Railfan Technology > trouble downloading Canon movies to my computer

I'm having trouble downloading movies from my newly-acquired used Canon Vixia HFS20 onto my eMac computer. I had no trouble downloading still photos from the HFS20. Does 0010.CPI seem like the i.d. for a movie clip? I can't get the Canon Browser Window to "see" 0010.CPI so as to open it (0010.CPI stays grayed out). Any ideas? I did not see any past info in a search. TIA!

mapboy

I don't have a Canon Vixia, but .CPI doesn't seem like the correct file type for a video clip.

I can make an educated guess, though. Since your camera most likely follows the AVCHD standard (Advanced Video Coding High Definition), directory structure and file format on the SD card should be similar to AVCHD cameras of other makes. I think you're looking in the wrong directory, CLIPINF. Try looking in STREAM, and look for .MTS files. File sizes should range from 50-300 MB instead of 1 KB.

cchan006 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't have a Canon Vixia, but .CPI doesn't seem
> like the correct file type for a video clip.
>
> I can make an educated guess, though. Since your
> camera most likely follows the AVCHD standard
> (Advanced Video Coding High Definition), directory
> structure and file format on the SD card should be
> similar to AVCHD cameras of other makes.
It is AVCHD.

> I think
> you're looking in the wrong directory, CLIPINF.
> Try looking in STREAM, and look for .MTS files.
> File sizes should range from 50-300 MB instead of
> 1 KB.
Thanks! You are right, there are 16 .MTS files, which match the 16 movie clips in my camera. I can bring up the Canon "Browser Window", which sees the "Canon" icon of my camera, connected via USB cable. The Browser Window will go from the "Canon" icon>AVCHD>BDMV>STREAM, but no further. I can double click on that STREAM and get the .MTS file icons to appear in a new window, but when I double click one of those .MTS files, it acts like it's opening, but I don't see a movie anywhere. When I try to drop one of the .MTS movie files into the Canon Browser Window, it won't appear. I can drop an .MTS file onto my computer desktop, and when I try to open it, the Canon Browser Window pops up but the movie doesn't appear and I still can't drop that .MTS file from the desktop into Browser Window. I don't have something arranged correctly.

The Browser Window has a button for "Canon Camera". When I click on it, it says, "No camera was found." So it is not recognizing the camera, even though it did download 2 still photos from it.

mapboy

If I'm following this correctly, the *.MTS files are the video files.
I can view MTS files in linux (slackware64 14.1) with no difficulty.
A friend with an Apple (MAC) machine cannot view the MTS files
unless he uses the program VLC. You might try that...

HTH.

John.

mapboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can drop an .MTS file onto my computer desktop,
> and when I try to open it, the Canon Browser
> Window pops up but the movie doesn't appear and I
> still can't drop that .MTS file from the desktop
> into Browser Window. I don't have something
> arranged correctly.
>
> The Browser Window has a button for "Canon
> Camera". When I click on it, it says, "No camera
> was found." So it is not recognizing the camera,
> even though it did download 2 still photos from
> it.
>
> mapboy

You mentioned that you have an eMac, which uses the obsolete PowerPC G4 CPU. Unfortunately, you are going to run into more problems, even after you get the Canon Browser software to attempt to play back your .MTS files.

I believe your eMac should have either MacOS X 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard) installed. Both predate the .MTS format, so neither MacOS support it natively, and the Canon Browser might be having trouble because it's relying on MacOS to provide the necessary codecs to play it back. PowerPC G4 CPUs can barely playback H.264 files in DVD resolution (720x480) at 30 fps, so your eMac is too slow and won't be able to playback your .MTS files, since they are H.264 files with 1920x1080 resolution.

Only viable option is to convert your .MTS files to a playable format, using a third party converter. The Canon Browser might have the option to convert the file for you, but be warned, it's going to take a long time to convert each file, so forget using your eMac for a quick preview of your clips.

If you want to convert the .MTS file anyway, try to convert it to a Quicktime-friendly format, .MOV or .MP4, H.264 or "MPEG4 video" compression, and AAC audio compression. Set the video resolution to 480p or equivalent depending on the aspect ratio (854x480, 720x404, etc. and there's a reason why I picked even numbers, which I'm not elaborating yet).

I set up a workflow for my non-HD Canon FS100 for my PowerPC G4 "Aluminum" Powerbook, but I gave up for my JVC HD camera since it took way too long to edit my videos. I use my Windows machine for preview and editing AVCHD.

jkh2cpu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If I'm following this correctly, the *.MTS files
> are the video files.
> I can view MTS files in linux (slackware64 14.1)
> with no difficulty.
> A friend with an Apple (MAC) machine cannot view
> the MTS files
> unless he uses the program VLC. You might try
> that...
>
> HTH.
>
> John.

John, I downloaded VLC and was able to play one of my movie clips. That was the answer! May all your software work as intended!

mapboy

cchan006 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You mentioned that you have an eMac, which uses
> the obsolete PowerPC G4 CPU. Unfortunately, you
> are going to run into more problems, even after
> you get the Canon Browser software to attempt to
> play back your .MTS files.
>
> I believe your eMac should have either MacOS X
> 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard) installed. Both
> predate the .MTS format, so neither MacOS support
> it natively, and the Canon Browser might be having
> trouble because it's relying on MacOS to provide
> the necessary codecs to play it back. PowerPC G4
> CPUs can barely playback H.264 files in DVD
> resolution (720x480) at 30 fps, so your eMac is
> too slow and won't be able to playback your .MTS
> files, since they are H.264 files with 1920x1080
> resolution....

My mistake, I'm using an iMac that runs Leopard. I was able to play back my movie clips, and I love the clarity and sound! I keep my eMac to run software that only works on MacOS 9, and I confused the two. I'm sorry that you wrote all that out, I'll make it up to you! See you at Winterail!

mapboy