Private....

Shooter

Shooter

Veteran
Does anyone have an informative document (or link) to how the Private Folder works?

Now I am somewhat committed to AVCCAM by virtue of owning the AF102....I am starting to fiddle about with my workflows. For ease and efficiency purposes mainly.

eg. Needed to take two shots to a Flame Suite in a hurry 2 days ago so I just took the 2x .mts files. (No folder.

They carried the T/C as well as the synch sound audio and the Private folder struture did not seem to be missed. I was not interested in metadata so did not look for that.

Thoughts and info please.
 
No one seems to know anything about this file structure... so I wonder if Jan C might kindly get the information from the "horses mouth" .

Barry has a recent post suggesting to someone that he needs to supply the complete structure to an FCP user. I wonder if he is actually correct about this.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...iles-returned-by-client-Mac-FCP-import-issues

I have had success moving just the mts files to another facilty without the structure so I just do not know how far I can push the Private folder structure. eg re-naming a mts file with something practical

Its a lot more convenient to give someone, say, 2 files instead of 100 if they only need the 2.
 
I don't know about FCP or the AF100 but I routinely just copy the mts files straight from the card to my HD (PC/CS5 suite) and rename them. Never had any problems and I don't care about the meta data either....
 
As far as I understand it the private structure is part of the AVCHD standard, which makes the cards readable by other devices such as blu ray players. For example I can hookd up my SD cards directly from the camera to a PS3 via a USB card reader and play back the files.

If you keep the folder structure you can easily drop your SD cards into these kind of devices, you also keep the meta data for later use if you care about that sort of thing.

Other than that I don't see a reason to keep the private folder. Personally I always copy over the private folder into a folder with the name of the card, I find its much harder to miss something this way.

According to this thread:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-the-PRIVATE-folder-structure-and-AVCHD-files
If you dont keep the private folder you might have some issues with iMovie.
 
No editor other than FCP needs the file structure. FCP needs it. And if you go changing things (like renaming files) FCP won't work with it.

Someday in the summer Panasonic will release a plug-in module that will let FCP work with straight .MTS files. Until they do so, you're handcuffed by FCP's insistence on ignoring the reality of file-based workflows and how they force you to go through their "log & transfer".

I do know that if you go in cherry-picking files and changing names and whatnot, it will break the structure and FCP won't work with it anymore.
 
ClipWrap2 will transcode raw mts files to an editing codec that is compatible with FCP; pro res 422 pre FCP 7 and pro res LT in FCP 7.

I have to observe, however, that while many PCs support native editing, and CS4/5 on a Mac will also work with native mts files, the editing experience will vary depending on CPU and GPU.

In other words, not all PCs or Macs have the editing power to work natively and pleasantly with raw mts files.

I still prefer to transcode because it enables me to log my footage. Transcode times are 2x for me, and while file sizes are large, my workflow requires a transcode to an eventual distribution codec.
 
Thanks for the info on ClipWrap, that may solve the dilemma Shooter found himself in.

The question wasn't about the advisability of editing native, the question was that Shooter had already sent MTS files over, and the recipient was saying that they can't use them. Reason being, FCP requires the entire file structure before L&T will work.

ClipWrap should turn the files into editable Quicktime files without needing the whole directory structure.
 
Barry_Green said:
Thanks for the info on ClipWrap, that may solve the dilemma Shooter found himself in.

The question wasn't about the advisability of editing native, the question was that Shooter had already sent MTS files over, and the recipient was saying that they can't use them. Reason being, FCP requires the entire file structure before L&T will work.

ClipWrap should turn the files into editable Quicktime files without needing the whole directory structure.
Click to expand...

That wasnt me Barry. I have had no issue with using mts files...cross platform or cross facilty..at all.
 
Shooter said:
Does anyone have an informative document (or link) to how the Private Folder works?
Click to expand...
The PRIVATE folder on an SD card formatted by a Panasonic camera contains an AVCHD folder where all AVCHD video data is indexed and stored. Inside the AVCHD folder is a BDMV folder whose contents are documented in the Blu-ray specifications (page 15):

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Assets/Downloadablefile/bdj_gem_application_definition-15496.pdf

Panasonic cameras store AVCHD videos as .MTS files in the BDMV folder's STREAM folder. When a video exceeds 4GB in file size, the camera spans the video into sequential .MTS files. To keep track of spanned .MTS files, the camera indexes them in .MPL files stored in the BDMV folder's PLAYLIST folder. This is likely one of the things FCP searches for when ingesting AVCHD videos.

Panasonic cameras also generate thumbnail file for each AVCHD video. These are stored in the AVCHD folder's AVCHDTN folder. Here's a link to a diagram of the entire SD card folder structure:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...vg/1000px-AVCHD_actual_file_structure.svg.png
 
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If I'm not mistaken I think you can use panasonic avccam viewer software to edit the clips on your original card and dump to another card or drive while maintaining all the original file structure.
 
Bucknfl said:
If I'm not mistaken I think you can use panasonic avccam viewer software to edit the clips on your original card and dump to another card or drive while maintaining all the original file structure.
Click to expand...

I am trying to avoid the original file structure and I am trying (successfully) to not use the AVCCAM Viewer.
 
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