8 things i really need to know about Clip Browser? Windows PC

[Marty Welk]

I cant believe how much time I wasted reading the manuel for the XDcam Clip Browser.
When i really probably only need to know 8 tips that users already know, who can speak in english about it :-)

It is a clip trimmer:
1) Getting In and OUT and GO to a real editor? or using it for clip trimming?
2) no timeline zooming type of stuff, do you find it intuitive enough to use for something?

Worth doing conversions in it:
3) for standard DV convert - Use "________" instead?
4) Convert to MFX for editing , normal programs, "MFX for NLE" and go? or is there special converts that are more usefull for standard editing?
5) MFX convert is re-wrapping , and is not decompressing or re-encoding?

Purchacing Main Concepts:
6) why did you buy Main Concepts complete plug in package, and did you USE it after that?

Adjust This:
7) What is the first thing you found you wanted to change in the options/configurations/export details?
8) you discovered ____________ Sucks completely, after trying to use it?

[Marty Welk]

Here is some of the stuff that i discovered that someone else might find usefull.

PREVIEW
a) if you have an SECOND computer monitor on your windows system , when you go to full screen preview , it goes TO that second monitor. (full screen by doubble clicking the preview screen). I couldnt find that yet in the manuel. you see i had the second monitor off, and couldnt figure out what happened.
if you disable the second monitor extended desktop stuff, it will full screen on your main monitor

b) Slow Scan (fwd rev), by using the Arrow Keys on your computer when previewing marking etc. The arrow buttons do the FRAME STEP, hold them down with Kb repeat and it will move along the timeline of the clip.

ACQUISITION (shown under the preview)
c) The stuff shown in Acquisition has at least one FLAW in showing stuff, the ND filter is wrongly shown. (could be others too)

d) Animation view VRSES Text View , doesn't show res.

EXPORT:
e) when choosing the DV export method, on a PC , you might find that the DV AVI type which is a 2.0 type (big huge single file) works with more things, vrses the "RAW", which seemed to work in quicktime.

. . . . and anything else Clip Browser, Lets talk aboud it.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

The stuff shown in Acquisition has at least one FLAW in showing stuff, the ND filter is wrongly shown.

Not at all - filter "off" is shown as ND1, filter at "1" position - as ND2, and at position "2" - as ND8. All correct.

[Marty Welk]

the filter shows ND1, and I sure didnt turn it on inside. It was OFF. On my camera there is OFF 1 & 2. this is the second time i have observed that.
mabey it has something to do with the specific camera the EX1r data, and the 2.06v of the browser not reading it correct.

[Marty Welk]

ohhhh, i seee what your saying,

the 3 displays in the Clip browser are
ND1 - ND8 - ND64
even though on the camera hardware switch it is
OFF - ND1 - ND2
and on the pop-up display in the camera software it is
CLEAR - 1/8 - 1/64
and in the overlay display in the camera it is
" . . " - ND1 - ND2

gee i guess it is the sony Standard :-) they need to pick one thing, and use it throughout.
wonder why i am having problems translating stuff :-)

[Alastair Traill]

Hi Marty,

I empathise with your Clip Browser comments as I have wasted a lot of time on the manual with very little result and a lot of frustration. Although I managed to get my results to FCP via Clip Browser and then Clip Transfer my approach was haphazard and I was far from sure of my archiving. If I have got it right the main value of Browser is to archive the SxS card contents as BPAV files. I then use Clip Transfer to copy the BPAV files as .mov files into FCP. To do this I basically follow Mitchell Lewis’s workflow to be found in: - http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdc...flow-help.html However even this step by step set of instructions lacked sufficient detail for my low level of computer skills and I have added a few minor but important steps after consulting Mitchell Lewis with my concerns.

As far as I know the use of Clip Browser is free unless you want to convert your files to MXF in which case you will find your clips emblazoned with the MainConcept logo and changes to the sound. To remove the logo and restore the sound you pay MainConcept’s fee. The MXF conversion is an option to be found in preferences under edit.

[Marty Welk]

yes very good full layout description by Mitchell Lewis.

i missed doing the full BPAV backup First , and was trying to head straight to something i can use/edit , then i was gonna back that up. but cloning the BPAV is good idea.

ha ha, after reading that whole thread i want TAPE Back :-) .

i dont see the size of the HD stuff as being that much greater of an issue then the DV stuff , because per-hour it isnt much more data. would be nice if i could stream it back to video tape cheaply, but storing hard drives will actually be cheaper for us.

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

i dont see the size of the HD stuff as being that much greater of an issue then the DV stuff , because per-hour it isnt much more data. would be nice if i could stream it back to video tape cheaply, but storing hard drives will actually be cheaper for us.

Hard drives left on a shelf are a bad idea. Sorry to break this to you but you need a better storage option.
I would suggest Blu-Ray is the best option at the moment, but @ 25GB a pop you don't get much. I'm tossing up at the moment whether to master in H264 to an authored BluRay or keep a 35Mb/s exported master as data (no easy method discovered yet).

[John Hewat]

I'm not sure that I have any use for Clip Browser at all. I can just take the MP4s straight into PPro CS4 and edit away. The only advantage I can see is that PPro has never been great at downconverting from HD to DV, which maybe Clip Browser is.

[Bo Skelmose]

I am very happy for the clipbrowser - it is so easy to use when moving clips around. Instead of tranferring big folders with a lot of clips to my editing computer - I just pick the files I need in the archive PC into a folder and transfer that to the edit PC. It reduces the project size in premiere and helps a lot.
Great with the double click on the preview screen - I really missed that function - and then it already was there. Thanks for that tip.
I have said it before and I will happily do it again : The Clipbrowser is so easy to use instead of the P2 viewer I use with my P2 files. There you have to create P2 folders before moving the files and it works slow. With clipbrowser it's just drag and drop. Halleluja !

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by John Hewat

I'm not sure that I have any use for Clip Browser at all. I can just take the MP4s straight into PPro CS4 and edit away. The only advantage I can see is that PPro has never been great at downconverting from HD to DV, which maybe Clip Browser is.

Thanks, so adobee can take it in the way it is , that helps.

the downconvert in the clip browser worked "ok" better than i thought it would.
Then i tested doing a downconvert another way. Exported to MFX, Re-coded it with HuffYUV mostly lossless in Super (rightsoft video converter thing), fed it into Virtual-Dub, and filtered it a tiny bit here and there, and compress output it to canopus SD-DV, and comparing the 2 they look very similar Except for the filtering i was able to do in Virt-dub that took out 80% of the moving grain noise before shrinking, making it much cleaner. (that is all the further i got with that).

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

Hard drives left on a shelf are a bad idea. Sorry to break this to you but you need a better storage option.
I would suggest Blu-Ray is the best option at the moment, but @ 25GB a pop you don't get much. I'm tossing up at the moment whether to master in H264 to an authored BluRay or keep a 35Mb/s exported master as data (no easy method discovered yet).

But i can only Burn blu-ray i cant Glass-master it, so it too is just a dye up there that shifted colors a bit on a hunk of PLASTIC :-) it isnt Real holes. so while a real Movie glass mastered blu-ray might outlive a hard drive, nobody has even tested DVD burns (even) for a really long time. let alone these extreeme density double layer stuff.

I have never yet had a hard drive fail after pulling it from storage, and i had some that were 15years parked. but they do totally seem to fail most when the bearings get all worn out from spining around and around for years on end. meaning leaving it IN the edit computer allowing it to spin up, would certannly guarentee that it will die before 10 years is up.
but they are magneticized particals that are subject to depolarisation. do they make Plastic hard drives yet?

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by Bo Skelmose

I am very happy for the clipbrowser - it is so easy to use when moving clips around. Instead of tranferring big folders with a lot of clips to my editing computer - I just pick the files I need in the archive PC into a folder and transfer that to the edit PC. It reduces the project size in premiere and helps a lot.
!

Do you clip TRIM the files or just pick and choose what you want/need to use at the time?

[Marc Myers]

I would love to just know how to create new subclips from a master clip. I shoot an interview: Takes twenty minutes and I shoot all the time so as to not to miss anything. Now I want create subclips that I can then convert to MXF. Save time and save space. Nice if I could name the clips something relevant. Can I do this?
And to go a little OT about Clip Browser for a moment, I had an Hummmmm........moment the other day. I've been using Clip Browser to convert to DV and it's always been soft, in my view. I also own a PVW-F75. I use it in the studio to capture multicamera productions and I've used its SDI live down-convert to simultaneously capture a DVCAM backup. The other day I played back what I shot from one of my EX1s HSDI through the PCW-F75 directly to DVCAM. There's simply no comparison. SD video is fantastic using hardware down-convert. Even though it's an extra step, it will be my SOP from here on in. Really makes me wonder about Clip Browser.

[Marty Welk]

Marc so the hardware downconvert was much better, and only requires a $10,000 machine to do it. Oooouuuch. What if the downconverter was the camera itself ? or was it.

yes you suposedly can set in out points on a clip then export the trimed part only.