Dealing with camcorders that record in MOD format

[warris]

One of the problems with camcorders that record in MOD format (JVC, Panasonic etc)is that it is not recognised as a legit format in most media players. It is actually in MPG format but for some reason the manufacturers dont want you to know that. The software that comes with the camera is very limited usually so I have put together this way of joining/editing all the clips that you have taken together and writing them to a playable dvd without any loss of quality. One of the problems especially with JVC camcorders is that the aspect ration doesn't always appear right in all versions of windows. This guide has been written with windows 7 in mind but will work equally well with XP or Vista.

How to join individual MOD files and burn to DVD without loss of quality.
ALL THE REQUIRED PROGRAMS ARE FREE to download and use.

Programs required:

1) Simple File Joiner
http://www.peretek.com/sfj.php
2) DVDstyler
http://www.dvdstyler.org/
3) SDcopy
http://www.filmoreha.com/sdcopy/
4) File Renamer
http://www.sherrodcomputers.com/products_filerenamer.cfm

To view files on Windows 7 as mpg format.
First copy from the cameras sd card or HDD the MOD files. (1) Then rename them in order using FILE RENAMER you can set up a profile to do this on a consistent basis. I called my profile “camcorder.” Set the file ext to "mpg". Then using SIMPLE FILE JOINER join the MPG files you want to put into one file, ensure that the “insert dividers” box is checked. Click join files and give it a meaningful title followed by “.mpg”. Save the file to HDD.

If the aspect ration isnt right then:-
Use sdcopy to convert files and set 16.9 aspect ratio then continue from (1) above.

To upload or copy to dvd
Use DVDstyler to author the DVD and save the project before burning. You will need in most cases to add a picture to the menu index for the dvd as the joined mpg files wont have thumbnails. You can do this by screen capture from WMPlayer or just use an appropriate photograph. You can generate the temp Video TS folder to C;/temp/ dvdout. If you want to keep the dvd files copy this to another folder and rename the folder to the video title. Do this before shutting the program or burning a disk as the program removes these temp files. Use your dvd burning program to burn the DVD folder if an actual disk is wanted. Do not burn the iso file as it will not play on a dvd player.

The program SDcopy is not really required if you just want to watch the joined files on Windows 7 as w7 seems to play the mod files at the correct aspect ie 16.9 but you will need it if you are using Windows XP or you want to transfer files to dvd or upload to YouTube or Picasa.

[divx118]

For the panasonic cameras and most others, there is a little standalone tool called smartvid for windows. It will turn your .mov into an avi file. It is really fast, because if I remember correctly it only changes the headers of the file. Now you can play it in windows mediaplayer without installing extra codecs.

BTW thanks for the step by step guide

Maurice

[warris]

Thanks for the tip Maurice, my mistake the title of this guide should have referred to MOD files not MOV. However if you know of a program that can join mov (apple quicktime)files together I would be very interested to hear about it. Sorry for my confusing original title which I have now edited.

[divx118]

I was a little confused because you talked about camcorders and they normally don't record in .mov . The two panasonic photo camera's (FZ30 and TZ5) I have do record in .mov.
They both are fine for recording short films, the TZ5 can record in HD 1280 x 720 pixels @ 30 fps up to 8 minutes length, but has some trouble with focus when using the zoom during recording. The FZ30 can record until the memory card is full (only 2Gb max), at a resolution of 640 x 480 @ 30 fps, You can however zoom in and out with no problem.

For joining .mov files, I read quicktime pro could do it. For my recordings I just use smartvid first to get a normal avi file and then there are lots of programs that let you join them. In the past I used adobe premiere, and windows moviemaker to join those avi's and create some nice dvd's.


Maurice

[warris]

Yes, before I discovered the method above I converted to AVI and joined the clips together, but with more than a few clips the sound used to go out, although I did discover a way or syncing it eventually. With the method described above the MOD files are joined and play perfectly with no conversion loss and using the dvd styler can be written to dvd to archive the results being exactly the same as the original files.

For info I have a jvc everio camcorder (only the very basic model but it was cheap light and gave just as good results as my old Hi8 Canon monster!.