Ingesting in the field – copying from CF to HDD?

[Shane Ross]

[Jonathan Bierman] “So far, it’s been done directly from the cards, interfaced through the camera.

Why is this bad? “

Yes. Do you capture from tape and then throw away the tape? No…you keep the tape. That’s what you do with tapeless media…because you reuse the cards, you need to back up the contents, in their original format. What happens if your media drive dies? Then all of your media is gone.

And it is best to keep the originals so that you have the option to use them in any NLE. If you ingest for one NLE, and it goes away (note: FCP 7 is gone, FCX is different completely), you might be stuck with a file format other NLEs cannot read. Best to keep the originals.

[Jonathan Bierman] “Would the ideal work flow to be to only back up the card media to the hard drives and just do the log and transfer once they get back?”

Yes…that is the workflow that should be done. Archive in the field, Log and Transfer back at home base.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Jonathan Bierman]

Absolutely right. Wise words. Thanks for your help with this.

[Michael Gissing]

Apart from backing up the originals, if you have to recapture anything due to a drive failure, even if the card media is backed up on a drive, Log & Transfer expects the media to be in the same place as the original batch transfer which is a card not a hard drive.

[Jon Frost]

Are you using Logical File Management of your 8 cameras files? I certainly hope so. You need to make a folder for the Project; then a folder for each camera titled something like:

PROJECT NAME
Original Footage
Camera 1
Card 1 (Date)
Card 2 (Date) etc.
Camera 2
Card 1 (Date)

repeat this for all 8 cameras

You must copy the entire contents of the card from each camera each time you ingest footage from a new card. Without the card folder structure you can end up with corrupt and/or unusable footage.

When you get back stateside, then you can consider doing Log and Transfer of your clips into your editing software. Remember that each camera might have a particular file naming structure and you don’t want to end up with the same filename for two files in the same folder or you are going to get an error message and may in all likelihood overwrite some files. Each file name should be changed to something like;

S(cene)#T(ake)# Cam1 Date (mmddyy))

You will most likely need much more hard disk space (preferably RIAD 1 or 5) if you are going to edit on anything other than Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 which can edit your native files for most formats of digital media.

You really need to be anal about file management especially with 8 cameras!

You can e-mail me for more info privately.

Jon Frost

meowmixmedia.net

[Jonathan Bierman]

Hey John thanks for the tips – media management and file naming conventions etc is one area I have very well covered with regards to this… but you are right to bring it up nonetheless.

[Jon Frost]

Glad to help. Look for my article on Data Management and Archiving in Student Filmmaker in the coming months.

Jon Frost