I just finished shooting a travel doc. I duplicated all the footage onto a second drive for back up. The director has this drive and would like to start going through the footage. He is mac based but does not have FCP. What is the best way to view clips and rename them without FCP?

Thanks

If he has an Intel Mac I believe Sony Clip Browser allows one to view clips without FCP. PPC Mac only works with Sony XDCAM Transfer Tool which required XDCAM EX codec in FCP 6.0.2

I had the director download XDCAM Clip Browser onto and Intel Imac. I have never used this software because I transfer everything and open it in FCP. Either I am missing something here or this software is not very intuitive.

How do you import files that have been unwrapped and transfered to external drive? I can not seem to make this happen.

Just make sure you're not confusing Clip Browser with Transfer Tool.

I'm not sure what you mean "unwrapped."
You either have the BPAV file structure intact, which Clip Browser can read and copy from the SxS cards or BPAV folders IF each BPAV is placed inside another folder OR you have files that have been rewrapped as MOV for FCP.

In other words you either have BPAV (with MP4 inside) or MOV which can ONLY be viewed when the EX1 codec (FCP) is installed.

If you've rewrapped as MOV then either you'd need FCP for the codec or encode those files to something else not dependent on EX1 Codec/ FCP.

People seem to have a hard time grasping this so here's even more simple.

BPAV=Clip Browser
MOV=FCP

If by duplicating you just copied the BPAVs and put them in folders than all they would need is the Clip Browser.

Sony also makes a program called XDCAM Viewer. I use it on my PC. It is available for download at the same location as the Clip Browser software, but I don't know if it is MAC compatable.

It only plays back MXF files. Which means if someone rewraps to MXF with Windows version of Clip Browser the XDCAM Viewer (Windows Only) will play those files.

In Charles's case though he's likely got MOV (just the MOV?) files. That apparently can only be read if FCP 6.0.2 is installed (which has the EX codec).

Sony also makes a program called XDCAM Viewer. I use it on my PC. It is available for download at the same location as the Clip Browser software, but I don't know if it is MAC compatable.

Yes, XDCAM Viewer is for XDCAM only, not XDCAM EX. Pretty useless for EX1 owners.

But apparently the Mac XDCAM Transfer tool can read both EX and other XDCAM "essence." But that's Mac only.

Now if Sony would make all these tools (Clip Browser, XDCAM Transfer tool) cross platform with exact same features.

The simplest workflow is to back up the BPAV with Clip Browser so those files CAN be used CROSSPLATFORM. Of course if you only have PPC (non Intel) Mac that's not possible.

Yes, XDCAM Viewer is for XDCAM only, not XDCAM EX. Pretty useless for EX1 owners.