[Jeff Schaap]

Hey Dan,

We use the VG10 (the poor man’s FS100) and had the same trouble. I’m assuming that the FS100 also shoots AVCHD and generates MTS files just like the VG10. CatDV cannot play the files back because Quicktime (the playback engine) can’t play them back. We tried Xuggle and in our environment at least it was awful and did not play back acceptably.

But we did find a work around… we use Woker Node to scan our footage directories for .MTS files. Worker Node then sends a command (command line input) to a program Called ClipWrap (free). ClipWrap re-wraps (not transcodes) the .MTS into ProRes files (very fast). The ProRes files are then placed in the preview path relative to the .MTS file’s original location. So, when you go to a catalog and try to play a particular .MTS file CatDV “sees” the ProRes preview (or proxy) and plays that instead. What is also awesome is that when we drag and drop .MTS clips from CatDV to Premiere it pulls the original .MTS files (which is what we want to use in Premiere) and not the ProRes “previews”.

As an aside, VLC, the free Media player DOES play MTS files and I wish CatDV could just have that as an option for a playback engine (like Xuggle) and life would be a lot easier for us.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Schaap

[Jeff Schaap]

Thanks Petros, I am in a Mac environment and forgot to mention it. Can you expand a little on the “rsync/shared folder/automator setup”? I know what Automator is but haven’t ever used it. If it’s too much to get into in a post I understand.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Jeff Schaap]

Mac, Snow Leopard, 16 GB of RAM, Dual Quad Xeons on our most robust systems. However, as I said, we have used it on different (Mac) machines (dual core towers and laptops) and the issue is the same. Randomly bombs during transcription.

Being on a proxy or original file doesn’t seem to change it either. We have tried both and still get crashes. Since we do have a large contingent of files that do not have (and do not need) proxies I can’t really test the “proxies only” (all the time) theory.

I would love it if someone from Squarebox could weigh in.

Jeff

[Jeff Schaap]

We tried Xuggle as well on our Mac 8-core towers and it couldn’t play the files. Alternately, we created a WorkerNode routine that creates ProRes proxies by command-lining ClipWrap and places them in the preview search path. This works great once the proxies are generated.

What would be awesome is if there was a way for CatDV to utilize VLC as the playback engine for MTS because it can do it natively. Then all these WorkerNode gymnastics would be unnecessary.

[Jeff Schaap]

We use AVCHD cameras that created MTS files that cannot by played back by the Quicktime engine within CatDV… so there is no playing them back after they are imported.

To solve this we automated the creation of ProRes proxies with CatDV Worker Node. The Worker Node routine places the proxies in a path that is identical to the location of the actual MTS file but under a different “parent” directory. So let’s say my original is located here:

/volumes/maxxraid1/footage/domestic/interviews/000325.MTS

the routine puts the proxies at:

/volumes/maxxraid1/catdv_previews/footage/domestic/interviews/000325.mov

Under the “media search paths” path I set:

/volumes/maxxraid1/catdv_previews/

as the place to look for proxies when the original cannot be played and it works great! In your case you don’t have to use Worker Node… you could do your own flavor of this trick… I think you just need to place your camera-generated proxies in a certain place and then tell CatDV where to look and it should start working for you.

[Jeff Schaap]

I got it… the trick was to change Pixel Aspect Ratio from “Automatic (based on source)” to Widescreen (1.212). I guess that makes sense since the original is square pixels and the target is widescreen aspect… right?

It definitely made the difference. I rendered one with it on automatic and one with it on widescreen and the ws once worked properly.

Hope this helps anyone else facing this same frustrating issue.

Jeff

[Jeff Schaap]

I have been banging my head on the wall with this same issue for a few days… I did read somewhere else about using cropping in the export window to achieve the correct proportions- 12 pixels off the top and bottom.

The first time I exported (MPEG2-DVD) Premiere output a file that was perfect and looked correct in Encore. Of course, the client wanted a change after that version. After making the changes I exported again with the exact same settings but Premiere seemed to “ignore” my cropping. The output file (.m2v) is rendered as if the crop setting were not there… and the “bars” appear in the Encore preview and on the burned disc. argh!

It have “Use Maximum Render Quality” checked and I wonder if that is screwing it up… by why would it?

I am starting with .mts files at 1920×1080… anyone have wisdom on where I am going wrong?

Many Thanks,
Jeff Schaap

[Jeff Schaap]

Wow… that is… complex. Yet brilliant.

Could we just RAID mirror the system drive?

Thanks,
Jeff

[Jeff Schaap]

Hey Guys,

Thank you so much for you input into this issue. I ended up using a different program, A Better Finder Renamer, to rename all the files in chronological order with iterations… 0001, 0002, 0003, etc. Not the desired way of doing things but hey, sometimes you have to make due. The chronological order in which the files were shot is really the most important thing in this case, not the exact time and date. However, it would be a great feature and make life easier if Worker Node could retain the the camera’s timestap (probably not the right nomenclature) on the file. I realize that some footage formats have this metadata built in but some do not so if it could retain the file creation time and date as well that would be even better.

Thanks,
Jeff Schaap

[Jeff Schaap]

Thanks again for the responses. Yes, moving forward, I can create new catalogs based on the acquisition of footage. If all the catalogs I create can be seamlessly searched as one large database then that is great.

What is a more of a problem right now is dealing with the thousands of files we already have. You asked about our structure. It looks something like this at the root level:

Continent 1
Continent 2
Continent 3
Continent 4
Continent 5
Continent 6

with country sub-folders beneath them that look like this:

Continent 1
|___Country 1
|___Country 2
|___Country 3, etc.

Continent 2
|___Country 1
|___Country 2
|___Country 3, etc.

Continent 3
|___Country 1
|___Country 2
|___Country 3, etc.

and then region folders:

Continent 3
|___Country 1
. |___Region 1
. |___Region 2, etc.

Most of the video clips are in the region folders. Some that cannot be classified reside at the country level.

I suppose the best way to handle it is to create a catalog for each region, since the total number of clips inside those folders is well below 3000, then create country catalogs for those clips not in the region folders. I assume this is the most logical way to do things but if not please point me in the right direction.

My only question is what happens if any of the video clips are moved subsequent to them being imported in these catalogs? If, after having been cataloged, I discover clips the wrong folder and move them to the correct location won’t that invalidate the catalog(s)? What do you do to handle that? Can CatDV move files and update the appropriate catalog(s)?

Thanks,
Jeff Schaap