[Craig Seeman]

Simply restore. It’ll fix things just right (so far with me). Once I dump the card I reformat rather than delete clips just in case.

[Craig Seeman]

But what’s the question?

I think it would be awkward to use clip names during the shoot. You can set the clip naming in the camera so that’s not an issue. The problem is unless you keep going back to the menu it’s very easy to lose track of the clip name. You could go into media playback on the camera to check that but that’s awkward too.

Easier is to use Time of Day (Clock) time code and sync it to your watch. Then you can just say Joe Bigg’s interview starts 12:42:30 and the time code in the NLE will match the time on your watch. With Clock time code, once synced to your (the producer’s, etc) watch no one needs to look at the camera. When subjects starts talking, look at your watch and note the time. Nobody needs to talk to each other at all other than hearing “rolling” or some such.

[Craig Seeman]

I vaguely remember someone at Sony saying they went with MP4 rather than MXF for the EX series because they thought it would be easier for many NLEs to handle.

At least they say they’re going to fix the Clip Browser (Mac at least) so it’ll create a proper BPAV folder from an orphaned MP4 file.

[Craig Seeman]

Contacted Sony.

Clip Browser SHOULD allow you to import an MP4 file an create a BPAV folder. It apparently doesn’t correctly create the XML and other metadata. They discovered this last week so they told me.

There will be a Clip Browser 1.5 that should fix this. When that happens you’ll be able to import MP4, create new BPAV folder, rewrap to MOV using the XDCAM Transfer Tool (Mac).

[Craig Seeman]

While I didn’t follow the linked method Andy points to I did attempt what might be Sony’s procedure and it failed.

Failed procedure:
Use Import function in Sony Clip Browser (Intel Mac). In Sony Clip Browser Manual it says you can do this with “unregistered” MP4 clips. It creates a BPAV folder with metadata. Such folder shows in XDCAM Transfer tool 2.5.1 as containing 0 clips.

[Craig Seeman]

I’m also thinking through a similar type solution that may work. I’ll test and report. It MIGHT be even easier then the method they suggest.

[Craig Seeman]

[chris Cummings] “I don’t have Flip4Mac yet, but tried the demo on a quick client piece and even with the highest settings it was pretty ugly.”

I have no problem doing WMV HD with Flip4Mac. I’m not sure what you mean by “highest” settings. Start with a preset and tailor.

[chris Cummings] “I just saw a piece on Vimeo the other day, but this would be something we sell. I’m halving the image size to 640 x 360.”

Vimeo has private screening/by invitation only. Quality not good enough? On a modern PC I actually have no problem playing full screen 720p. Easily from the desktop and manageable for web playback. Target a data rate of 3000kbps and a cable modem from 5000kbps-15000kbps should handle this without a hitch.

More and more of my clients are asking for full HD size files given that most business have the bandwidth. Targeting consumers would bring things down a bit but in my area even typical DSL speeds are 1500kbps and faster DSL packages are 3000kbps. There are people with 768kbps DSL service but often that’s not the target and certainly wouldn’t be for business to business in my area. That’s why knowing your target is critical.

[Craig Seeman]

[chris Cummings] “I’ve run a number of tests and our 63GB file is still coming out hundreds of megabytes, even at low quality. “

Do you have limited server space? Data rate should be more important than file size.

If you’re targeting Windows users you can choose WMV. Flash will work but there may well be some corporate environments that block the install of Flash player as well as Quicktime (although I think blocking players is less and less frequent given the dominance of Flash).

You need to know your audience’s potential data rate (Internet connection speed). If you need a free screening place you might consider Vimeo which can display 720p30 and allows the viewer to select Standard Def viewing if they don’t have the internet connection speed. They use Flash 8 (On2VP6).

Of course you can do this on your own server. In any case you really need to have an idea of the connection speed/quality you’re targeting to know what you want to compress it to.

[Craig Seeman]

It may well depend on whether your material benefits from being shot at 35mbps VBR vs 25mbps CBR. There may be little difference for talking heads but it might be significant for sports or images that change from frame to frame such as rippling water or billowing leaves.

[Craig Seeman]

It really really really works!

If you don’t have Episode Pro 5 you might have to render the ffmpegz in your timeline in FCP but you can certainly create a high data rate file in ffmpegz. Episode Pro 5 actually allows one to encode to XCDCAM EX (all flavors) MOV which works in FCP but Episode Pro can’t handle the MP4 source.

In any case ffmpegz can handle XDCAM EX MP4 source and both the audio and video came through.