C100: How are you guys handing off your c100 footage?

sonofaresiii said:
Just picked up a c100 the other day, it's a damn beautiful camera but the post workflow is giving me a headache.
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With respect, this sounds to me like a problem you may be creating in your head. I can't think of any NLE that has issues ingesting AVCHD from a C100-generated wrapper.

Most "transactions" of file-based media - eg getting your AVCHD clips from point A to point B - involve some kind of wrapper or container, to hold the additional technical/descriptive metadata.

Avid, FCP, Lightworks and Premiere Pro all have super quick and easy ingest processes to bring the clips in properly. Premiere Pro and FCPX will also work natively with AVCHD, as Erik mentioned - although I personally prefer to work with a transcoded intra frame codec (eg ProRes 422.)

I've gone down the Ninja Blade/ProRes route, as it offers such a fab monitor solution, but I actually miss the beautifully compact file sizes of AVCHD and the ease with which rushes can be archived and retrieved at a later date.

To answer the original question, I suggest:

- Shoot parallel onto Dual Cards - one for you to keep, the other to hand over to the client

- Find your sweetspot card size for client cards. It's a tradeoff between media cost and redundancy. For most shoots, I suggest 16GB cards are about right. Cheap to buy, not so small that you're handing over a box full of cards (extra ingest time) or too big, that you're risking putting all of your eggs in one basket.

- For the card you keep, you could run a larger 64GB card that just sits there, growing in size across different shoots. Or you could be super safe and run a brand new card for each shoot and archive that as a backup for your client.

Cheers,

Ben.
 
drummondb said:
...As far as I can tell, at least on a PC, there is no reason to copy the whole SD card to your hard drive. The import utility is your friend.
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You are wrong. For example Avid Media Composer have the AMA plugin, with this small utility instaled you can import or link the whole card (with properly stitched long clips) with one click on the top folder of the card structure. Without card structure you cannot import long clips properly stitched, you will get the 3 frames break on the connection! As I know the Adobe Premiere with its browser have the same function for import. It is good idea to always copy the whole structure of the card to HDD.
 
I think there's one more argument for rewrapping the files before handing them to the client (at least when they get edited in FCPX): to make sure the PFS-files are interpreted correctly as progressive. My experience is that FCPX randomly sees MTS-files of the C100 as interlaced even after changing field dominance to progressive. That's why I run them through ClipWrap first to rewrap or transcode to ProRes.
So my recommended workflow is this:
1. Import through Canon Import Utility (to rename the files and connect spanned clips into one)
2. Rewrap or transcode the imported clips in ClipWrap
3. Import those clips into NLE

Takes some time, but prevents issues later down the editing-road.
ClipWrap costs 50 bucks in the App-Store, but IMO it's worth the money if you work regularly with the C100.
 
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I second this. ClipWrap is awesome...easy, etc.
Ninja Star will be the ticket for me when available for small, light, shooting, etc.
Ninja Blade for bigger rig, better monitoring, etc.

michi said:
Takes some time, but prevents issues later down the editing-road.
ClipWrap costs 50 bucks in the App-Store, but IMO it's worth the money if you work regularly with the C100.
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Pave1 said:
You are wrong. For example Avid Media Composer have the AMA plugin, with this small utility instaled you can import or link the whole card (with properly stitched long clips) with one click on the top folder of the card structure. Without card structure you cannot import long clips properly stitched, you will get the 3 frames break on the connection! As I know the Adobe Premiere with its browser have the same function for import. It is good idea to always copy the whole structure of the card to HDD.
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I think we may be talking about different things. I'm on a Windows PC, running Premiere Pro CC. If I use the import utility to copy the video footage from SD card to a local hard drive, the import utility transfers only the video files, renamed, and stitching together any long takes. You then have new MTS files on your hard drive, and no matter how I play them, no matter what software I use (windows media payer, VLC, etc) the long takes are seamlessly and perfectly stitched together. So obviously, no matter how I import them into Premiere, the files are fine. No momentary glitches that I've ever seen, and I shoot some long stuff (corporate presentations, Weddings, etc).

You are correct that if you simply copy the MTS files off the card via your machine's OS and then try to import those into an NLE, then yes, you will get glitches as the editing software attempts to stitch the clips together.

But using the import utility, at least on a PC, creates perfect files while it transfers the footage to your hard drive. I honestly have no idea why I'd transfer the whole card, at least on a PC.
 
drummondb said:
.... I honestly have no idea why I'd transfer the whole card, at least on a PC.
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Yes, it depends on your editing sw. But for Avid Media Composer users there is no need to use this Canon utility, one click on a top folder of your card and you will get the same result .-) .

I always copy all structure on one HDD, on the second HDD there is option to extract files (make an another copy of files). You never know, sometimes is good to have this original card structure, for editors which need this.
With my old XF100 I make a lot of projects (every year with some update) with relink of the old cards, I need no rename of clips, with AMA I made only one click and all files were properly linked to all sequences. But it was the XF codec, much better for this type of work. With AVCHD from the C100 I make import to XDCAM 35Mbps (transcoding), but for pre-sorting of files I also sometimes use AMA with copy of the card on HDD. It is easy and quick way of work.

I suggest to have the one HDD copy of the whole card, you never know... .-) .
 
bengiles said:
With respect, this sounds to me like a problem you may be creating in your head. I can't think of any NLE that has issues ingesting AVCHD from a C100-generated wrapper.

Most "transactions" of file-based media - eg getting your AVCHD clips from point A to point B - involve some kind of wrapper or container, to hold the additional technical/descriptive metadata.

Avid, FCP, Lightworks and Premiere Pro all have super quick and easy ingest processes to bring the clips in properly. Premiere Pro and FCPX will also work natively with AVCHD, as Erik mentioned - although I personally prefer to work with a transcoded intra frame codec (eg ProRes 422.)

I've gone down the Ninja Blade/ProRes route, as it offers such a fab monitor solution, but I actually miss the beautifully compact file sizes of AVCHD and the ease with which rushes can be archived and retrieved at a later date.

To answer the original question, I suggest:

- Shoot parallel onto Dual Cards - one for you to keep, the other to hand over to the client

- Find your sweetspot card size for client cards. It's a tradeoff between media cost and redundancy. For most shoots, I suggest 16GB cards are about right. Cheap to buy, not so small that you're handing over a box full of cards (extra ingest time) or too big, that you're risking putting all of your eggs in one basket.

- For the card you keep, you could run a larger 64GB card that just sits there, growing in size across different shoots. Or you could be super safe and run a brand new card for each shoot and archive that as a backup for your client.

Cheers,

Ben.
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Dual cards is a great suggestion, thanks a ton.

And thanks everyone else for contributing.

And guys, while I definitely appreciate the great discussions going on, it seems like there's already tons of discussions out there about different potential workflows for this footage. I'm really looking to learn about how you personally prefer to hand raw footage over to an editor, or on an interim drive in the field. I know there are cameras that can handle this better than the c100, but I'm sure I'm not the only guy shooting on this camera and having someone else edit it. By all means, discuss your favorite options for your personal workflow. That's great! But do me a favor and try and note somewhere as well what you'd prefer to do in the field. It'd help me learn a lot how most working professionals are handling it.

Thanks again!
 
Ps we were talking earlier, I believe someone mentioned not having the import utility from canon since they didn't have the disc. I did a little digging, turns out they do have the full program up for download, totally free, on the Canon website. Trick is, it's listed as software for the c300 only... But it's the exact same utility.

This actually may influence the way I hand footage to clients. Since it's totally free and reliable, I can suggest they have it prepped on whatever computer they bring. Still not ideal, but could be a big help. Thoughts?
 
sonofaresiii said:
Ps we were talking earlier, I believe someone mentioned not having the import utility from canon since they didn't have the disc. I did a little digging, turns out they do have the full program up for download, totally free, on the Canon website. Trick is, it's listed as software for the c300 only... But it's the exact same utility.

This actually may influence the way I hand footage to clients. Since it's totally free and reliable, I can suggest they have it prepped on whatever computer they bring. Still not ideal, but could be a big help. Thoughts?
Click to expand...


The C100 and C300 use different utilities for transferring footage. The C300 uses the Canon XF utility, and the C100 uses something called the "Data Import Utility."
 
I'll give it a test today, general consensus was that the same utility would work with either camera but without trying it myself, it could be mistaken info. Or maybe I misunderstood and the c100 utility was available somewhere else (though I haven't found it on the Canon website yet)
 
+1 BenGiles on dual cards... how did we function before that? LOL.

When I do have to hand over footage to another editor, whenever possible:

1) Talk to the editor beforehand, tradeoff between ProRes & AVCHD
2) Send samples from C100 to test their workflow - MTS? full disk?
3) Cheat-sheet: how to fix PsF in FCPX/Premiere Pro

Producers/Directors seem to go straight for AVCHD, they get to see their material on their own systems, far less tedious than in the days of XDCAM.

I charge a little extra for ProRes, due to time spent copying, buying disk drives, etc. It helps people focus on what is important: lost time in edit suite faffing around, grumpy editor who dislikes AVCHD and hates C100 for being 'funny' about its PsF, the whole de-noise debacle; I found it was necessary to brief editors about stuff like this otherwise I hear comments like 'C100 is low res/aliased' and 'pictures aren't as nice as C300' - both caused by misinterpreted PsF. If this isn't nipped in the bud, blamefest ensues.

So that's how I get half going AVCHD, half going ProRes. Either way, we're all happy up front.
 
If I'm on a shoot with the client, they will copy the memory cards to their laptops when the shoot wraps, otherwise I zip together the MTS files only, and FTP it to them.
Haven't come across anyone having trouble with the files yet.

I do transcode everything when I put it into Avid, but that's on my end for my stuff.
 
Typically let them know the cam will split larger takes up in to 2 gig files. For myself I just drop the MTS files sequentially in the timeline.
Had some very long takes for VEVO Tour Exposed - was told to just let the camera run for Imagine Dragons and Arcade Fire here in Toronto at the ACC.
Uploaded all footage to them and mentioned it would be all 2 gig files that you can drop in together. No issues.
Maybe I've gotten lucky with the editors I've had ? heh
 
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