Copying JVC Everio HDD camcorder recordings with Linux
by Kev on Mar.01, 2009, under Linux
As you might expect, the software that accompanied my Everio HDD camcorder when I bought it was not compatible with Linux. Just as well we don’t actually need any special software to download recordings onto your favourite OS (yes I do mean Linux!)
Plug everything in, USB and the power adapter then switch the camera into PLAY mode.
At this point you should be presented with the usual KDE or GNOME window and be able to view/copy the files in the same way as you would a USB memory stick.
However, there are a couple of drawbacks with this. First, just dragging the files will create a copy on your PC with timestamps of when you copied the videos, not actually filmed them. Second, the video files on your camcorder end in .mod and not .mpg which would be preferable for compatible playback.
So we’ll be using the command line to copy recording and rename them. There’s not much to it really…
Open a terminal and cd into the directory that contains the mount point for the camcorder. In my case this was /media/EVERIO_HDD.
The video files are nested a little deeper in SD_VIDEO/PRG001.
(e.g. cd /media/EVERIO_HDD/SD_VIDEO/PRG001)
This folder contains two types of files ending in .mod and .moi. We only need the .mod files as these are the actual videos.
To copy them from the camcorder to your hard drive use something along the line of:
mkdir /home/my_vids/downloaded_2009-03-01
cp -p *.MOD /home/my_vids/downloaded_2009-03-01/
This can take a while as the files can be quite large. Note that the -p option tells the cp command to preserve the file timetamps, which will have been set by the camcorder when the recording was made.
I prefer the files to have a suffix of .mpg instead of .MOD. Run the following rename command from within your downloaded folder to convert them.
cd /home/my_vids/downloaded_2009-03-01
rename 's/.MOD$/.mpg/' *.MOD
And thats about it. You will still need to delete them from the camcorder (best done from the camcorder menu). Also remember to keep backups…
June 2nd, 2009 on 9:27 am
At this point you should be presented with the usual KDE or GNOME window and be able to view/copy the files in the same way as you would a USB memory stick.
I do not with KDE in debian lenny.
June 17th, 2009 on 11:00 am
Since i am a bit lazy i didn’t want to do this manually everytime so i’ve hacked a little script to do it automatically for me. Since i stumbled on your site looking for something like that maybe you would like to post it since i don’t have a blog. Maybe someone will find it useful. Created on ubuntu 9.04, no dependencies i think.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
CAMFOLDER=/media/EVERIO_HDD
VIDEOFOLDER=/media/EVERIO_HDD/SD_VIDEO/
COUNTER=0
FILECOUNTER=0
if [ -d "$CAMFOLDER" ]; then
while ["$OUTFOLDER" != ""]
do
OUTFOLDER=$(zenity –title=”JVC Everio Video Importer” –file-selection –directory)
done
VIDEOFOLDERS=$(ls $VIDEOFOLDER | grep -v MGR_INFO)
for i in $VIDEOFOLDERS
do
for k in `ls $VIDEOFOLDER$i/*.MOD`
do
let FILECOUNTER+=1
done
done
(for i in $VIDEOFOLDERS
do
for k in `ls $VIDEOFOLDER$i/*.MOD`
do
let COUNTER+=1
VIDEONAME=`basename “$k”`
OUTVIDEONAME=`printf “%03d-$VIDEONAME” “$COUNTER”`
echo “# Copying file $COUNTER of $FILECOUNTER to $OUTFOLDER \nFilename : $OUTVIDEONAME”
echo “100 * $COUNTER / $FILECOUNTER” | bc
cp -r “$k” “$OUTFOLDER/$OUTVIDEONAME”
done
done
)|zenity –progress –title=”JVC Everio Video Importer” –text=”Backing up Videos” –percentage=0 –auto-close –auto-kill
CHOICE=”"
CHOICE=$(zenity –list –title=”JVC Everio Video Importer” –text “Backup Options” –checklist –column “Check” –column “Options” FALSE “Rename To mpg”);
if [ "$CHOICE" != "" ]; then
rename s/.MOD/.mpg/ $OUTFOLDER/*.MOD
fi
zenity –info –title=”JVC Everio Video Importer” –text “Back up completed successfully”
else
zenity –warning –title=”JVC Everio Video Importer” –text “JVC Camera isn’t found plugged in.
Please check if it is mounted under:
/media/EVERIO_HDD
or change the path in the script.”
exit 1
fi
——–script end
Its easy to figure out what it does but for those not so code inclined …
when run it checks whether the camera is mounted. Mine gets mounted as EVERIO_HDD. for other models change the variable. It then asks for the output folder and start copying while renaming all the videos from all the folders in an ascending order with 2 leading zeros. When done it asks whether to rename the extensions to mpg and then exits. Thats all…
July 17th, 2009 on 10:46 am
I would love to use that script, but it complains that “You must specify a dialog type. See ‘zenity –help’ for details”
Thanks for the effort
Tony