VS Created three videos on USB instead of one

[Jan1954]

I created a 1 hour and 32 minute movie. I created the movie on the USB stick (using same properties as the original files). When I accessed the movie on the smart TV (Sony Bravia) I have 3 videos, not 1. I was able to view the videos in order, but I want just one movie, not three. I then checked the USB stick on the laptop, and sure enough, I have 3 videos instead of one there also. I believe the video was about 10 GB, and the USB is a 64 GB stick.

I thought I might have accidentally added chapters, but when I go to the chapter management options, no chapters appear. I have created movies before, so I am stumped why the happened.

[canuck]

You gave not indicated exactly how you "created" your video. From your description it almost seems like you just copied the 3 videos to the USB.
Please give some details on you "creation" process

[Ken Berry]

It will also depend on how the USB stick was formatted. If it is NTSC it should be OK. But by the sounds of it it is formatted using one of the FAT variants. If so, then the maximum sized video you can produce on FAT is 4 GB. That sounds about right. If the video was around 10 GB you would get two 4 GB and one 2 GB videos...

Just possibly there might also be a problem with the TV you played it on. Some of the mostly older flat screen TVs can only play USB drives formatted to PAL and can't "see" NTSC formatted sticks/drives. But even if this was the case, that would not have caused VS to produce 3 videos since it would not know what your TV prefers. But it would know how the USB stick was formatted.

[Jan1954]

I selected Share -- Computer -- I then selected Same Properties... -- and then start. VS created the video. I left it to complete the process. When it was done, I removed the USB stick.

I just saw Ken's post. It was a 64 Gb Scan disk. I did not format it. I assumed it was OK. I will check.

I bet that is the problem. Oh, it was 10.8 GB.

[Jan1954]

The Scan Disk is FAT32!!!

I will format the disk to NTSC and then create the movie again. Thanks Ken!

[Jan1954]

Oh no. It wanted an allocation size, and it had a number there. I went ahead and selected the "default" option since I had no idea about the number that was in the space.

Did I screw up with that?!

[canuck]

As long as you selected NTSC you will be fine.
I recommend that you first render the video to your hard drive and then copy the created video to the USB.

To what format are you creating the video: mpg, mp4, avi?
Of course you will not be able to play the video on the USB as if it were a DVD. There will be no menus, chapters etc.

[Jan1954]

When I selected "Same as Project Settings," under Create Video, the options, like AVI are not available. I went into Project Properties, and the Project Format is AVCHD.

Yeah, I was involved here in a discussion about "the end of DVD's" and switching to USB. I liked the chapter feature when creating the DVD's but it also was cumbersome.

I'll create the movie on the hard drive and then copy it to the USB. I have an external hard drive that I started storing VS movies and files on, so it will end up there once I remove it from the desktop hard drive.

[Davidk]

Most usb's - any make and storage size - come with a default format these days, and the default is FAT32. You can re-format the usb using windows explorer, and the option of "size' is important relative to the size of files you will put on it. Generally there are options for 4K, 8K and 16K, and the difference is a marginal performance issue relative to the size of files you will store on the device. Once (in the days of diskettes) it made a lot of difference, but these days that level of impact has really almost vanished. With solid state memory, it has. vanished.

The file table manages the memory in blocks of the selected size: like an index. When addressing the memory, you actually address it in those block sizes: if your app addresses 4k, it is seeking a 4k block of memory. The file tables for the device contain the index to all the format blocks in the storage space, and where to find them. If you use a 4K block size, then for a 3.5K file stored in it, it will use one block and there is about 500 bytes "wasted" ie inaccessible. The size only really affects the end of a file: an 8k file will fully use 2 blocks of 4K with no waste, but that sort of fit is unusual, to say the least. If the selected block size is 16K, then an 8k file with require only one block, with nearly half "wasted" as the whole file is saved before the end of the assigned memory block is reached. The larger the files stored on the device, the less intrinsic wastage there is, and using it is faster: less need to reference the file table for where the next block is. A smaller block size means more need to reference the file table and is thus technically slower. For the average distribution of file sizes, the difference is pretty much undetectable. I'd suggest a format for blocks of 4K without worrying about the rest of it.