Tips on copying/organizing AF100 media to HDD?

F

filmguy123

Veteran
I have 128gb of SD card space on my AF100 and often times will shoot multiple projects/videos onto the SD cards. When doing this, I will copy the SD card content to my computer, and then continue shooting (without clearing cards - so that I can keep multiple copies of clips for as long as possible, AKA home HDD, backup HDD, and SD card).

Problem is, when I come back to copy the clips to my computer after a NEW shoot and still have previously-copied clips on the SD card from an OLD shoot, it's a pain. Because now I can't just copy the whole SD card without duplicating previously copied clips. And my understanding is, I can't just drill down into the private-BDMV-Stream folder and pull out the MTS files if I want to keep metadata, etc. in tact.

Wish I had a good/easy/fast system to pull of only the NEW clips added to AF100's SD cards (new since I lasted copied card contents) to copy to HDD, while keeping all file structure/metadata in tact.

Any workflow tips?
Or is the only way around this to clear memory cards completely between each shoot, or buy more SD cards?
And/or, how neccessary is it really to keep full Card Structure in tact?
Or is there a software the copies entire card contents/file structure of NEW files since a certain date (i.e. date of last import). An app like that would be cool.
 
PATIENT - "Doc, it hurts when I do this..."
DOC - "Then don't do that!"

Simple answer, expounding may be helpful...

General SOP is this... before a shoot, reformat card(s) of approximate shoot duration suitability (or just whatever's largest) and re-zero timecode. Shoot. Copy media to appropriate-sized SD card in-camera at end of shoot (while striking lights, for instance) - often this can work for delivery as well if client needs an immediate copy, as it's a verified copy. Copy-protect both cards, keep one in the camera and put the other in a Pelican SD wallet for the ride home. Go home.

At home, immediately copy one of the cards' full contents to a dated and described folder placed either within the project folder (for jobs) or home folder - for instance, a folder named "20130519-AVCHD_archive_tips-BCAM" within the "AVCHD archive tips" project folder. A copy of that entire working project folder is then put on a backup drive, and the backup updated periodically. In some cases there may be multiple backup drives. For short shoots (less than ~45min footage - 8.5GB), I still backup footage to optical media (which can work wonderfully for delivery as well).

Storage media (both HDD and SD) is cheap these days, a heck of a lot cheaper than losing once-in-a-lifetime or business-critical footage. Get more and save yourself some worry and trouble.
 
Yes, there is a way to work around this and keep the format as AVCHD. If you're using Premiere, at least. Are you? If so, it comes with an application called Prelude. It is used just for logging footage and adding metadata to it before editing. When you're transferring footage, you can click just the clips that you want to move. Then it makes a new AVCHD file structure with those files where you specify. It's also possible to use the program to transcode to ProRes, but only if that's what you want to do. I've been doing this and editing natively (AVCHD) since I switched to CS6 from FCP7 back in January or February.

I like to work the same way as you as far as my cards, by the way. It's just kind of a third backup kind of thing. Or if it a shoot that is continuous over a month for one edit, you can keep the file names sequential.
 
BrandonT said:
Yes, there is a way to work around this and keep the format as AVCHD. If you're using Premiere, at least. Are you? If so, it comes with an application called Prelude. It is used just for logging footage and adding metadata to it before editing. When you're transferring footage, you can click just the clips that you want to move. Then it makes a new AVCHD file structure with those files where you specify. It's also possible to use the program to transcode to ProRes, but only if that's what you want to do. I've been doing this and editing natively (AVCHD) since I switched to CS6 from FCP7 back in January or February.

I like to work the same way as you as far as my cards, by the way. It's just kind of a third backup kind of thing. Or if it a shoot that is continuous over a month for one edit, you can keep the file names sequential.
Click to expand...
Prelude is great for exactly how Brandon describes the workflow. I do this a lot as well. I'll break out the shoots into individual new card structures without transcoding. It works so well and doesn't take very long to complete.
 
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