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I have a Sony HDR-HC5 camcorder, and I'm trying to save a video to a cassette, and then connect it to my PC and save the video as an .mp4 file.
Here is what I do:
- I shoot the video
- Connect it to PC via Firewire
- Open VLC media player, select it as a capture device, and record
It works, but sometimes (even though I specify target file as foo.mp4 to Desktop), it saves the video as vlc-record-2015-10-20-18h11m32s-dshow___-.ts or vlc-record-2015-10-20-18h12m50s-Streaming-.ts to Documents.
The filename or path is not a big deal, but when the extension becomes .ts, and I cannot read the video in MATLAB.
So I have a lot of options here, but not sure which will work best:
- Find a way that VLC saves as .mp4, and not .ts (how?)
- Convert .ts to .mp4. I tried it simply by changing the filename, but it does not work with MATLAB (note: I can read it when VLC saves as .mp4) so maybe with a software? But I don't want to lose any quality.
- Find a way for MATLAB to read .ts. (But I couldn't).
- Save the frames of the video with VLC's Video Scene Filter, but it can only save like every 5th frame. I cannot save all the frames, when I try, it freezes and gets stuck in an infinite loop where it's saving the same image over and over again.
I'm also open to other alternatives, like using another cable instead of Firewire, or another software instead of VLC, etc.
Note: I'm using Windows 7 64 bit.
Thanks for any help!
jeff
Posted 2015-11-19T23:29:51.803
Reputation: 489
This would be a question you should be asking Sony. The obvious answer the camcorder has dubious software that doesn't always do what it should. How you convert .ts to .mp4 is a simple enough problem to solve though. There are lots of both free and paid software to do that out there. – Ramhound – 2015-11-19T23:36:36.890
@Ramhound can I trust them in terms of keeping all the information? I'm not even sure .ts does have all the information that is in .mp4, like the image quality, transitions etc.? Because this will be a data collection project and we need the best quality possible. So there won't be any difference between saving as mp4 and saving as ts, then converting to mp4? – jeff – 2015-11-19T23:39:37.223
Why would you save as .mp4 then save it as .ts only to convert that to .mp4. If the actual video container is .mp4 with a .ts extension there are easier ways around that problem ( just change the extension ). I figured the actual video container was the problem, and you wanted a solution, to that problem. – Ramhound – 2015-11-19T23:46:49.577
I might not have been clear enough. I only want mp4, but sometimes VLC accidentally saves as ts -which MATLAB cannot read (even if I change the extension manually)- so I suspect .ts doesn't have some of the information I seek, so I doubt I might not work even after converting to mp4. – jeff – 2015-11-19T23:52:39.660
Why don't you try converting it? I thought the camera was creating the file. Now that you have clarified it is VLC creating the file, my conclusion is the same, just with a different party at fault. VLC does have a community have you checked their for solutions? – Ramhound – 2015-11-20T00:14:45.090
I did not check VLC forums, let me do that. So you are positive that converting will not result in information loss? And can you please suggest a reliable software for this? Thanks for your help btw :) – jeff – 2015-11-20T00:20:52.550
@HalilPazarlama, TS and MP4 are container formats. What you really need to find out is what is inside those containers. If the TS contains the same video codec as the MP4, then yes, you can convert TS -> MP4 without loosing any video quality. However, if the TS contains something else you would likely loose some data in a conversion to MPEG4 + MP4. – heavyd – 2015-11-20T03:48:44.183
@heavyd thanks. So I guess my best shot is to convert the videos and see if they are the same. – jeff – 2015-11-20T20:44:09.180
@HalilPazarlama, VLC will tell you the type of video in the containers if you look at the codec info (Tools -> Codec Information) – heavyd – 2015-11-20T20:45:50.283
@heavyd I tried it now, the .mp4 file says:
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1), whereas the .ts file says:Codec: MPEG-1/2 Video (mpgv). So I guess they are not the same. So what do I do now? Forget about converting? :) – jeff – 2015-11-20T20:51:52.043Yeah, you definitely want the H.264 video. You need to figure out how to consistently get the .mp4 videos instead of .ts. Are there any settings you can access? – heavyd – 2015-11-20T20:57:23.103
From the camera, there are not much settings. In VLC, there are a lot of settings but I doubt most of them don't apply. Like even when I specify Desktop/test.mp4, it creates a ts file in My Documents, so I'm not sure what exactly is going wrong here :) – jeff – 2015-11-20T20:58:29.227