Re-naming BPAV files

[Mike Wade]

Using the Sony XD Cam Ex Clip Browser if I use the 'All Clips' copy option the clips appear in the destination drive inside a folder which has a 14 digit number. The BPAV file is inside this folder..
If I _select_ clips and copy/paste them into the destination drive they appear in a BPAV file directly.
I am renaming the BPAV files in both cases and ignoring the 14 digit folder . Is this correct ?

[Chris Medico]

I don't rename anything inside the BPAV folder. I will copy BPAV into a folder named so I know what the video is but I don't rename anything else.

In my software (Media Composer) I can rename the clips to anything I wish but that doesn't change the names of the files themselves. Only changes the "label" in the software.

[Mike Wade]

OK, fine, Chris, but is it better to copy a BPAV into a folder named so you know what the video is rather than renaming the folder so you know what the video is ? I'd like to know what best practice is and why.
Cheers !

[Les Wilson]

Don't rename the bpav folder. Insert it into a folder named whatever you want. The bpav folder is needed. Y the Sony software

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Mike Wade

OK, fine, Chris, but is it better to copy a BPAV into a folder named so you know what the video is rather than renaming the folder so you know what the video is ? I'd like to know what best practice is and why.
Cheers !

Yes it is better to copy the entire folder into a new one. The BPAV older MUST remain BPAV.

To be more specific you must maintain the folder naming and structure if you want the Sony software to play nice with the files. Plugins such as the Sony AMA plugin for Media Composer requires the structure to remain intact if you plan to use "volume mounting" which has benefits over linking to the individual video files.

If you decide to share a project with another editor you may be hosing them if you didn't leave everything intact. Specifically if you send a project over to FCP 7 and don't have all the metadata files and the folder structure as the Sony software expects the files won't work without some painful work arounds.

Save a lot of potential issues by leaving the folders and the files within named exactly the same as they come off the card. To add some clarity use the settings in the camera to change the prefix of the file names to be relevant to the project. That is what I do.

[Mike Wade]

OK thanks Chris. I will certainly take your tip of changing the prefix of the file names - if I can remember how to do that.
Is it possible to have a number of BPAV files in a single project named folder ?

[Chris Medico]

Unfortunately not. You can have only one BPAV object per folder. You will need to create a folder for every BPAV folder you store.

What I do is create a project folder such as "Movie XYZ". Under that one I create a folder called "RAWVIDEO". In that folder I create folders for each shoot day "FIGHT SCENES 05-01-12" and lastly under each shoot day I create a folder called CARD1, CARD2, etc and the each BPAV folder goes under its card number. I put the card numbers on the REEL entry on the slate. If I work a one day project I follow the same method. In that case there will be only one shoot day folder.

That works for me because I shoot mostly multi-day projects so organizing it that way makes sense. With the reference info on the slate any clip I look at can be easily found in the structure since I know the date and the card number.

My method may not work for your projects. The message is to come up with a standard way of creating your folders and in the long run things will be tidy and easy to manage.

[Alister Chapman]

You can use XDCAM Browser to copy all your clips in to a single BPAV folder. In XDCAM Browser navigate to your source folder (SxS card or whatever). Then simply select all the clips and drag and drop all the clips from each source into the same BPAV folder. Doing this can be a good idea anyway as it will re-link and re-join any clips spanned over multiple cards.

You can then use XDCAM Browser to sort the clips according to many parameters including date, name, length, mode etc.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

You can use XDCAM Browser to copy all your clips in to a single BPAV folder. In XDCAM Browser navigate to your source folder (SxS card or whatever). Then simply select all the clips and drag and drop all the clips from each source into the same BPAV folder. Doing this can be a good idea anyway as it will re-link and re-join any clips spanned over multiple cards.

You can then use XDCAM Browser to sort the clips according to many parameters including date, name, length, mode etc.

Hi Alister, I would advise caution with that. I consolidated files into one folder with the xdcam software and had a big problem with Media Composer. Seems that when the browser updates the XML files something happens in there that the AMA plugin doesn't like and it won't link to the files at all.

I've not seen a solution yet from Sony. Sony is responsible for the AMA plugin for Media Composer.

Everything works fine if you copy the BPAV folder over using the xdcam browser. Things fail if you modify any of the files.

My point is that copying the BPAV folder as is has been least problematic for me.