Renaming & sorting both video clips & stills to date taken

[Bob Peterson]

It’s probably not the best way, but, in Windows Explorer, you can select many files, and give them all the same name by renaming the first one to “where taken” followed by a (1). The rest of the files will be renamed as “where taken(2)”, “where taken(3)”, and so on. Assuming your camera originally labelled them in order, that order will be retained while you also add the “where” information.

[Wayne Waag]

Good question. For stills, it’s no problem. I’ve been using a database program called ThumbsPlus for the past ten years or so and it will sort according to pretty much whatever you want including time and date taken, which is very useful if you have photos from multiple sources. I’m pretty sure that Adobe Lightroom will do the same thing and probably others as well.

The problem will be your video clips, for which AFAIK there is no standard Exif info like for photos. Here’s what I do that may work for you as well. If you use a Sony or Panasonic camcorder, software is available that will import each clip and rename it with the date time stamp–e.g. 20150815163400. First, import these clips into Vegas, and then export the first frame of each clip with the name of the clip as a jpg. I use Vegasaur which can do this very quickly. In essence, these represent a thumbnail for each video clip. Since each video clip is now represented by a jpg photo, you can easily change “date taken” in the Exif info from the name of the file using freeware called ExifToolGUI. At this point, you could merge your video thumbnails with you photos and easily sort everything according to time taken–photos as well as videos. I guess its a bit kludgy, but it does work and it’s actually pretty quick once you’ve done it a few times. If interested, I could provide further details.

wwaag

[John Rofrano]

I just use folders.

I have a folder on my NAS called “Photos”. Under it are folders labeled “2015”, “2014”, “2013”… and under that I make a folder for each event like “2015-02-14_Valentines Day”, “2015-06-10_Cape Code Vacation”, etc. I have no problem finding anything but you do need to know at least the year in which you are looking for something. 😉

For video I archive the entire memory card in the subfolders. So on my AVCHD camera, there will be an AVCHD folder under “2015-06-10_Cape Code Vacation” with the entire contents of the memory card just waiting to be imported into Vegas Pro at a later time using the Device Explorer (which looks for memory card structures and not files)

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Mark Barton]

Since Bob mentioned LightRoom, I just wanted to add I use LightRoom for both stills and video and it renames them and puts them into date related folders. It also has the option to place a backup copy on another drive when importing. I tag the media in LightRoom and then when I am ready to work on a project, I search for the tagged media and export that to a project folder structure for Sony Vegas. I can then use the VASST FASST App Media Tool to load that structure into a Media Bin structure for my Vegas project.

[Angelo Mike]

You can just put them in a folder in Windows, click on “Date” at the top to organize them chronologically, and highlight them all. Then right click on the first file you want to rename, change the name, and Windows will automatically add a “(1)” at the end, and will number the rest in order.

Or if you lay them out in Vegas, you can use the Vegasaur extension (https://vegasaur.com/) and there’s a function to sort events chronologically on the timeline. But I think doing it in Windows is easier since you can rename them as well there.

[Wayne Waag]

[Mark Burton]

Thanks for the information. I suspected that Lightroom would support this but have never taken the time to learn (IMHO) its dreadful interface. I’ve only used it for image correction and geo-tagging. My understanding is that Lightroom has more of a Library structure where media can be located almost anywhere, whereas the old version of ThumbsPlus I’ve been using is based completely on folder structure. At least you can still purchase Lightroom–at least for now.

wwaag

[Bob Peterson]

My new mantra! You learn SOMETHING every day. I must confess that I did not know that Windows would automatically add the index number. Now, I know.

[Wayne Waag]

Then right click on the first file you want to rename, change the name, and Windows will automatically add a “(1)” at the end, and will number the rest in order.

Beware. The problem with this approach is that you lose all the file names. Once you have selected the first file, added (1), and hit enter, the remaining files will have the same name except the changed index number. If you want to rename with an index number, use something like Renamer, where you can sort according to date or whatever, and then add an index number as either or prefix or suffix, so that the base name for each file remains unchanged.

wwaag

[Paul Gregory]

When I return from a holiday & am finished shooting I like to view all stills & videos & then just whittle away at the file so as to eliminate all of things I can’t possible ever use. You might have tried shooting a scene & someone walks into view that you don’t want or you decide that another shot leaves you with what you had wanted & that the other ones are superfluous. I do this so that there are fewer pieces that you have to end up sorting into a video project. All of these remaining stills & videos are the ones I wish to keep & since they were all taken with synchronized times anything taken from whatever source should be able to be accessed easily & having the ‘date taken’ & the name of where it was taken should help immeasurably.

In this file would be stills that I might like to crop or enhance or videos that I would like to trim.

My Sony HD camcorder came with a a program called PMB which went some of the way to achieving this since you could do simple cropping & enhancement of stills or take a 40 second clip & just keep 6 seconds of it or do a still capture. It could display the stills & videos together in date taken sequence a I recall. It could even rename either the the videos or stills but only one at a time.

The PMB program was replaced by Sony with another which took things further away from what I wished to achieved.

Incidentally I have a friend who was an identical Sony camcorder which also has a large hard drive which he recons he will never fill with newly taken video files & had the idea that as he finished each new project he could use some of the unused space on the camcorders hard drive to store completed projects. I told him that I don’t think that he can use his camcorder as a storage device.

In the mean time I have been using Adobe Photoshop Elements to import stills & videos & then display them either singularly or together. Unfortunately since I don’t have Adobe Premier installed as well I don’t get to see thumbnails for the videos, just blank empty frames.

Thanks in advance

[Wayne Waag]

[Paul Gregory]

After reading and re-reading your first and now last post, I just don’t see where you have a problem that requires another bit of software. It’s really simple for what you say you want–just use folders as JR suggested. Holidays are sequential–day1, day2, etc. You have photos–videos. day1-photos, day1-videos, etc. What could be easier. Go through each folder, and get rid of what you don’t want. Delete photos–do basic cuts editing for your video assets. Once finished, begin assembly editing. First day 1. Begin with a story line. For holidays it’s pretty easy–its usually sequential. Tell your story by adding photos and the edited video clips. Unless I’m missing something completely, no offense, but I believe you’re overthinking the problem–just get on with it and do it and have some fun.

wwaag