Software for converting/logging/tagging footage for easy editing?

[custerc]

As some readers of this forum probably know, I'm currently working on my first feature doc. We still have probably a year of shooting ahead of us, but we've got several hours of footage shot already and I want to start logging it properly.

First, should I be coverting all the footage to some kind of "editing format"? I'm shooting with a HMC150 and 60D, so my raw footage is half h264 and half AVCHD. I've heard people say those aren't "editing formats" but I have no idea what that means.

I'll probably be editing in Premiere Pro CS5, if that makes a difference.

Second, is there some program that would allow me to do whatever conversion I need, and also rename files and possible also add tags or anything else to help me search through the clips later? We're going to end this with probably 100 hours of footage, so I want to have a good system of naming and tagging so it's easy for me to browse and see whats in a clip at a glance (and if possible, also a way to rate clips from good to bad so I can easily pick out the best shots...)

ANY and ALL advice would be much appreciated?

 

[jwmemmer]

I know there were new features added in CS4 & CS5 for exactly what you are asking. Not sure how well you know Premiere Pro, but here are a few links below that help describe work flow for what you are asking on the Adobe website. The new metadata features should easily and quickly allow you to add all of the details you need and then have them searchable in both Premiere and Adobe Bridge. In Premiere Pro Metadata window, you can add shot number, scene name, description and all kinds of other stuff.

I believe the expectation of the most efficient workflow is to use Bridge when you have a large amount of files, such as what you will have. I know you can transcribe the audio to text as well automatically in Premiere Pro now, which to me, would seem to be an amazing feature when needed. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but after responding here, i might try it just for fun. As far as editing formats go, I'm not sure what that means either, but those comments are probably based on using editing software other than CS5, which as you probably know, is suppose to handle AVCHD with the new Mercury playback system much more smoothly than ever before. In fact, if you just go to the Adobe website and watch the video on the main page for Premiere, they have the editor of the movie MONSTERS talking about this exact issue.


VIEWING AND EDITING METADATA
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/digital-video/viewing-and-editing-metadata/

Transcribe and edit speech metadata with Adobe Premiere Pro (about 1/4 down the page):
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/video/articles/metadata_video.html

So, I'm certain that you have the tool you already need in Premiere Pro CS5. I'd be interested to know how you end up handling this. Also, I'm fairly new here, what type of feature are you working on, or do you have a link here explaining it already?

 

[jwmemmer]

Just an update: I started tagging my 2010 home video HD footage in Bridge to see how it works, and it works really well. You can add info in any of the many types of fields available - all in Bridge, and then you can quickly do a search in Bridge and find the info by selecting "All Metadata."

 

[custerc]

Just an update: I started tagging my 2010 home video HD footage in Bridge to see how it works, and it works really well. You can add info in any of the many types of fields available - all in Bridge, and then you can quickly do a search in Bridge and find the info by selecting "All Metadata."

And then all that data is available in Premiere too? I was playing around and saw that my changed clip names and label show up in premiere, as does the rating, but I don't see the keywords anywhere...and I don't see any way to search within premiere for that stuff or display it super easily....I just switched from FCP so I'm still finding my way around Premiere and the rest of CS5...

I will check out the video on adobe's site later, my connection doesn't seem to be willing to play it right now for whatever reason.

Unfortuantely, I don't think the atuo-transcript feature will help much, as all my interviews are in Chinese. Too bad, though. If it did, it would save SO much trouble...ah well...

 

[jwmemmer]

Yes, the data is available in Premiere Pro as well, or you can make the changes in Premiere Pro to metadata and it will show up in Bridge (and AE I believe). In the project window, you can scroll to the right and see all of the extra fields. In the Window option in the top menu, you can select the Metadata to edit the info. Once you have tags in the metadata, you can just use the search function to find them later. It works really well once you figure it out.