[Bob in St. Louis]

This is a frustrating situation. All this digital stuff is supposed to be easy, and it's still a pain....

Here's the scenario:
I've got less than two hours of vacation video taken on a harddrive based camcorder JVC "Everio" model GZ-MG155 (also referred to as a "MG155" by JVC for some reason). Camcorder is connected via USB. The video authoring/editing/burning software it comes with is called "PowerCinema NE for Everio".
It works well for authoring/burning from an old analog camcorder to digital. It works well for burning DVD from home movies. However, the problem I've having seems to me to be a stupid problem. Apparently, regardless of the LENTH of video you've recorded measured by time or harddrive space you are limited by the number of files to fifty. As it turns out everytime you push the 'record' button on the camcorder, that's ONE file. Doesn't matter whether that file is ten seconds long or 30 minutes long. You can only burn 50 files to a DVD regardless of total combined file sizes. I've accumulated 81 files from the vacation video. Now the easy way out is to burn two DVD's, one with 50 files, the other with 31. But I don't want two DVD's for vacation videos. I want ONE.

So, I try different software.
"Roxio MyDVD LE" doesn't see the camcorder despite the PC recognising it as Drive "F:".
The message that pops up says, "The video signal was not detected. Verify your video source is connected and powered on..."
Nothing I do to the camcorder "wakes up" the Roxio software.

More software available.
"Windows Movie Maker" Different message pops up, but has the same meaning: It doesn't "see" anything.....

On various pieces of software, I've clicked on "capture video". Most of the time what I end up with is the two minutes JVC demo software from the factory. Which I now have stored on my PC's harddrive three or four times...  Either that, or I get the message that nothing is found/no hardware seen.

I'm not looking for fancy effects, menus, or audio 'overlay'. I simply want to take video shot from a digital camcorder and burn it to a DVD. Chaptering is nice, but other than that, nothing fancy.

So my question is, Can I get around this 50 file limit? Or is there other software that I can use? I don't really want to buy more software because I doubt I'll have 50 files on the camcorders harddrive very often before I get to the point where I'll fill a DVD. Or am I missing something....Will the software I have work and it's just a matter of me not seeing something?

Thanks guys,
Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

Nothing?? 

[Martyn]

I use Adobe Premiere. It will do all the things you don't want and takes a couple of hours to get the hang of, but I haven't hit any file limits with it. Incidentally, once you start playing with the simpler editing functions and then start adding fades and dissolves, you'll probably be glad you bought those extra features.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Martyn,
Thank you very much for the reply.

But if I'm reading this correctly, the product is $800, or the upgrade is $300. Not sure if I would 'qualify' for the upgrade as I've never paid for anything Adobe in the first place......
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/

Either way, that's waaay more that I was hoping to spend. I was hoping to spend nothing or near nothing as this "issue" seems silly to have to deal with in the first place. In this day and age of technology and digital information manipulation the fact that I'm being handcuffed to fifty files seems "proprietary", or like some kind of teaser, if you know what I mean.

There's got to be something else Martyn. Isn't there??? I mean it's not like I'm recording content that'll be used for professional use and I'll be making a profit from what I record. It's home movies of the kids for Christ's sake. I can't believe the average soccer Mom is buying products like this so "little Timmy's T-ball practice" can be stored and distributed to the Grandma's on a single DVD.

All I'm trying to do is appease the wife. 

Bob - Stuck between technological limitations and a female.   

[jqp]

I see that this camera has a firewire output.

If your video will play from the camera continuously regardless of starts and stops while recording, it may be easiest to simply play the video you want directly to a recording DVD-R, bypassing a software solution. Such a machine is less than $200 and takes no more time than it takes to watch the video you have recorded. You can pause the recoding to DVD just as you did when you recorded to VCR tapes.

http://hometheater.about.com/od/dvdrecorderfaqs/a/dvdrecfaqintro.htm

I use the Sony RDR-GX315 to record DVD right off my camcorder via firewire - amazing quality, no fuss - added bonus that it will also record from TV to DVD of course (including HBO using VR formatted DVD-RW discs).

Does this sound like a good option for you?

[EchiDna]

is free cheap enough for the software?

http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

http://openmovieeditor.sourceforge.net/HomePage


good luck....

[Bob in St. Louis]

jqp, Interesting, I've got a Panasonic (I think) DVD recorder in my daughters room. Might have to rob it for a while. I didn't know you could "stream" digital video from a camcorder into a recorder. Cool. Thanks for the link, that website is pretty cool, I spent some time thumbing through their links. The guy that wrote that article, Robert Silva, his name sounds framiliar. I think I've seen his name on a forum somewhere. 
To answer your question, YES, that sounds like a good option. Thanks again! 

EchiDna, Free is definitely cheap enough! That's for sure.  Thanks for the links.

You know, in a search for media center software to help my theater room, a forum friend told me about a $40 product  from "http://www.jrmediacenter.com/". My intension was to converge all my HT toys into "one". As it turns out this software also does camcorder stuff. Looks neat. Kind of like SqueezeBox/Slimserver software but so much more.

Anybody use this??

Thanks Guy!
Bob

[woodsyi]

Somebody on EA circle reported that he gets better audio with J. River Media Center then Foobar with ASIO.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ohh, that's good to hear. 

When you say "EA" circle, do you mean the Empirical Audio circle here?

Thanks for the very quick reply woodsyi!
Bob

[woodsyi]

Ohh, that's good to hear. 

When you say "EA" circle, do you mean the Empirical Audio circle here?

Thanks for the very quick reply woodsyi!
Bob

Yes,
Scroll down to the last post on this page (2).
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=40068.10

[Bob in St. Louis]

Got it woodsyi, thanks man. Owe you one! 

Bob