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General discussion

Easiest way to take video off the Canon Vixia HFS10?

Feb 21, 2011 3:53AM PST

Hi, I want to take all the video we have so far (because the memory is getting full) off both the internal hard drive and the memory card we have for the Canon Vixia HFS10. I am being paranoid b/c its all footage of our little 7-month old girl since she was born, so I just want to make sure I don't do anything terrible like erase and not save everything. I am going to be wanting to put these videos onto at least 2 other computers I have. Will I need to load the same Canon software onto those first? Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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More detail, please...
Feb 22, 2011 1:04AM PST

Which computer, which operating system?

Do you want to edit or just store the video?

Likely more questions later...

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Details below
Feb 22, 2011 3:24AM PST

Windows/PC. XP professional on 1 system, new windows 2007 home on the other. I just want to take the videos off for now and store them, but would like to edit them later.

As an offshoot, once I get them off, how do I go about putting them onto a DVD? Thanks for any and all help you can give me!

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If you are only
Feb 22, 2011 6:13AM PST

storing the video, then copying the MTS files from the camcorder to a computer is all that is needed.

If you want to playback the video, even once to see what you have, then you need to identify a media player that can deal with playing back MTS files. VLC player might - but not knowing the configuration (manufacturer, RAM, available hard drive space, CPU, etc.) of your computers means we have no way to know if the playback will be acceptable or "jumpy".

Burning a DVD with the MTS data files is easy enough. If you want to playback the video on regular DVD player, that's been covered here a lot (the video needs to be rendered to the file type your DVD player can deal with). If you have a Blu Ray player, then the MTS files are supposed to be playable.

Editing later means you will need to transcode the MTS files for the video editor. Tell us what you want to edit with, we can tell you what video types are usable.

" just want to take the videos off for now and store them"... is that why you are planning to copy the video to two computers? My next question to flash memory or hard disc drive camcorder users is normally, "how are you planning to archive the video?"

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What do you mean archive the video?
Feb 22, 2011 10:44PM PST

I am just wanting to get the video off the camcorder to free the space on it to record more video. I am just putting the video on 2 different computers to make sure if one computer was to die/quit that I would still have them video on another one. That said, what exactly do you mean by archive? Is that not archiving? Or are you saying I need to move all the video to a non computer source (like DVD discs or what exactly)? Please let me know! Thanks again for everything.

Also, is it pretty easy to go into the camcorder and just delete everything off in 1 fell swoop once I have moved everything off?

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By "archive", I mean
Feb 23, 2011 12:42AM PST

"long term". Ten to 20 years in the future... or more.

That you are copying the video to two different computers is good - assuming they have adequate available hard drive space. Most folks don't have the same computer in 5 years, so anything beyond that, their crystal ball gets hazy. Since you are already down the flash memory path, the preferred MiniDV tape option is not a good one for you. BUT rather than copying the video to the different computers, a single Network Attached Storage (NAS) with multiple hard drives that are configured for RAID1 might be easier... Both drives maintain the same data. One dies, take it out and put in a working one and the files are automatically copied. Cost depends on the system you get. Expandability and ease of replacing the drives are important...

And at this point, I would not trust any consumer-grade optical discs for archiving, yet. Still too many issues with them...

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Thanks
Feb 23, 2011 2:34AM PST

So can you link/provide me what NAS drives you are talking of? Can one be had for less than $150 or so?

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The NAS chassis starts
Feb 23, 2011 4:52AM PST

at around $200... then you add hard drives (hopefully in the 1 or 2 terabyte size range). Some (higher $) include one or two hard drives.

Fry's Electronics, NewEgg, lots of sources... Buffalo, D-Link, Sabio, NetGear, many others. None in the $150 range.

$ go up when features and workmanship increase.