Hello,

I have a problem getting my videofiles from my camcorder (Sony DCR-HC27E) to my computer. I went to the store and they put the videofiles from mini-DV to DVD (in .vob format).
Now, when I try to play the files they are way too short. For example: I've got a 1Gb file that says '29seconds' when I play it. It ends after these 29 seconds. Yet, all the images are there (I know because I can see so when I scroll through the timeline) and of course it's much longer than 29 seconds.

The storekeeper told me to convert the .vob files to .mpg by simply renaming them. I tried this but this does not change the problem. All the videofiles still say 29 seconds...

Can somebody help me?
I've got a deadline to catch

Kind regards.

I'm probably over my head trying to help with this thread but never fear the brighter bulbs of the forum will step in and correct any mis-step I might make.

IMO - best way to transfer and then transcode miniDV to standard definition DVD is to plug umbilical cable from you DV output on your camcorder to your PCs Firewire input and play the miniDV tape while in Capture Mode of whatever software you have for capture and editing - some programs probably came bundled with your camcorder and will do just fine.

You need firewire for miniDV which should capture as .avi and one hour of miniDV will take around 12 or so Gig of HardDrive space and once capture is complete you can use software to render or transcode your video to mpeg2 which will become .vob during dvd creation.

Okay - if you prefer to go to a Video Shop to pay and have this done then it should be the Shop's responsibility to give you a dvd that plays properly so take it back to them and ask them to play the dvd and show you.

Hopefully, the shop returned your original miniDV tape safely to you.

So far as the "29 seconds" that is interesting - I'd like to know what they did to render say an hour of video with code that shows only 29 seconds duration of the dvd file. I think this is an error on the software used by the shop and they can and should re-do this for you to correct it.

Now and then I will see a video file - usually a very compressed file type downloaded from the internet - that has 30 to 50 minutes of program but when played will only run for around 29 seconds and then stop BUT if you manually scroll through a timeline a lot more video scenes are present.

One way I have fixed this time code issue is I've opened the file in mediacoder (free and SUPER transcode utility). I "tell" mediacoder to transcode the file from whatever format it is TO mpeg2 and all three or four times the result was a clean mpeg2 new video file with correct time coding and the "29 seconds" now shows full program length.

So and in summary transferring miniDV to a PC harddrive as .avi via a firewire port and then editing or simply rendering the avi to mpeg2 ready for dvd authoring as .vob best solution if you are comfortable with doing it yourself.

If you prefer to pay someone to do this utility for you I would first take my miniDV tape and the dvd the shop gave you back to them for correction OR I would take my miniDV tape to a better shop.
goodluck