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MTS files numbers on GH2
  • Does someone found a way to avoid avoid having footage named 00000.mts on any new card? I mean stills numbers goes on from 0 to xxxxxx unless you reset it in the camera menu. Having the same footage numbers on many different cards is stupid and confusing, Especially when editing a short film or a documentary. (missmatch, relinking footage etc.) I hope this will be fixed on GH3.

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  • Afaik there is no way to change this until now. I just use Adobe Bride to batch rename right after I copied from SD card.

  • i batch rename using infranview sorted by capture time date. it still isn't ideal cause you have to keep them in dated folders, guess thats not so bad. does it reset itself when a fresh card is inserted even if its been formatted prior? ive never noticed, only when ive formatted right before use.

  • I agree that the file naming is not convenient because I often include motion and stills in my productions. So having the files in chronological order requires that I rename the videos. I usually take the name of the still photo just above the video and name the video the same with the .mts extension. If I have more than one video after a still, I name them with the still's name but add a letter to the name such as a, b, c, d, etc.

  • Thanks for your answers, batch rename is the only tidious option indeed

    @MRfanny : When your SD Card gets full, you typically switch to an empty card (not to loose time on location/stage) then GH2 names the first footage on the #2 card 00000.mts so you can mess up with the 00000.mts from #1 card. Formating the card won't affect the way GH2 names video files. Video files names relies on the card, not on the camera whereas stills are named sequentially regardless what card it's being saved on.

    By the way the "crazy secret path" Pany forces us to follow is really evil too : /PRIVATE/HELL/AVCHD/LIMBO/BDVM/STREAM...

  • I asked about the ability to revise this in the hack recently, but VK said it was a no-go. Unfortunate. I think the Canon solution with a random header is better, but it would be amazing to be able to set menu-selectable characters for, say, the first four chars. But probably not to be.

    That said, I don't think it's Panasonic that dictates the lame file structure, but the AVCHD standard.

  • That said, I don't think it's Panasonic that dictates the lame file structure, but the AVCHD standard.

    Yep.

  • @DouglasHorn : You're right, we can't blame Panasonic for that :) I'm so used to complain about the way Panasonic deals with GH2 Development...

  • I think the AVCHD file structure is the structure required to burn on Blu-ray disks (or DVDs to play in Blu-ray players). So the camera produces the videos in a form that can be directly burned to a disk for playing.

  • On a Mac I use a program called "A Better Finder Rename 9" and it does a great job. I got it bundled with other software, but I think it's only $9.99 on its own. It makes it very easy. I just import normally and rename after all the files are in.

  • AVCHD is a consumer Standard in which everything is locked down (especially bitrate) so that consumers can play, view wedding videos on Viera Panasonic TV :) (keeping all consistent and convenient) It is not Dedicated to "Pro" users (unlike "AVCHD Intra") It would be great to switch between AVCHD to AVCHD Intra (or even Ultra) within the camera. But GH2 is derelict in its Prosumers nest, so that Panasonic can still sell much more expensive cameras (such as AF101) Hopefully a guy named Vitaliy helps the one who want to bring this camera to the next level. (and Hopefully, use it for short, documentary, films, post and VFX)

  • @Nayche : Thanks I'll have a look at it, I usually use Name Wrangler or Adobe Bridge for batch rename on Mac.

  • what works fin for me: batch rename in Lightroom or Bridge with numbering two digits (sorry I dont run US version) Year-Month-Day-Hour-Minute-Second If you keep your SD card just in case it's easy to find the corresponding file. I had some write errors where I was happy about.

  • nice tip. (I thought LR wasn't able to handle .mts files)