Canon C300 File Structure Issue

[Todd Terry]

Don’t know if this helps (or if it is what you are really asking), but natively on the camera cards from the C300, the file structure looks like this….

That root folder on the card has a 14-digit numerical name (it will be the date plus 6 digits). Inside that are the nested folders as shown, the last ones being folders for the individual clips with an alpha numerical name (two letters and six digits).

I’m not sure about FCP, but if you manually reproduce this file structure on a card (or on a drive backup of the footage) it will be recognized by the Canon XF Utility.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Peter Vandall]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for this.

The numerical folder is what I am trying to recreate. Does it go 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day? In that order? And then what are the 6 digits after that? I am assuming time of day. 2 digit hour, 2 digit minute, 2 digit second? And if thats the case where would I be able to find the right time?

Thanks,

Pete

[Todd Terry]

Yes, the numeric name of the card’s root folder is year, month, day… followed by six more digits.

I don’t know what those digits are. Yes, they might indeed be time of day. I don’t know any way to get back or recreate that info if it is missing. If it is the time, it would be the time that the card was formatted in the camera, and I don’t know that the format time is available in any of the clip metadata… there wouldn’t be any reason for that data to be there.

But… I don’t think it matters.. that root name can be anything. For example if I back up a card I shot yesterday, the folder might be called 20140207123456. But the first thing I do after a backup is rename the folder with something more appropriate to the job or client. So “20140207123456” might become “Hospital 020714,” or whatever I like. It still functions, behaves, imports all the same.

All you REALLY need to edit are the .MXF files that are in the very bottommost folders. You should be able to even manually import just those individually. The big advantage though to using the Canon XF Utility (or whatever other utility you are using) is that to do it manually you might have to sort through all those scads of folders to get to each .MXF file, because each is in its own folder…. so if you have a lot of clips, it can be mind numbing to hunt and peck them all down.

But it certainly can be done. I’m really not sure what is giving your trouble… but then again I’m a Premiere guy, not FCP. You might have better luck with your question in the FC forum.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Peter Vandall]

Ok thank you very much. Very helpful I appreciate it. Thanks!