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What do I loose when I rename clips
Hi all,
I’m a professional photographer, starting to do more motion work.
I have always renamed my still images upon import, something like YYMMDD-XXXX.cr2. Giving each file a unique name has been extremely useful for a variety of situations.
For the motion work, I’m shooting Sony A7RIII. The camera creates several sidecar files including “mediapro.xml” and xml files that correspond to each MP4 file. Somewhere along the way I read that it’s important to keep the folder structure intact for the metadata.
However, as I continue to create more footage, I have run into some big limitations of never renaming files. In addition, I’ve never seen an instance (that I know of) where it’s been useful to have the XML data.
I’m very inclined to start a workflow in which I rename the images on import, but before diving in I wanted to see what I could potentially be missing, or if there’s anything I need to be aware of before doing this.
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3 Replies
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You could transcode the clips you want to keep to a high-quality intermediate codec like ProRes on Mac, or DNxHD on PC, and in the process rename and then you will have stand-alone clips that are not dependent on the original file structure and sidecar files being intact. This would also allow you to ignore/discard out-takes you will never use, which would have to otherwise be kept as part of original SD card structure.
The downside of this process is of course the extra time involved in transcoding, and the new files will typically be much larger than the originals so more storage, although big storage is pretty inexpensive these days. The new clips will edit easier than the more highly-compressed camera original clips.
Check out Adobe Prelude CC, which is like Lightroom for video. Sony Catalyst is similar for a log and transcode workflow. Either of these apps will aid greatly in being able to ORGANIZE your footage as well, rather than being forced to keep original files and folders with the generic naming.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Cheers, this is super helpful, and gives me a lot to explore.
While it’s possible these tools will render my original question to be irrelevant for practical purposes… I’d still like to know… if for only to have a greater understanding of what these XML files are for.
In other words: If a file is separated from it’s original XML data (via name change or anything else), will this be an issue? I haven’t found it to be detrimental in some quick experiments, but I do wonder if I’m missing something.
Again, thanks for the thoughtful answer. I’m downloading Prelude now!
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Whether you have problems with renaming is mostly based on the format/file structure the camera uses. For instance, I have pulled AVCHD clips from folders of consumer camcorders and they stand on their own just fine. With other cameras, you can run into issues such as no sound, or sound with no video, or other oddities. Just depends. Sometimes the NLE will not properly understand the video codec, frame rate, etc. without the other files to help identify/interpret the clips for proper playback.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers
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