C100: C100 AVCHD Files - how in the heck do you guys organize these things?

J

Jason Rae

Well-known member
So this might have been covered on another thread if so point the way... But I am shooting with the C100 and native files to the two card slots. I am running a new MacBook Pro and when I go to dump the files they are all in one package. This is not bad, but it is when you have shot several scenes and we need to separate the files to stay organized. I cannot find a way online on the proper way to separate the files on my hard drive, just one big 20 gig file. Now if I want to separate them I can just copy the file over to the correct place but then I just doubled my storage which I dont want to do.

Any suggestions? How are yall keeping these files organized and how the heck are you separating the individual files within the big file.

Anything will help.
 
I'm on OSX 10.7.5 - I don't get the 1 large file, just a folder structure, although I've seen it on other peoples computers.
Basically you can right click, show package contents (do this a few times), until you get to the 'stream' folder, where you'll find 00000.mts, 00001.mts, 00002.mts, etc etc

Unfotunately that is the naming system for the cards (avchd limitation I believe), so every card will start with clip 00000.mts
So when organizing, created a directory for each card, drag and drop. Once you do that, you can use it as is, or run a batch renamer to rename all the clips to something more useful for each directory.
 
I've been archiving the card copies, but for the individual shots the only way I've been able to separate them is by converting them to ProRes on import.
 
How about using the Canon import utility? It gives you unique clip names plus creates single files from spanned clips.
 
You can extract .MTS files from the package/container by right-clicking "show package contents" and drill down to the essence files - however, they won't then be recognised by an NLE, which is looking for a standard container structure.

Panasonic offer a free tool (https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/content/download/EN/restorer.html) which will take .MTS files and re-wrap them into an AVCHD container. That's one way you could do things - extract what you want and then re-wrap them.

Have you figured out the rest of your editing/archiving workflow yet?

Ben.
 
chappelldigital said:
Premiere and Avid have no issues recognizing them at all.
Click to expand...

Well that's me learned. Thanks - just looked into it - that's a useful thing to know, especially as I've just returned to Avid after 8 years in the FCP wilderness.

So you could feasibly strip out and rename all .MTS files with useful filenames - that would make archiving a lot easier.

Ben.
 
I would use the canon transfer utility. It merges spanned clips and gives each file a unique name based on the time it was recorded. You can then rename the clips to whatever you like without breaking the timecode. No need to archive the entire card.
 
bengiles said:
I've just returned to Avid after 8 years in the FCP wilderness.

So you could feasibly strip out and rename all .MTS files with useful filenames - that would make archiving a lot easier.
Click to expand...

Thats what I do! :)
For Avid -> AMA link in all the footage, transcode to DNXHD 175 (could get away with 115), remove the AMA linked clips, edit away, export out using Squeeze.
 
mtnski said:
How about using the Canon import utility? It gives you unique clip names plus creates single files from spanned clips.
Click to expand...

I have not used the utility I always just plug the card into the computer and go, but I will give that a try as well and see if that helps. I hate to take an extra step just to put these in different files but if thats what it takes i will do it. :)
 
On the workflow we are using FCP X and that will take the files really easy, but when we shoot for a day, we shoot training videos so I want each section of videos in there own folders before we ever go too the NLE, if we dont do that then over time it becomes a complete cluster.
 
Just wanted to make a quick update on this thread, we shoot training videos so each section of videos need to be separated before we take them to a NLE. Regardless of the NLE... I can get these into the NLE with no problems at all, again we need to separate these long before we go too NLE. We are running a MACbook pro and the software is 10.9.3.

I hate that this is such a hassle with this type of shooting, almost makes me not want this camera because I hate having to transcode footage, thats a huge pain :(
 
Jason Rae said:
almost makes me not want this camera because I hate having to transcode footage, thats a huge pain :(
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How about a Ninja Blade? Edit-ready codec, high quality monitor and you can even do some of your logging/shot selection on that, prior to ingest.

Wait here for Matt Davis and he'll tell you how... Matt?

Ben.
 
So does Edius and if you bought a C100 after April 1st you get Edius 7 for free. Best NLE i've ever used, fast, stable, does everything realtime.

john.
 
chappelldigital said:
Premiere and FCPX (if I'm correct) will edit AVCHD natively, don't need to transcode.
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They'll both work natively with AVCHD (but X needs that file structure to see the .MTS files), but user experience will be very subjective, depending on system speed, amount of media and expectations of being able to handle multiple streams etc. Apple would much rather you allow X to transcode quietly to ProRes, upon ingest.
One can eat McDonalds all the time, or one can eat Michelin-starred restaurant food. Both will give some level of nutrition, but one is arguably more pleasurable than the other.:love4:

Joking apart, for me, that's the principle advantage to working with Intra Frame codecs - either acquired on a Ninja-style recorder or transcoded prior to post. If you have to deliver solidly and creatively, on time, and your contractual agreements and mortgage depend on it, Long GOP aint for editing.

Ben.
 
chappelldigital said:
Premiere and FCPX (if I'm correct) will edit AVCHD natively, don't need to transcode.
Click to expand...

Yes they will edit natively with not issues, but remember we are trying to organize these files before we go to a NLE. So if we have two training videos, when we organize these, we dont want to copy the whole AVCHD file to both video files on the hard drive, because we just doubled our storage. We want to put each file thats needed into each file, then when we go too edit the video, we pull the footage from all the videos.

I do have a Ninja blade and we are using the heck out of it, and that footage is easy to use, but we are using the AVCHD as all the back ups as well as putting that footage in file with the Ninja footage.

Hope this helps explain it.

Matt can you help?
 
Jason Rae said:
Yes they will edit natively with not issues, but remember we are trying to organize these files before we go to a NLE.
Click to expand...

Sorry, would you mind elaborating a bit more, Jason? Are you taking these to an external editing facility and want to media wrangle before you get there? If so, I know Matt has been playing far more with the metadata tagging abilities of the Blade, so I'll leave that to him if he turns up.

Otherwise, if you're using your own FCPX NLE, why not just organise things in there, tag them etc and ditch the stuff you don't want? (or selectively import just what you do want.)

Also, I'm intrigued as to why you're concerned about storage space. AVCHD is relatively tiny. I'm not sure I understand your question above.

Ben.
 
bengiles said:
Sorry, would you mind elaborating a bit more, Jason? Are you taking these to an external editing facility and want to media wrangle before you get there? If so, I know Matt has been playing far more with the metadata tagging abilities of the Blade, so I'll leave that to him if he turns up.

Otherwise, if you're using your own FCPX NLE, why not just organise things in there, tag them etc and ditch the stuff you don't want? (or selectively import just what you do want.)

Also, I'm intrigued as to why you're concerned about storage space. AVCHD is relatively tiny. I'm not sure I understand your question above.

Ben.
Click to expand...


So let me see if I can shed some light on this, and again I am new here so maybe there is a better way. We do training videos that can be almost four or five hours of shooting, and we will shoot b roll with each of the videos. So they way AVCHD has it, it puts all those videos in one big wrapper. So lets say today I shoot 10 videos with four hours of footage, we normally take all the footage and store it in each training videos folder. So lets say we are doing a sit, down, stay, come, ( yes these are dog training videos...lol) We take each video plus its b roll and put them in the folders, that way we can go back later and edit the footage into a video. Right now if we have a full 32 gig card and have ten training videos, we have to put the entire card in each of those training videos folders. That takes 32gig and makes its 320 gig. So we want to take the footage and organize it on our hard drives for editing at a later time. Hope that helps clarify what we are looking to do.
 
If you shoot the video and its b roll right after each other, you could offload your card after each video is finished into its own named folder on your drive.
Don't know if you have the time to do that, and could alternate cards, but that would organize it into separate folders in the field as you go. A bit laborious, but it would accomplish what you're trying to do.

Or, in the case of Premiere (don't know FCPX), you can drag clips into separate Premiere folders/bins without changing the folder structure on the drive- they're just pointer clips.
Does FCPX work that way?

And stop thinking of it as one big clip- that's just how OS X 10.8 and 10.9 see it. As pointed out above, right click to Show Package Contents and continue right clicking until you can open the Stream folder, and the .mts clips are there.
 
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