Question about Data Import Utility/Clip Naming at DVinfo.net

Cliff Stephenson · March 25th, 2013, 12:20 AM

So I'm thiiiiiis close to jumping into a C100 (maybe even as soon as tomorrow) but something is still worrying me. On my FS700, clips recorded to the internal SD card are obviously named Clip001.mts, Clip002.mts, and so on. So, if I'm on a 70 or so day shoot (I shoot a lot of b-roll/epk for studio films), when we wrap I'm going to have 70 or so clips all named "Clip001.mts." That's obviously totally unacceptable for any sort of media management or editorial workflow. Now, I'd also be working with a set up where I would be going HDMI out to an external field monitor HDMI in and then converted to SDI and output to my Atomos Samurai.

So the shorter version of my question is... does the C100 do clip naming that's more unique than "Clip001, Clip002, etc" and/or does the Data Import Utility provide a place to rename clips as they are imported?

I'm trying to find a way to maybe keep my files from the SD card and from my Samurai with (hopefully) the same naming conventions and keep the timecode matching. As it is with the FS700, I can "rewrap" the .MTS files with Clipwrap (and keep the original timecode) and then do a batch rename with Adobe Bridge, but Premiere 6.0.2 (Mac) doesn't like that very much and I get very sluggish performance in tandem with very consistent media-offline warnings. I can take the native .MTS files and just do a batch rename, but then I lose my original timecode which makes having both the AVCHD and ProRes redundancy less than ideal because neither would match the other and you could never access or open the project with the ProRes if you started it with the AVCHD. Does Canon treat their on-card files differently that I might be able to actually create a consistent workflow? Working exclusively in ProRes isn't always possible (the size of my last project's media in nothing but ProRes would have been approximately 6TB - and I sometimes have several projects in progress at once.)

Matt Davis · March 25th, 2013, 04:29 PM

Alas the Canon C100 uses the same format as the FS100/700 - AVCHD, which has a rather restrictive naming regime to become compatible with BluRay players. XDCAM it *ain't*.

I've been playing two games: 1) Convert in ClipWrap, batch rename using ReNamer (Renamer - Rename many files at once on your Mac) which does some neat tricks and works for me - unlike ClipWrap all of a sudden. Hence game 2) Import willy-nilly into FCPX and do it all with KeyWords. Both are well shy of your Ninja/Samurai workflow.

It does seem that, at the moment, you'll have to find a 'bodge job' to marry up the rushes.

Cliff Stephenson · March 25th, 2013, 05:07 PM

Thanks Matt.

That's... disappointing. Clip naming is something these companies are going to have to really address if they want these cameras to be taken seriously for any kind of professional or editorial step up from the DSLRs that (shockingly) occasionally get used. There was a movie I worked on last year (I only worked on the Blu-ray) with a $100M budget that had almost ALL of its EPK and interviews shot on a Canon 5D (internally only) in h.264... but at least the clip names were unique for editorial. With so many AVCHD cameras coming out "seemingly" targeting the professional market, there needs to be an OPTION to rename clips upon ingest. Therefore, keep the standard naming on capture to retain compatibility for AVCHD, but provide an out for a more professional workflow if needed.

March 25th, 2013, 12:20 AM	#1
Cliff Stephenson New Boot Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Woodland Hills, CA Posts: 13	Question about Data Import Utility/Clip Naming So I'm thiiiiiis close to jumping into a C100 (maybe even as soon as tomorrow) but something is still worrying me. On my FS700, clips recorded to the internal SD card are obviously named Clip001.mts, Clip002.mts, and so on. So, if I'm on a 70 or so day shoot (I shoot a lot of b-roll/epk for studio films), when we wrap I'm going to have 70 or so clips all named "Clip001.mts." That's obviously totally unacceptable for any sort of media management or editorial workflow. Now, I'd also be working with a set up where I would be going HDMI out to an external field monitor HDMI in and then converted to SDI and output to my Atomos Samurai. So the shorter version of my question is... does the C100 do clip naming that's more unique than "Clip001, Clip002, etc" and/or does the Data Import Utility provide a place to rename clips as they are imported? I'm trying to find a way to maybe keep my files from the SD card and from my Samurai with (hopefully) the same naming conventions and keep the timecode matching. As it is with the FS700, I can "rewrap" the .MTS files with Clipwrap (and keep the original timecode) and then do a batch rename with Adobe Bridge, but Premiere 6.0.2 (Mac) doesn't like that very much and I get very sluggish performance in tandem with very consistent media-offline warnings. I can take the native .MTS files and just do a batch rename, but then I lose my original timecode which makes having both the AVCHD and ProRes redundancy less than ideal because neither would match the other and you could never access or open the project with the ProRes if you started it with the AVCHD. Does Canon treat their on-card files differently that I might be able to actually create a consistent workflow? Working exclusively in ProRes isn't always possible (the size of my last project's media in nothing but ProRes would have been approximately 6TB - and I sometimes have several projects in progress at once.)

March 25th, 2013, 04:29 PM	#2
Matt Davis Trustee Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Berkshire, UK Posts: 1,562	Re: Question about Data Import Utility/Clip Naming Alas the Canon C100 uses the same format as the FS100/700 - AVCHD, which has a rather restrictive naming regime to become compatible with BluRay players. XDCAM it ain't. I've been playing two games: 1) Convert in ClipWrap, batch rename using ReNamer (Renamer - Rename many files at once on your Mac) which does some neat tricks and works for me - unlike ClipWrap all of a sudden. Hence game 2) Import willy-nilly into FCPX and do it all with KeyWords. Both are well shy of your Ninja/Samurai workflow. It does seem that, at the moment, you'll have to find a 'bodge job' to marry up the rushes. __________________ Director/Editor - MDMA Ltd: Write, Shoot, Edit, Publish - mattdavis.pro EX1 x2, C100 --> FCPX & PPro6

March 25th, 2013, 05:07 PM	#3
Cliff Stephenson New Boot Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Woodland Hills, CA Posts: 13	Re: Question about Data Import Utility/Clip Naming Thanks Matt. That's... disappointing. Clip naming is something these companies are going to have to really address if they want these cameras to be taken seriously for any kind of professional or editorial step up from the DSLRs that (shockingly) occasionally get used. There was a movie I worked on last year (I only worked on the Blu-ray) with a $100M budget that had almost ALL of its EPK and interviews shot on a Canon 5D (internally only) in h.264... but at least the clip names were unique for editorial. With so many AVCHD cameras coming out "seemingly" targeting the professional market, there needs to be an OPTION to rename clips upon ingest. Therefore, keep the standard naming on capture to retain compatibility for AVCHD, but provide an out for a more professional workflow if needed.