GH13 GH13 Editing Workflow Advice - File and Folder Management

[Lucas Adamson]

My current method is to dump the "PRIVATE" folder onto my new external hard drive, within a folder named simply "Media".

The problems I see:

1. I now have about 5 "PRIVATE" folders, each successive one having a number attached like "PRIVATE 3". I can't name them after the project in question, as some of them contain two sessions for two projects. Surely this is less than ideal.

2.) To make matters worse, within these "PRIVATE" folders, there are a host of presumably important files I know nothing about and .MTS files. Typically within each folder, I now have .MTS files that always start with 00000.MTS and then 0001.MTS -- I have several files with the same name across all of the PRIVATE folders!!!!! Bad show!!! If I could find a way to tell the camera to continue the numbering and not constantly keep resetting to 00000.MTS each time I dumped my shots, I would dearly love to know it.

What do you do about all this?

Many thanks
Lucas

 

[Phil Seastrand]

I wrote a simple utility that "imports" the video and photo files into a user-defined file structure. It might have the features that you are looking for. Read more about it here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?216893-PHOTOfunStudio-Replacement

 

[Lucas Adamson]

Thanks Phil. I'm on MAc platform though, unfortunately.

 

[shaveblog]

Thanks Phil. I'm on MAc platform though, unfortunately.

Friend of mine who's also a Mac video editor wrote a handy little app called FlashDrop:

http://www.mediafire.com/?jjmik5xlwvt

Creates a desktop icon you drag your mounted SDHC card to and drop, creating an ISO image of the entire folder structure so you can mount the archive later and get a clone of the card data for FCP log and transfer or even direct editing in CS5. Works perfectly and saves me a lot of time when archiving cards.

 

[Lucas Adamson]

My big problem now is that every time I dump my PRIVATE folder, the files within revert back to 00000 00001 00002 00003 00004 00005, so I import 5 times on a day's shoot and I have a ton of files with the same name - have 6x 00000 files????

WHY PANASONIC??? Why can't you give them all unique sequential numbers just like Canon do?

Can I change these numbers? If so, what's the best way of going about it? I can't just change the name of the clip, because if it then asks me "Where is the media for clip "Headshot"?" I will need the master clip to have some kind of reference to that. Oh Jeez - this system of files sucks massively!

 

[mr bill]

When you come to re-use the card, delete the mts files from their original folder, as opposed to re-formatting - this should preserve clip numbering. I've yet to do a long job and find out what happens when you go past 999, mind you. Here's hoping Panasonic run to 4 digits!

 

[Lpowell]

When you come to re-use the card, delete the mts files from their original folder, as opposed to re-formatting

While this keeps your files numbered sequentially, it can leave the SD card's memory map fragmented. Depending on the speed of the SD card, I've found that high-bitrate patches can at times generate write-speed errors on a heavily reused card. Just to make sure, I always use the camera to reformat each SD card at the start of each video shoot.

 

[Lucas Adamson]

Hi Lpowell, that's what I took Mr Bill's advice to mean, and what I think I will do now - delete only the mts files from the card through the computer, and empty the trash after each card import, and only reformat the card in camera once per project.

All of my projects so far have been less than 100 shots, so I think this will work fine, but I guess another strategy needs to be considered if shooting 200+ shots, due to fragmentation issues. Thanks for the advice.

 

[mr bill]

Good info