Editing with AVCHD File Structures - Am I Crazy? Need Help Linking to Offline Media at DVinfo.net

Chris Lawes · September 25th, 2011, 03:35 AM

Seriously what an unhelpful way to design this software. Am I missing something?

I have about 200 AVCHD Folders (with the full directory structure PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/0000.MTS, PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/0001.MTS, etc..)

All the folders are all named according to date-time-cameraA/B/C-shot-etc. But I can't rename the MTS files because then they won't span properly (or even show up in Media Browser in Premiere for that matter!)

So basically I have tons of files called 0001.MTS, and the only way I tell them apart is by what folder they are in.

Recently we consolidated a bunch of AVCHD folders together onto one RAID array, but now all the Premiere Projects have "Offline Media." The program just says "Where is 0001.MTS?" It does not say what folder it USED TO BE IN!

Now I know that I can open up the .prproj file as .xml and edit with textedit like explained here (maybe that will help somebody.) But we didn't change only change the drive letter, we also changed what folder the folders are stored in "Drive E:/Consolidated AVCHD Folders/110415-0915hrs-Acam-CU-John" Instead of "Drive F:/Media Crew Files/AVCHD Imports/110415-0915hrs-Acam-CU-John" and various other hard drives that were brought together.
So I can't just find-and-replace the .xml file and fix my problem. If Premiere would just tell me the previous folder name I would be fine, but it doesn't have any way to do that that I'm aware of.

Also, if I show it the correct 0001.mts file in one folder, it assumes that all the other 0002.mts 0003.mts etc files that are offline are also from that folder!!! Even if they are completely different sizes and previously were stored in different folders. This is very frustrating as now we have all of our consolidated projects and their associated AVCHD folders disconnected with no way to connect them except manually. And manually would be very difficult and time consuming. How do you remember which 0002.mts file you had placed at 4:22 seconds on the timeline????

I would love to be corrected here and told that I am missing something and this is all user error (please don't tell me that moving my footage from one drive to another into a new folder counts as user error.) Any advice would be super appreciated.

I like Premiere in many ways, but I thought that the media management would be superior for FCP 7's (which also was terrible) but this is even worse!

Granted the fact that AVCHD Cameras record every file as the same name 0001, 0002, etc and don't work well with re-naming or changing the folder structure also plays in here. I thought AVCCAM was a "Professional" Codec, why can't it assign unique filenames like AVC-INTRA etc?

I'm totally fine with the image quality of AVCHD and the playback quality of Premiere, but managing the footage/files/names/metadata is a big headache!

-Chris

(Forgive me if this has a whiney tone to it, it's been one of those days..)

Ann Bens · September 25th, 2011, 11:18 AM

Just changing the drive letter makes everything go offline.
If you have several clips with the same name e.g. 00001.mts Premiere does not know where to look.
If you have been moving them around its even worse.
Best is to rename clips and give them a unique name before importing them into Premiere. Just copy the stream to the HDD. Renaming is easiely done in the Bridge.

September 25th, 2011, 03:35 AM	#1
Chris Lawes Regular Crew Join Date: May 2010 Location: Santa Cruz, CA Posts: 33	Editing with AVCHD File Structures - Am I Crazy? Need Help Linking to Offline Media Seriously what an unhelpful way to design this software. Am I missing something? I have about 200 AVCHD Folders (with the full directory structure PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/0000.MTS, PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/0001.MTS, etc..) All the folders are all named according to date-time-cameraA/B/C-shot-etc. But I can't rename the MTS files because then they won't span properly (or even show up in Media Browser in Premiere for that matter!) So basically I have tons of files called 0001.MTS, and the only way I tell them apart is by what folder they are in. Recently we consolidated a bunch of AVCHD folders together onto one RAID array, but now all the Premiere Projects have "Offline Media." The program just says "Where is 0001.MTS?" It does not say what folder it USED TO BE IN! Now I know that I can open up the .prproj file as .xml and edit with textedit like explained here (maybe that will help somebody.) But we didn't change only change the drive letter, we also changed what folder the folders are stored in "Drive E:/Consolidated AVCHD Folders/110415-0915hrs-Acam-CU-John" Instead of "Drive F:/Media Crew Files/AVCHD Imports/110415-0915hrs-Acam-CU-John" and various other hard drives that were brought together. So I can't just find-and-replace the .xml file and fix my problem. If Premiere would just tell me the previous folder name I would be fine, but it doesn't have any way to do that that I'm aware of. Also, if I show it the correct 0001.mts file in one folder, it assumes that all the other 0002.mts 0003.mts etc files that are offline are also from that folder!!! Even if they are completely different sizes and previously were stored in different folders. This is very frustrating as now we have all of our consolidated projects and their associated AVCHD folders disconnected with no way to connect them except manually. And manually would be very difficult and time consuming. How do you remember which 0002.mts file you had placed at 4:22 seconds on the timeline???? I would love to be corrected here and told that I am missing something and this is all user error (please don't tell me that moving my footage from one drive to another into a new folder counts as user error.) Any advice would be super appreciated. I like Premiere in many ways, but I thought that the media management would be superior for FCP 7's (which also was terrible) but this is even worse! Granted the fact that AVCHD Cameras record every file as the same name 0001, 0002, etc and don't work well with re-naming or changing the folder structure also plays in here. I thought AVCCAM was a "Professional" Codec, why can't it assign unique filenames like AVC-INTRA etc? I'm totally fine with the image quality of AVCHD and the playback quality of Premiere, but managing the footage/files/names/metadata is a big headache! -Chris (Forgive me if this has a whiney tone to it, it's been one of those days..)

September 25th, 2011, 11:18 AM	#2
Ann Bens Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 710	Re: Editing with AVCHD File Structures - Am I Crazy? Need Help Linking to Offline Med Just changing the drive letter makes everything go offline. If you have several clips with the same name e.g. 00001.mts Premiere does not know where to look. If you have been moving them around its even worse. Best is to rename clips and give them a unique name before importing them into Premiere. Just copy the stream to the HDD. Renaming is easiely done in the Bridge.