3.5gb offloaded filesize limit?

[Mark Slocombe]

Offloading 30 minute clips from a Sony PHU-60 via ClipBrowser 2.5, they are being split so that no folder is bigger than 3.5gb. Assuming this is a limit set by ClipBrowser, is there a way to prevent it? If so, would it be a bad idea?

[Don Greening]

It's not a Clip Browser limit, but in fact is a limit set by the formatting of the hard drive, which is FAT32. The SxS Pro memory cards are the same. This is a format that is able to be accessed and read by both Windows and Mac computers and has a file size limit of 4 Gbytes. That's why the video clips are in pieces. I'm not sure how the Windows version of Clip Browser operates but on a Mac system when using Sony's Transfer Tool app. the clip pieces are automatically combined when importing. I'm assuming the Windows Clip Browser app. does the same sort of thing.

To sum up, the splitting up of the clips is a normal function of the recording process, no matter what medium you're recording to.

- Don

[Paul Kellett]

The camera records a maximum of 3.5 gb, so if you shot say a wedding ceremony at about 45 mins, so you hit the record button once at the start of the ceremony and at the end to stop recording, so you've recorded one clip, but if you look at that clip in windows, ie my computer>disc (?) then you'll see maybe 3 clips, a 3.5gb, a 3.5gb and a 1.2gb for example,
however if you look at the same clip in clip browser then you'll see one long clip, which is in fact what you recorded, if you look along the botton of the player window then you'll see little marks, 3.5gb marks.
When you rewrap using clip browser the 3 files get stitched together as one clip, so that when you drag it into your editing program timeline all is at it should be, ie one clip.

Paul.

[Mark Slocombe]

Cheers - for me it's a shame FCP rewraps as one clip... Am sending mp3 versions (Episode transcodes direct from the mp4s) of the files back to transcribers in the UK (am in Dubai) - so I want the timecode they log on their transcripts (from using QT player to play the mp3s) to match that of my clips, which it won't. I'll record shorter chunks from now on!

[Mitchell Lewis]

Huh? (you're talking about MP4's not MP3's)

But I don't think QT player will show the correct timecode even when using the MP4 clips. When you open them in QT player, the counter will start at 0 and count up, even though the timecode is spread continuously throughout the clips.

If you were logging timecode while shooting then I would do this: (create window burn files)

1) Import everything into FCP
2) Create a new sequence for each clip and drag the clip into the appropriate sequence
2) Use the Effect>Video>Timecode Reader and apply it to all your clips
3) Select all the individual sequences and use File>Batch Export to export the files in the format of your choice (H.264, etc...)

When viewing these files, your transcribers in the UK will then have the same timecode reference as you.