Import Error from SXS card

[Craig Seeman]

Even though you haven’t given me the information about either platform or OS my crystal ball says you’re using Mac with Snow Leopard. Known Bug since Snow Leopard came out in September. Sony’s crack team of coders should have this fixed sometime between December and March of next year.

Always include all system specs and version numbers since my crystal ball can be cloudy at times.

[ron darby] “. I dragged the BPAV folder onto my drive. “

NOOOOO!

ONLY use ClipBrowser with CRC checking on to copy clips. EVER!
If you make a corrupt copy by drag and drop and erase the SxS card you’re toasted.

[Ron Darby]

Thanks

Yes I am on SL on a Mac, sorry about that.

I only dragged the BPAV folder on the drive as a back up because on off to a shoot and need to wipe out my card. I use xdcam transfer for importing.

So dose this mean I SOL until they come up with the fix.

I am leaving for about 5 hours thanks for the reply.

[Craig Seeman]

[ron darby] “I only dragged the BPAV folder on the drive as a back up because on off to a shoot and need to wipe out my card. I use xdcam transfer for importing. “

Exactly the worst reason to do that. Drag and drop and the risk of corruption on a hard drive without any other backup followed by erasing your card.

ALWAYS use Clip Browser for copying. It’s the best to ensure the copy is good. Then backup even if only temporarily to something else.

ClipBrowser to copy, Then backup BPAV, Then XDCAM Transfer to wrap to MOV. Anything else is like driving without a seat belt. Accidents can be fatal to your masters, your business, your client.

Don’t confuse copy with import. Import after PROPER copying.

[Ron Darby]

When you say clip browser do you mean the software xdcam transfer or is there a program for transfer would not import the clip and I needed the SXS stick for my next shoot. So my only way of getting the files off the stick was to drag and drop.
Now is there a way to get that last clip imported or do I have to wait for the up grade or us and older OS?

Mac Quad Intel 14 gigs ram
Snow Leopard
Kona Le
3 TB Caldigit

[Craig Seeman]

Ron, you’ve apparently been using the camera for nearly a year. Clip Browser came on the CD with the camera and has been updated several times. Clip Browser hasn’t had any issues with Snow Leopard that I know of. XDCAM Transfer has issues though.

[Ron Darby]

Your right I have been using this camera for a year and I used xdcam transfer the whole time, I totally forget about clip browser, thanks for the reminder and getting me back on track.

[Tom Laughlin]

I’m having the very same issues with these cards, and one thing I’ve had to do is use FCP, use the camera as your playback deck, insert the cafd back into the camera, play the card off the camera, use an SDI-out of the camera, SDI-in to your Mac, via a Blackmagic card with SDI-in, and capture the video using the capture settings “Apple Pro Res 422 HQ 8-bit 59.94.” In this way, you can recover your video.

Now, if the video file is corrupted, there will be a stop during the playback, and a large blue screen “Halt: Media Error, Halted during Playback”- this means you are screwed. What I then found was that it was a small portion of corrupted video, so you might go to the playback in the card, find the thumbnail of the video clip that has the corruption, then hit “Expand the Clip”, then go into the area of where your captuirng stopped and the camera playback stopped, then you go to the next thumbnail and try to play it, a minute or two after, and I was able to salvage many clips doing this. Granted, if you shot multiple takes, of let’s say, an interview, you have other takes to grab the sound bites from, and re-insert that into the edit, using the audio from another take, covering you on the corrupted 1 or 2 minutes of video – that would not transfer over or playback.

One of my editor’s tried converting directly from the card, and sometimes have had no problems. But in this case, with non-recoverable video, unless you can play it back, it may be gone for good. You can off-load cards and come back to them and put them back on to cards (that have also been wiped) and you can put the video back on the cards and capture them later, but you also need to make sure that the ENTIRE file transfers over. During BPAV File transfer, regardless if it’s Sony software or not, you must right click on the copy of the BPAV, and see that those exact numbers match, example: BPAV Folder says 31GB on disk, but when you “right click” on the details, it says, (31,987,654,311 bytes). This (31,987,654,311 bytes) must match the original or the transfer is off, and most of the time it is, but just by a few numbers, so it appears that the data all transferred but in reality, it didn’t. Double-check everything, and don’t rely on a 1-2-3 step process, as everyone’s macs and softwares are different.

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT.

[C. Kauffman]

I’ve been dragging and dropping BPAV’s since I got the camera 6 months ago, no issues so far.
Not sure I understood the wording of your post; you use Clip Browser to import footage from the SxS to your external HD? Details regarding your workflow are appreciated.
Thanks

Sony EX1
Canon 5d mark 2
FCP 6.06

[Craig Seeman]

[Chandler Kauffman] “I’ve been dragging and dropping BPAV’s since I got the camera 6 months ago, no issues so far. “

You can drive for years without wearing a set belt and have no issue. Avoiding serious injury or death in one accidents makes it worthwhile and why it’s a law in the USA.

More to come.

[Craig Seeman]

Use ClipBrowser with CRC to copy to hard drive of your choice.
Copy to backup device of your choice. I use ClipBrowser to properly split BPAV to DL-DVD but Blu-ray certainly would be good too. Personally I think a backup should go to something that doesn’t have the risk of being accidentally erased/deleted or might crash.
Then use XDCAM Transfer to re-wrap to MOV making sure all folders are selected so all split and spanned clips are joined.