Best Practices for importing an AVCHD File?

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mark,

First, create a new unique folder on video hard drive for the footage, like “Card_01” or whatever. From SD card, copy EVERYTHING to that new folder, keeping all folders structure from SD card intact. It is important to do this, rather than just picking certain video files.

Create a NEW FOLDER for each SD card you need to copy over.

Once card is copied over, in Premiere you will use Media Browser to import, rather than File > Import.

Media Browser will use metadata found in other files from SD card to best figure things out – for instance if you made a long recording that camera broke into smaller 2GB or 4GB chunks (spanned clips), Premiere will import so that you get one long clip to edit with, no breaks between the pieces. Just a lot of little benefits like that by using this method.

Thanks

Jeff

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Richard Angle]

“Premiere will import so that you get one long clip to edit with, no breaks between the pieces. Just a lot of little benefits like that by using this method.”

Hi Jeff. Could you or someone else out there please elaborate on what exactly the “other benefits” actually are besides the file spanning? I simply despise the fact that we can’t rename our footage. I don’t really mind keeping the file structure intact. I just want to rename my dang source footage for organizational purposes. Particularly for large projects where I might have to relink and maintain my sanity. This has always been the achilles heel of the AVCHD CODEC to me.

If I knew that the only benefit of holding the structure intact was file spanning, I’d do my best to try and keep file sizes below 4gb and rename them. The only other metadata info that I’ve ever been aware of being useful is time of day timecode but Premiere no likey that one. Boy. I sure wish I could figure that one out. Would be terrific in doc shoots.

Thanks,
Richard Angle