why duplicates for Vegas..

[John Rofrano]

[charles martin] “The strange thing about this is that you can bring an EX video/file into Vegas using ‘import media’… but only one file at a time…which obviously isn’t practical.”

Import Meida has always supported multiple files. All you do is use Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select more than one file. Does this not work with EX1 files? because it works that way with every other file.

[charles martin] “My hope is that Sony will address this issue and allow ‘batch’ imports someday..that would solve the problem pretty easily.”

The Device Explorer is the proper way to import EX1 files not import media. It is my understand that Import media does exactly the same thing as dragging and dropping the file into the media bins. It is simply there for people who don’t like to drag and drop. That why I’m surprised that you can use import media but you can drag and drop the files. It doesn’t make sense unless you’re dragging the wrong files.

~jr

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

[Charles Martin]

you’re right about the drag and drop thing. If i open one of the files and drag the mp4 into Vegas there is no problem.
The problem seems to be that when you store EX material to a hard-drive it creates something called a ‘bpav’. Within that are all the video clips you’ve recorded each with a name…so.. every time you start and stop the camera you create a video clip. For the sake of explanation you would get something like: ABC_0001, ABC_0002, ABC_0003, and so on. You use something called Sony clipbrowser to then copy the video clips you want from the Media card (from the camera) onto an external or internal hardive. When you open up the folder where you’ve stored them you get a list of all those files. But within each one of those clips there are 5 folders…Only one is the MP4 video that you actually want. So if i open up ABC_0001 i will see an MP4 file, an SMIL file, a PPN file, an XML document and a BIM file. So i can highligh for example ABC_0001, ABC_0002, ABC_0003 but since its only highlighting essentially some kind of folder wrapper that contains the MP4 file Vegas won’t import it. Again..i can open these files to access the MP4 file (which has the same name by the way..i.e. ABC_0001) and drag it in or import it…but it has to be done one by one which is simply not feasible if you’ve got 200files.
This is a problem—if i’ve already copied all my video material to a hardrive i want vegas to work off that…but i can’t do that unless i import one by one which isn’t practical. I CAN import using ‘device explorer’ but then Vegas creates duplicate copies which i really don’t need. I’m going to try to contact sony about this but i really do appreciate your time and assitance with it..you’ve certainly helped me eliminate what can and can’t be done.

[John Rofrano]

OK I understand what’s going on now.

Do you have any plans of archiving your footage? I would think so. In which case, I view the hard drive with footage as your master copy/archive. Then Device Explorer makes a working copy on your hard drive for editing. This is a perfectly reasonable tapeless workflow.

Were you really going to edit the only copy of the footage that you had? What if you accidentally deleted a file? What if you saved over a file? I would NEVER edit the original footage under ANY circumstance and would never start editing until I have safe copies of all of my original footage. I would recommend that you do the same. Hard drives are cheap. Re-shooting footage is not!

A tapeless workflow without safe copy backup is an accident waiting to happen.

~jr

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

[Charles Martin]

….Agree …100 per cent. In fact…I have a copy of all material on a separate hardrive. I put another copy onto the internal hardrive of my computer thinking Vegas would use that one after I ‘imported’ everything…
As mentioned ..I tried the ‘import media’ function…that didn’t work as explained before. I then used ‘device explorer’…which worked but I noticed that my internal hardrive space was dropping..so when I checked i discovered Vegas had made a second copy during the import…
The issue for me is internal hardrive space…obviously I don’t have the room to have an extra copy there—- so for me i will continue creating a copy on a separate external drive (or two) then navigate to device explorer to import to vegas….making sure i have enough space on my internal hardrive for such an import.
Unless I am missing something the only problem I see is that I’m going to use up space pretty quickly on the internal hardrive this way…..fine if I know I’m not going to ever need to return to an edited project down the road… but what if I do…? Clearly if i wipe that stuff off the internal drive that Vegas has created its not going to have anything to edit with…correct? Sure–i’ll have the backup on a hardrive or two somewhere but thats not going to help me if i need to come back and edit a project that I’ve saved on Vegas……again—maybe i’m missing something ..or maybe i need to check whats going on when device explorer does the import…maybe theres a way i can direct it to import it to a different external hardrive that way i don’t use up the space on the internal hardrive.
…..

[Charles Martin]

—I’ve just done some experimenting and indeed…there is a way to tell Device Explorer where to ‘save’ the material. I was able to direct Vegas to import the video material to a separate external hardrive…. so problem solved.
Much appreciated ..thanks to your thoughts and advice I was able to come up with the best workflow for this and it should solve my dilemma. Thanks…

[John Rofrano]

Yea, I was going to say there must be a way to change where Device Explorer imports to. This means you can have Vegas make the working copy for you on an external drive. Glad you got the workflow sorted out.

~jr

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

[Charles Martin]

Many thanks! …your questions and advice helped me get it sorted out…much appreciated..