Phil Seastrand
Active member
Great news, thanks for testing!
This was done to guarantee a unique file name. As I recall, this issue came up when clips spanned multiple files.
PHOTOfunStudio Replacement
- Thread starter Phil Seastrand
- Start date
Great program, Phil. I just became aware of your program today and spent the past few minutes reading through the thread. Your attention to user problems and requests is commendable.
First question: is there any way we can contribute monetarily to your development effort? I know you said you are a retired software developer and enjoy working on projects like this. All the same, I know it takes resources to purchase the development tools needed for this kind of project. I'm sure your grateful users would be willing to chip in to help you out.
Second, I realize your program takes the full GH1/2 SD card file structure as input. I have a number of .MTS and .RW2 files I've already copied to my hard drive. Any suggestions on how to rename those files with a time/date stamp? I don't think your program can do this once the files have been copied to hard disk as you don't parse EXIF data for the still images and I don't have the .CPI files which you need to get the time/date data for the video files. If my understanding is correct, any ideas on what options I have for renaming?
drv
First question: is there any way we can contribute monetarily to your development effort? I know you said you are a retired software developer and enjoy working on projects like this. All the same, I know it takes resources to purchase the development tools needed for this kind of project. I'm sure your grateful users would be willing to chip in to help you out.
Second, I realize your program takes the full GH1/2 SD card file structure as input. I have a number of .MTS and .RW2 files I've already copied to my hard drive. Any suggestions on how to rename those files with a time/date stamp? I don't think your program can do this once the files have been copied to hard disk as you don't parse EXIF data for the still images and I don't have the .CPI files which you need to get the time/date data for the video files. If my understanding is correct, any ideas on what options I have for renaming?
drv
Phil Seastrand
Active member
Thanks for the compliments, they mean a lot to me. To be honest, I haven't had to spend any money on development tools -- I'm using the free Microsoft Visual Studio version. So it would only be my time and I have lots of that. If anyone feels they need to contribute, send the money to Vitaliy for the hack.
Regarding your situation: for the photos, you can simulate the file structure easily by putting the .RW2 files in a folder structure of root\DCIM\100_PANA\*.RW2. Run the program against the root directory and you should be fine. For the video files, you need to have the MPL and CPI files so it would be difficult to simulate. If you don't have too many you can process them by hand using the "Last Modified" date. Otherwise, I don't have any easy solutions for you.
Hi "drv"!
I have personally renamed my GH2 photos using free IrfanView program after importing them via GH1 File Importer. In Irfanview choose File menu --> Batch conversion/rename... --> Choose Batch rename mode and insert this code in Name pattern field:
$E36867(%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S)_$F
This renames your photos using EXIF data. So your final photo name will be: YEAR-MONTH-DATE_HOUR-MINUTE-SECOND_original-file-name-and-extension. This way you shouldn't have several photos on your hard drive with identical names even though you had shot several photos at the exactly same second.
I also use free Advanced Renamer software to add additional "-" characters between year, month, date, hour, minute and second numbers in file names of video files imported by GH1 File Importer. This way my photo and video files have similar naming.
After importing photos and videos using GH1 File Importer, renaming using IrfanView and Advanced Renamer, I change orientation tag of GH2 photos (*.JPG and *.RW2) having incorrect orientation tag usingExifToolGUI.
Then I manage my photos using free JPhotoTagger, that adds all necessary metadata in XMP sidecars of photo and video files. It doesn't alter you main media files any way, as it can write metadata only in sidecars and in its own database. JPhotoTagger is nice little software tool, that can manage your mts/m2ts files with thumbnails too.
Just my two cents. I got carried away a bit by describing almost my whole pipeline of media management. =)
-pb
I have personally renamed my GH2 photos using free IrfanView program after importing them via GH1 File Importer. In Irfanview choose File menu --> Batch conversion/rename... --> Choose Batch rename mode and insert this code in Name pattern field:
$E36867(%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S)_$F
This renames your photos using EXIF data. So your final photo name will be: YEAR-MONTH-DATE_HOUR-MINUTE-SECOND_original-file-name-and-extension. This way you shouldn't have several photos on your hard drive with identical names even though you had shot several photos at the exactly same second.
I also use free Advanced Renamer software to add additional "-" characters between year, month, date, hour, minute and second numbers in file names of video files imported by GH1 File Importer. This way my photo and video files have similar naming.
After importing photos and videos using GH1 File Importer, renaming using IrfanView and Advanced Renamer, I change orientation tag of GH2 photos (*.JPG and *.RW2) having incorrect orientation tag usingExifToolGUI.
Then I manage my photos using free JPhotoTagger, that adds all necessary metadata in XMP sidecars of photo and video files. It doesn't alter you main media files any way, as it can write metadata only in sidecars and in its own database. JPhotoTagger is nice little software tool, that can manage your mts/m2ts files with thumbnails too.
Just my two cents. I got carried away a bit by describing almost my whole pipeline of media management. =)
-pb
Hi Phil, your importer is really great, I used it every day last year while I was on the road. It is so much faster and easier than the photofun software.
But now a question, I now bought the panasonic TM900 camcorder and would like to use the GH1 importer to import the video's, but the directory structure is a little different (for pictures it is the same).
In the GH1 there is the PRIVATE -> AVCHD -> AVCHDTN/BDMV/IISVPL on the TM900 the PRIVATE is missing, so it is AVCHD -> AVCHDTN/BDMV/IISVPL.
Could I change something somewhere so that I can use the importer also for the TM900? That would be really fantastic.
Thanks in advance
Henk
But now a question, I now bought the panasonic TM900 camcorder and would like to use the GH1 importer to import the video's, but the directory structure is a little different (for pictures it is the same).
In the GH1 there is the PRIVATE -> AVCHD -> AVCHDTN/BDMV/IISVPL on the TM900 the PRIVATE is missing, so it is AVCHD -> AVCHDTN/BDMV/IISVPL.
Could I change something somewhere so that I can use the importer also for the TM900? That would be really fantastic.
Thanks in advance
Henk
Phil Seastrand
Active member
Thanks for the compliments -- I always enjoy hearing them!
I think I can make the importer handle that case, but before I go through the effort, can you do a test for me? Copy a sample directory structure to your hard drive and modify it to include the "PRIVATE" folder. Make sure the sample has video of various formats (what ever the TM900 supports). Then run the importer against the copy. If it works, I'll modify the importer to support either format. If not, there may be other changes to the playlist files, etc., that I'll need to handle. Depending upon what kind of errors you get, if any, I'll let you know what our next steps will be.
Phil
Hi Phil,
I did copy the data to a memory card and moved the AVCHD into a PRIVATE folder (just as you asked, because the internal memory is read only, i could not move the directory directly on the camera) and ran the importer on the memory card, it did import normally! So that worked! The camera can only make AVCHD files and JPEG, so it did not have any problems with these formats, it imported both.
It would really be great if you could make the change! Many thanks in advance!
Henk
I did copy the data to a memory card and moved the AVCHD into a PRIVATE folder (just as you asked, because the internal memory is read only, i could not move the directory directly on the camera) and ran the importer on the memory card, it did import normally! So that worked! The camera can only make AVCHD files and JPEG, so it did not have any problems with these formats, it imported both.
It would really be great if you could make the change! Many thanks in advance!
Henk
Henk, I use Irfanview all the time. It's the only way I've found to be able to "preview" my .RW2 files. But I never knew it oculd do this kind of file renaming. I'm going to give it a try using a slightly different format string to suit my liking. I think that will help me make some sense of all the files I've already imported from my GH2.
Again, thanks. I don't think I need to use these steps for my stuff but it's good to know of other tools for future reference.
drv
Phil,
That's kind of what I thought. I think I'll look at the Irfanview renaming for my still images that Henk suggested in a post above.
[UPDATE] Just tried the Irfanview renaming that Henk described. It worked perfectly. Just a couple of additions to the "instructions" Henk gave: be sure to select the "Rename" button near the top of the Batch conversion dialog and click the "Options" button and chose whichever move/copy/rename option you want. The nice thing is that Irfanview retains your rename pattern string the next time it is run. Very nice feature.
drv
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Phil Seastrand
Active member
I sent you a PM about this but haven't heard from you. If you can check that would be great. I need your email address so I can send you a test version. If possible, PM me your email address.
Phil
Phil Seastrand
Active member
I've uploaded a new version to the base posting with the changes requested by Henk to support cameras that do not use the PRIVATE folder. Also, I've changed the AutoPlay feature to default the source location to the root folder of the device causing the AutoPlay.
No other changes have been made so you only need to install the new version if either of these features are important to you.
Enjoy,
Phil
No other changes have been made so you only need to install the new version if either of these features are important to you.
Enjoy,
Phil
Phil Seastrand
Active member
I don't understand what you are asking. Could you please elaborate?
Phil Seastrand
Active member
Ah, ok... now I understand. This is outside the scope of what I intended and I'd have to do some research on how the time codes are stored in the Zoom wave files. So, no promises, but I'll look into it. Give me a couple of days.
Phil Seastrand
Active member
I have a version ready for you to test. I sent you a PM asking for your email address, but you may not have received it. Please PM me your email address so I can send you an updated version to test.
Phil Seastrand
Active member
I've published version 1.0.18 onto the base message. This version includes support to import audio files from the Zoom H1. It extracts the date/time from the meta data stored in the WAV files to rename the files according to the date of the original audio file. I suspect this will also work with other Zoom devices, but I haven't tested it.
If a STEREO folder is detected in the source root folder, the importer assumes this is from a Zoom recorder. Any questions or problems, please let me know.
Phil
If a STEREO folder is detected in the source root folder, the importer assumes this is from a Zoom recorder. Any questions or problems, please let me know.
Phil
Xaveryptak
Active member
Hi Phil,
Have been using Importer for a while now with no glitch with both GH1 & GH2 (and thank you for updating it for Zoom).
Yesterday I got this error
I had similar error a couple version back and you're able to fix it with an update.
Andrew
Have been using Importer for a while now with no glitch with both GH1 & GH2 (and thank you for updating it for Zoom).
Yesterday I got this error
I had similar error a couple version back and you're able to fix it with an update.
Andrew