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Dubbing an XDCAM
I have a stack of raw source XDCAM HD disks, and we need to return them to their source. Before that, we need to make a duplicate of the tape.
We only have the XDCam Drive (NOT a deck), the PDW-U1. I’m wondering what the easiest/best way to do this is.
The two ways I’ve explored-
1. Transfer to HD using XDCAM Transfer, then use FCP to Export to a new XDCAM disk. Problem: You can’t export multiple things to XDCAM at once using FCP. I’d have to nurse it through, and some disks have 150+ clips.
2. Copy the .mxf files to HD, then copy those files over to a new XDCAM disk. Can do it in batches, but you lose the .xml files, which are then regenerated. Also, it looks like this method messes up the order the clips are on the tape- but we don’t have a deck to verify this.I want to make these as close to the original as possible, for timecode and archival purposes. Any suggestions?
Thanks!——
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9 Replies
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I’ve verified that copying over multiple clips at once will mess up the order of the clips. So I’m stuck doing it one at a time in finder, or one at a time in Final Cut.
Any other ideas so I don’t have to babysit it through the process?——
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I’ve verified that copying over multiple clips at once will mess up the order of the clips. So I’m stuck doing it one at a time in finder, or one at a time in Final Cut.
Any other ideas so I don’t have to babysit it through the process?——
Final Cut tutorials from around the web- all in one place. -
Do you only have one U-1 and a Mac? We’ve successfully cloned XDCAM disks between 2 U-1’s on a PC. I’m not at the office, so I don’t remember the program. It’s one of Sony’s XDCAM programs for the PC. If you’re on an Intel Mac, maybe you could operate it as a PC using Windows, and then clone your disks to a virtual drive using Sony’s software. You could then clone it again to a new disk on the U-1. I don’t know if that will work or not.
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Since harddisk is cheaper than XDcam discs, and faster, why write it back to XDcam?
Just let it live on a harddisk…
Bouke
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There are multiple reasons for dubbing back to XDCam. One is workflow – where I’m at, the producers, who log the footage, aren’t going to get near the editing stations to dig through the footage, for multiple reasons (including how busy the editors always are.) They use the the Sony PDZ1 Software to log the shots that they want off of XDCam discs, then give the editors an ALE to bring in and edit from.
Another is backups – we currently have just short of 1000 XDCam discs (and 10,000 betas) in our library. Never a problem with any of the discs failing, but we’ve had problems with our RAIDs crashing over and over. Hard drives aren’t a good long-term storage solution, they even tell you the MTF, or Mean Time to Failure. You have to expect a drive to be dead in 5 years if you’ve got valuable data on it.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any way other than 1 clip at a time to move them over to XDCam either. If there is a way, I would love to hear about it.
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Our shooters are sometimes off for weeks at a time shooting for multiple series on pre-labeled XDCAM Discs. Sometimes the shooter may need an extra disc and takes one from one of the other series pre-labeled stash. When the discs return we copy the discs media folder to the desktop and transfer back to the correct series XDCAM disc clip by clip which is very time consuming when the dic contains 50+ clips. IF there is a way to transfer multiple clips at a time I would like to know.
Victor
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In what way did it mess up the order of your clips? I just did some duplications from XDCAM to XDCAM with the PDW-U1 using the “copy .MXF files to HDD method”. After copying back into the clip folder on the formatted disc, the xml and proxy files regenerated. XDCAM Transfer then read the disc exactly the same as the old one. Did I miss something?
Even if the clips are out of order, can’t you just sort them by name? After all, they are just files on a disc and not shots on a linear tape.Editor – Speakeasy
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[David Hartnett] “In what way did it mess up the order of your clips? I just did some duplications from XDCAM to XDCAM with the PDW-U1 using the “copy .MXF files to HDD method”. After copying back into the clip folder on the formatted disc, the xml and proxy files regenerated. XDCAM Transfer then read the disc exactly the same as the old one. Did I miss something?
Even if the clips are out of order, can’t you just sort them by name? After all, they are just files on a disc and not shots on a linear tape.”Yes, you can sort them by name… but if you ever try to play them back on a deck, you’ll get a timecode break between every clip. I can’t say for sure how these will be used in the future, and if I needed a time code accurate deck to deck dub to say HDCAM, I’d be in trouble.
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I did some looking around, and the file “Alias.xml” in the root folder seems to be the file that controls the order. However, it is a read only file. Perhaps a sudo from the terminal?
Once it’s writeable, someone with a bit more scripting experience than I could easily make a tool that would reorder them according to name. Would save a lot of time.
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