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PMB questions
Since this is a Sony forum & I assume that there will be many Sony camcorders being are being used & I guess that at least some you you will be using the PMB software that comes with the cameras. I still have some questions that don’t appear to be answered by this program.
For instance I can see how to trim a clip once its downloaded onto your PC but can you trim or delete the copy on your camcorders hard drive using this software & if so how can this be done?
Would it be desirable to do so? One of the reasons that I ask is that some of these camcorders can store so many hours of video on them I thought that it might be a good idea to keep a copy of the best clips on the camcorder as as another backup, once I have deleted any parts of the original that I can’t ever see having any use for.
The other major thing that I don’t see is any way to rename multiple clips all at once. For instance instead of just having meaningless clip numbers I would like to say rename all clips on the last shoot, Museum clip1.clip2 etc, Buildings clip 1,clip2 etc. If this software isn’t up to doing these basic functions can you recommend any software than can do what I want prior to be editing the clips in Vegas video?
Is there a forum for PMB?
Thanks in advance
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4 Replies
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Funny… I own three (3) Sony camcorders and I’ve never seen or used PMB and don’t understand why a Sony Vegas editor would even need it. I ingest all of my footage with the Vegas Device Explorer.
[Paul Gregory] “Would it be desirable to do so? One of the reasons that I ask is that some of these camcorders can store so many hours of video on them I thought that it might be a good idea to keep a copy of the best clips on the camcorder as as another backup, once I have deleted any parts of the original that I can’t ever see having any use for.”
I would think that it would be extremely undesirable and a false sense of security to think that a camera which goes places and can get lost, stolen, or dropped was somehow a “backup”. Buy a $99 USB hard drive and keep all of your files on that at home. That would be much more secure than on a camcorder.
[Paul Gregory] “If this software isn’t up to doing these basic functions can you recommend any software than can do what I want prior to be editing the clips in Vegas video?”
I use a free program called Bulk Rename Utility to give all of my captured files a meaningful name. I agree it’s very important to do this.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Normally I would never look at a program like PMB but instead just import new footage directly into Vegas. But when you have a new camcorder than can store many hours of video it seemed like a good idea to see if you can leave all of your best clips either complete or trimmed on its hard drive. You can delete & trim clips in the camcorder but its a tedious procedure. Whether or not you use PMB software to do this in camera I don’t know yet but if you could I’d like to try doing this to see if its worth the time involved.
I agree that using the camcorder as a back up tool isn’t such a good idea. What I did find was that when I was away shooting my latest holiday that some people asked us about other places we had been & I was able to show them since all the original clips from a previous trip was still on the camcorder.
PMB can quickly capture frames from video & do adjustments on them. It also can easily trim clips, as well as giving you a thumbnail & calendar index of all of your clips. And if you ever had your cameras time stamp date set incorrectly it allows you to do bulk changes.
But none of these things are going to be used unless you can do a bulk name changes to your clips.
Thanks in advance
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Hi,
I am a newbie to Cow, this is my first post here. I just wanted to say that I often use the PMB while editing in Vegas Pro 10 as it allows me to make a closer look at clips before I decide if they are going in the time line. You already mentioned some of the great features in the PMB like the trimmer, and the ability to organize by date or by folder name, etc., which are nice organizational features.Before choosing to rename clips I would recommend that you consider how this best fits your file organization and work flow. For instance, I found keeping the original Sony Time Stamp for each clip can work well if I keep like subject clips all in their own subject folder. I should mention I am using a Sony HDR-CX500v camera.
Typically I load my shots to a specific project folder. For instance, I have one project folder called “Harbor mixed HD and SD”. Whenever I transfer current shots of this subject they all go to the same place. Here the PMB is very useful in showing the whole project at once. I also save my .veg and renders to the same project folder–everything under one roof.
If I am downloading multiple subjects from the camera, I generally choose a subject folder that most of the items belong to, then when the transfer is over, I can copy the other subjects from this folder to their appropriate folder. (select images, go to edit menu and choose ‘copy to folder’) I then delete the images from the base folder after making the copy. Sometimes you have to ‘refresh’ the PMB to catch up to these changes, sometimes you have to go as far as re-starting the PMB before it sees these changes too.
I too do not recommend using the camera as a reliable secondary storage device, better to use a USB back up disk. However, I agree that leaving some clips on the camera for ‘show and tell’ purposes is useful for impromptu presentations–might as well be ready for opportunity.
Hope this is useful info,
-Phil Loaarie -
I have found another program that is very easy to both do bulk renaming of files & moving them from one location to another. It’s called FreeCommander & does many other things as well. It also allows you to rename other areas of possible interest. The only strange think I have encountered so far is that the program only is displaying about 95% of the thumbnails I see within the program even though I can see 100% in Explorer etc.
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