XDCAM Transfer

[Craig Seeman]

ClipBrowser from card to hard drive
Backup BPAV to another location (you can use ClipBrowser for that too)
XDCAM Transfer to wrap to .mov

I don’t see the point to wrapping to .mov a second time which seems to be what you’re doing from the description.

ClipBrowser for copying.
XDCAM Transfer for wrapping.

You might consider ShotPut if you want to do BPAV to two locations at once.

[Bob Cole]

[Craig Seeman] “ClipBrowser from card to hard drive
Backup BPAV to another location (you can use ClipBrowser for that too)”

My bad terminology. I meant Clip Browser. I use the Log & Transfer function through FCP.

But my question stands. If I use Clip Browser to move files to two locations, is there any alternative to going back into Preferences each time?

re ShotPut: I don’t appreciate the per-CPU license. Although I understand the need to combat piracy, it should be an up-to-two or three CPU license. I want to be able to use software both in the field and in the editing room, i.e. on my laptop (which has an ExpressCard slot) and my MacPro (which I use for the actual editing).

[Ian Cook]

Yes, you can click and drag from the card in one Explorer Window to any location in the 2nd Explorer Window. The ‘Copy All’ location stored in the prefs is just for the ‘Copy All’ function (i.e. a quick copy to a pre-established location). Both copy methods utilize the verification if it is enabled.

[Brent Dunn]

OK, I’ll try to simplify the mud.

Always use the original BPAV folder for your archiving.

You don’t need to use the transfer tool for this. Just open the SxS card and copy the entire BPAV folder to your drive. After it’s copied, drag another copy (either from your drive or the SxS card) to your 2nd ARCHIVE or BACKUP drive. This will give you the backup of the original file.

Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Films
DunnRight Video.com
Video Marketing Toolbox.net

Sony EX-1,
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D
Mac Pro Tower, Quad Core,
with Final Cut Studio

HP i7 Quad laptop
Adobe CS-5 Production Suite

[Bob Cole]

Thanks. That sounds great. The dragging behavior is a bit dicey, but I’m working through another problem right now so I can’t prove that the software itself is at fault.

The workflow I’ve developed is:

1. In field: SxS card into MacBook Pro, and usingClip Browser, make copy with verification to a small, bus-powered external firewire drive
2. In editing room: move firewire drive to MacPro (main editing platform)
3. Using Clip Browser on MacPro, make copies from firewire drive to RAID (RAID5)
4. Sometimes – Clip Browser on MacPro copies from RAID to a second external firewire drive
5. Always – From a networked PC with an LTO3 drive, copy from RAID to LTO3 tape.

Pretty cumbersome, but if I don’t have at least three copies, I just can’t bring myself to format that SxS card.

I’ve had recurrent problems with Step 4. The CRC verification reports an error at some point in the middle, and the copy is aborted. This may simply be a matter of a problem with the external hard drive.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Brent Dunn] “You don’t need to use the transfer tool for this.”

That used to be my SOP, and I never had a problem, but having read some cautionary advice here, I am now trying to use software that copies and verifies the copy.

[Rick Diamond]

Bob, once you’ve used Clip Browser to transfer from the SxS to the firewire drive, I don’t see the need to use it again. Just transfer the BPAV from the firewire drive to wherever you want it. You’ll also have a backup of the files as re-wrapped MOVs so your method really seems like quite an overkill.

Rick

[Bob Cole]

Thanks Rick. Actually I wouldn’t have the duplicated MOV’s ordinarily – I said “Transfer” when I meant “Browser.” In practice, though, when I have time I backup everything – BPAV’s and MOV’s – to LTO3.

I never bothered with verification until recently, and had no problems. So, all of this CRC-checking is relatively new to me. But I don’t understand why you’d say that it is vital to do it for SxS->Copy #1, and not vital for Copy #1->Copy #2. Or am I not getting the point — i.e. do you encounter more errors in going from SxS->hard drive than hard drive->hard drive?

[Rick Diamond]

Once you’ve verified the transfer using Clip Browser, it seems to me you’d be good to go. I don’t think there is a reason to slow down your process by using Clip Browser after that. Also, for my workflow, it seems more important to redundantly back up the re-wrapped MOVs than the BPAV.

Rick

[Bob Tompkins]

FWIW i use Clip Browser “Copy all” to copy all of the files from the SDHC card to a 1TB Internal Hard Drive on my MacPro. I use the CRC check which takes extra time but I am not usually in enough of a hurry to not check the data. On a few occasions Clip Browser did stop the transfer of the data. I assumed it was checking the data as it was supposed to. I did the transfer again and it was fine. I then change the file number that Clip Browser assigns to something that makes sense to me and use XDCam transfer to import the files from the 1TB hard drive to Final Cut Server. Now I have two copies of the files. Only now will I erase the clips.

I load a ton of clips everyday and have only lost one file to date (it was a static electricity event). It is amazing how many TB hard drives I am going through. I am considering LTO back-up for each drive but have not found a system that works with Mac.