SD870is Can't Transfer movies off the camera???

[agentphish]

Greetings-

My father shot some video of my wedding this past weekend on his newish Canon SD870is camera (3 months old), which seems to save videos as AVI files. I have the same camera but just got it and haven't really used it so I don't know it's ins and outs.

He was using an 8gb Sandisk Extreme III card when he shot the pics and vids he took. That's a good quality card AFAIK, so I'd hope he wouldn't be having issues.

He is telling me that he's not able to copy the larger video files off the camera. For instance there's one that's almost 2 gb and he gets nowhere. He also stated that some video files that he did copy, when played on his Mac, had no sound.

He has tried on both his Mac at home and his PC at work. It just seems to not make any progress when importing via iPhoto or when doing a simple copy/paste from the camera.

He has tried 2 different USB cables as well. So we know it's not that.

I told him to try the card in a card reader when he gets home (he's got one that is embedded in his HP multifunction printer) so he will try that tonight after work.

I am wondering if anyone has any other suggestions on things to try to get these files off the cards, or if anyone has any clue why there would be problems in the first place.

Thanks!

 

[Phrasikleia]

I had a similar problem with my old Canon A80. The key was to use a card reader so that the SD card will mount as a drive, then drag the files off of it using the Finder. Don't use any software to grab the files, only the Finder.

 

[NC MacGuy]

^^^ That's the ticket!! It's worked for me without fail.

If no sound, try VLC as the viewer.

Good luck.

 

[Dave00]

He is telling me that he's not able to copy the larger video files off the camera. For instance there's one that's almost 2 gb and he gets nowhere. He also stated that some video files that he did copy, when played on his Mac, had no sound.

I have a similar model (850is) so I can verify that the .avi files I get off of it work just fine on a mac. However, I would suggest getting a card reader and mounting the card as a drive, as has been suggested. Some applications will read the file incorrectly when importing directly from the camera. Some applications have size limitations when reading video files as well. On my iMac G5, for instance, iMovie cannot import a video longer than, I believe, 9 minutes. You have to split it up with Quicktime.

One other consideration - the microphone on the Canon 850IS is pretty poor - the volume comes across low, and there is a bit of a hiss as you raise the volume. Maybe there are similar issues on the 870.