Transferring files from the HG20 is a huge pain in the ass, jesus..

[dreamache]

This is absolutely ridiculous..

The HG20 comes with some apps, "ImageMixer 3" which you can use to transfer files from the camera to the PC. It also is recognized as a physical removable drive in "Computers" which you can access the camera's files directly and simply drag them to your desktop.

Well, sounds easy enough, but it's not.

If you try to use the ImageMixer 3 app after the cam is connected to transfer the files, and select the button to Copy the files to the PC, it will sit there, show a green loading bar as it's reading the camera, and then that's it. Nothing else happens, if I'm lucky enough, 10% of the time I can get it to show the files in which case I can transfer..

If you try to browse it directly in "Computer" and drag one of the video files onto your desktop, 90% of the time it will freeze the folder, in which case you have to click the X and then choose to restart windows explorer because the whole god damn thing froze..

Now I'm using Windows 7 64bit, and I'm on a quadcore 8gb computer - I'm wondering if the issue is related specifically to Windows 7. Sigh...

Anyone have a fix for this? It's a real pain in the ass to have to devote 20 minutes to simply getting footage transferred.

[net]

So, when you are copying the files directly from the HDD - you're copying the stream folder/or contents of the stream folder? Do you have Pixela open when you do this?

Even though 60gb is a generous amount of storage; I say use SDHC cards exclusively...

Just turn off the camorder, take out the card and place it into a card reader that can read SDHC cards; either built-into your pc/or you can buy for under $20...copy the stream folder or files/recent files from the stream folder.
No camera needed, no ac plug or USB cable - just the card and card reader. It is so much easier.

Use the hard drive as a backup, in case you are out somewhere and run out of card space.

Get an editor that can read AVCHD and uninstall Pixela.

[designbydave]

If you try to browse it directly in "Computer" and drag one of the video files onto your desktop, 90% of the time it will freeze the folder, in which case you have to click the X and then choose to restart windows explorer because the whole god damn thing froze..

This is the main symptom of a failing drive. Windows freaks out and doesn't know what to do if it can't read the data on the drive correctly.

Sounds to me like your hard drive in your camera may be dead.

Try copying files this way again and stick your ear right up to the camera. If you hear a clicking sound, some sort of repeating pattern of sounds or if the drive sounds like its powering up, then dieing, then powering up again, you probably have a bad hard drive.

[net]

dave, you could be right...but a lot of people report buggy/slow transfer times, even with the solid state internal drives.

and, dreamache, did you try using a different USB port on your pc; i.e. back of machine, instead of front?

Someone else, in a different thread, was using 64-bit Vista and having a problem - changed to a different USB port and it remedied it.

[dreamache]

dave, you could be right...but a lot of people report buggy/slow transfer times, even with the solid state internal drives.

and, dreamache, did you try using a different USB port on your pc; i.e. back of machine, instead of front?

Someone else, in a different thread, was using 64-bit Vista and having a problem - changed to a different USB port and it remedied it.

Yeah actually that was my initial issue, I couldn't get the camera to be recognized due to using a front USB port - once I switched to the back it worked fine... So that's not the problem with this transfer issue..

I went out and bought a SDHC Card / Card reader and it worked, but only problem is is I bought a piece of crap SDHC card (2mb transfer) which means I couldn't use the highest quality - which I need since I'm doing green screen work. Ugh, have to take it back tomorrow and get a better one with a higher rate of transfer. (should have done my research beforehand)

But transferring it using an external card worked perfect, though it would still be nice if I could transfer from the camera's internal HD. :( I tried to get it to transfer a clip that was only 50 seconds long before starting this response and it's literally frozen at around 50%.. It went to half way real quick, then froze.

[net]

Despite everything I've mentioned, you still might want to try and test/transfer file(s) from the HG20 to a different machine using a 32bit OS - just to hone in on if there is an issue with your camcorder hard drive..whether it is just buggy or more/or it was an issue with your main pc, etc..

Cards are the way to go - it would still be good to know about the HDD.

[cubercult]

This is absolutely ridiculous..

The HG20 comes with some apps, "ImageMixer 3" which you can use to transfer files from the camera to the PC. It also is recognized as a physical removable drive in "Computers" which you can access the camera's files directly and simply drag them to your desktop.

Well, sounds easy enough, but it's not.

If you try to use the ImageMixer 3 app after the cam is connected to transfer the files, and select the button to Copy the files to the PC, it will sit there, show a green loading bar as it's reading the camera, and then that's it. Nothing else happens, if I'm lucky enough, 10% of the time I can get it to show the files in which case I can transfer..

If you try to browse it directly in "Computer" and drag one of the video files onto your desktop, 90% of the time it will freeze the folder, in which case you have to click the X and then choose to restart windows explorer because the whole god damn thing froze..

Now I'm using Windows 7 64bit, and I'm on a quadcore 8gb computer - I'm wondering if the issue is related specifically to Windows 7. Sigh...

Anyone have a fix for this? It's a real pain in the ass to have to devote 20 minutes to simply getting footage transferred.

Hey mate,

Firstly I can't use the Canon software as I have X64 Operating System and it's not compatible with vista ultimate X64. So I have to grab everything directly off the harddrive ( I probably prefer it this way anyway ).

It could be a USB problem or even with the drivers. With my old computer I couldn't drag anything off the camera at all so I had to use my laptop which worked perfectly fine. Now I have a new computer and the problem has gone, I just copy / paste from the AVCHD stream folder and it seems to work fine. Do you have another computer at home you can copy the files onto and transfer them across? Maybe you can consider a fresh install?

[dreamache]

Despite everything I've mentioned, you still might want to try and test/transfer file(s) from the HG20 to a different machine using a 32bit OS - just to hone in on if there is an issue with your camcorder hard drive..whether it is just buggy or more/or it was an issue with your main pc, etc..

Cards are the way to go - it would still be good to know about the HDD.

I'm pretty ashamed of myself for not having thought of this myself... I have a laptop sitting literally right next to me..

I tried transferring it without installing any software (just dragging off the HD) and it worked perfectly. Guess it's not the camera, damn 64bit. The laptop is windows 7 32bit and worked.

Thanks man, for now I'll just transfer to laptop then to pc via network.