How often have you recorded a long video with your GoPro Camera, looked at the SD card and noticed there are multiple video files? This causes quite a lot of confusion with Sports Camera users, as it looks like your camera is stopping and starting recording on its own. Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with your camera and there is a valid reason for this.
The GoPro video file naming concept begins with the letters GOPR at the start, followed by a sequential 4 digit number normally starting at 1 and progressing from there. For example: GOPR0001. When you record a lengthy video you will then end up with additional files, GOP10001, GOP20001 etc. If you have a good look at these video files on the SD card, you will notice that all but the last file is four gigabytes in size.
The reason behind the splitting of the files once they reach that 4Gb limit, is due to the file system and the formatting of the SD card. There is no other way to format the SD card to prevent this from happening, as the SD card needs to be formatted using the FAT32 file system to enable the GoPro camera and PC’s, Mac’s and alike to universally read and write to the card. It sounds quite technical, but there is no really simple explanation.
Although this can be quite annoying, having videos consisting of multiple video files, there are some very simple ways of turning the multiple video files into one continuous video. Generally most PC’s and Mac’s can handle files greater than 4Gb nowadays. Therefore, once the files are transferred to your computer, you can then join the multiple files into one single file, exceeding that 4Gb limit imposed by the SD card. If you want to edit your videos using Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, iMovie etc, it is possible to add the sequence of video into your timeline, but this can be quite tedious when it comes to editing the final video. The easiest method is to join the files into one long video first.
A neat little piece of software I use for this is Full Video Converter, it is extremely easy to use and great for joining multiple video files together. Supporting over 150 video formats, this software is also very handy for quickly and easily converting your GoPro Camera videos into other formats for iPhones, media players and YouTube just to name a few. Using the Full Video Convert software, it is as simple as importing the videos you want to join, sort them into the correct order and export the video as one video file. Not only is this software great for joining videos, it is quick and simple for creating timelapse video sequences with your GoPro timelapse photos, and it is also a very simple to use video editing platform.
Why not download Full Video Converter and give it a try. It is available as a trial version and is very reasonably priced. I am sure you will find it a very useful piece of software for all your Sports Camera video needs.
