that the file is short.

6. To convert the file to something useful in QT & therefore Avid , use MPEG Streamclip for TOD files (JVC uses a modified MPEG compression).

For your info, a FullHD .TOD file of 30 mins weighs 6 gigs. The same file converted in DNXHD 1080 25p weighs in at over 40 gigs. So have some space & time to spare.

Just had some time to test this, and it's actually really easy to join the files using only MPEG Streamclip, with no other software.

The easiest way is to just open multiple .TOD files at once: hold down shift in the open dialog box and select all the files you want to join, or just drag multiple files in. It then opens it as one continuous clip, which you can export to any format you like.

You can also do this in the batch list if you have multiple clips to convert. Adding each group you need to join, and checking the "Join all files" checkbox will do the same thing.

I had no noticable gaps in video or audio when testing this method.