Friday, May 25, 2012

SONY CAMCORDERS AND THE CASABLANCA

  A few months ago I published a blog post describing the workflow that I use for using the video recorded by today's card-based camcorders.

  Since that time I have acquired and additional card-based camcorder and the Generation 3 Casablancas are using later versions of Bogart software.  Therefore I thought I would revisit the workflow to determine if it is still valid.  The figure to the right was used in the prior blog posting to illustrate the various paths that I had used to get video from my Sony HXR-MC50 camcorder to my Gen3 Casablanca.

  Now that I have acquired a Sony HXR-NX70 camcorder and Bogart is up to version 4.5 (beta), it was time to confirm that the above workflows were still valid.

  I first recorded video in Sony's "HQ" mode with is a 1440x1080i mode which the closest match to the tape-based HDV format.  I recorded some video on several different cards and in both the MC50 and NX70.  Both of these cameras have large internal memories on which you can record if you don't want to use memory cards.  I also did testing with the internal memories in addition to the cards.  The table below show the results of trying to import video directly from the cameras via a USB connection between the camera and the Cassie.




  As can be seen, importing from the cameras directly connected to the Cassie can be problematic, especially if you're using an SDHC card other than the Sony 8GB.

  I then tried reading the cards via a Kingston USB card reader plugged into the Cassie with essentially the same results.  The Cassie just does not see the video files even though the card reader shows up in the Record screen pick list.

  I then copied the files recorded on the cards onto a USB thumb drive and inserted the thumb drive in the Cassie.  VoilĂ !  The video files are now seen by the Cassie.

  I also tried copying only the "BDMV" folder from the cards to the thumb drive and that also worked.

  I also tried copying the files to a USB hard drive and that also worked.

  So...my card-based workflow with the Cassie must be modified as shown in the revised figure below.

  The direct paths from the camera to the Cassie just don't work reliably.  But copying the files from the SD cards to either a thumb drive or a USB hard drive works just fine.

  There is speculation that a new recording format is being used on today's SD cards and that is the reason the Cassie will not see the files directly.  We can only hope that future versions of Bogart will fix this.

  I have heard that some other non-Sony card-based cameras have similar problems of not being seen by the Cassie.  If you are have a non-Sony card-based camera and are having trouble inputting video, I would recommend you try copying the card's file structure to a thumb or USB hard drive and try that.  If you do, I'd appreciate hearing from you.