Sony Clipbrowser question
 

Hi folks can anyone tell me how to make timecode appear under the movie icons in the Explorer window? My icons show duration, date, and file name. We are shooting and keeping notes based on the camera timecode. Let's say I have five takes of a scene, when I look in the explorer window it only shows duration and it would be nice to see the timecode and be able to open that file instead of having to double click each file and look for timecode on the preview window.

any thoughts,
Victor

Anyone has any ideas?????

Pretty sure you can't do it. It's not one of the display options in preferences.

Thanks Alister, do you know of any other way to look at the clips and be able to see timecode. Perhaps other software? I'm just looking to save the editor some time.

I'm not sure how this would save an editor any time at all. Any editor that doesn't look at all the footage isn't much of an editor in my view. All I want in a camera report is slate, and which takes the director felt were print takes. I'll start there, and look to other material if I can't get a clean pass with the print takes.

The thing that would save the editor the most time in the future is if you took notes by clip name instead of timecode. It's a lot easier to tell the the editor to use a clip called "NAME_00001" than to have him try to find a timecode number such as "17:13:24:00".
Just a suggestion.

Perrone, I think you are contradicting yourself in this answer. If no one hands you the camera report, or what the director felt were best takes, wouldn't it take you longer to look at all the footage to make decisions? You would waste a lot of time looking thru footage that will never get used.
I just shot eight days worth of training video footage, a PA logged all of our best clips, chosen by my client, based on time code. Why would any editor want to watch bad takes all day long? I don't want to pay a editor to sit there and watch all the footage! If I give him only best takes, he can save time in converting just the files the clients approved and get to editing. How is that not saving time? So in my view, and my clients, the quicker he gets done the less edit hour charges we will get. :)

I'm not contradicting myself at all.

Yes, it would take me longer to look at the footage. I consider that part of the job. If you don't want me to consider a take for a cut, don't give it to me. That would save me not only time, but disk space too. I don't know what will "get used" until I look at things. The take's that are supposedly "good" may have had a boom in them, or a plane flying by, or anything else you might have missed on set. In the edit bay, I get to screen all that. And maybe I need some of those outtakes to save the scene.

So you're PA logged footage by time code and not by take? Did you slate? And if not, why not do what Doug suggested and mark your takes by clip name. Doing it by timecode is BEGGING for trouble. If you don't want to pay an editor to watch what you consider bad footage, don't give it to them. Or cut it yourself. Outtakes are options for an editor. They can get him or her out of a jam. if you don't want to pay someone to make YOU look better, then cut it yourself.

I guess I am just not a fan of the "get it done quick, get it done cheap" mentality in my projects. I'd rather take less money per hour as an editor and do the job right.

Beside the whole "where do I need an editor for?" discussion, there is a good point in what's Victor is missing in the the clip-browser software. I've a production company, couple of directors employed. For years they where used to "log" with timecode. I do sometimes edit, and a lot of times I ask something like; "do you have a better question for this?" or so, when cutting an interview. Director looks down on log note and says; "yeah, on timecode bladieblah... ". Even if I have seen all the footage twice I wouldn't know it by head, and than the timecode could come in handy. So yes, I can understand that Victor is missing that.

But Vincent... think of it like this..

If you're shooting on Film or on Tape.. even though you're running timecode, would you not want the reel name or the tape number to be logged? If you plan to reference the timecode later, then log the footage (with clip names) that suggest a starting and ending timecode.

I wonder if there are dailies with timecode burn on it.

We make about 4 TV shows a week. an average of 4/5 tapes, hours of footage per show of 30 minutes. We use like, 3 to 6 different freelance editors, and sometimes 4 editsets simultaneous. We are currently i bit to small for an "tape-ingest-guy, so a lot of times the directors ingest the day prior to the show, and "spot" the footage in timecode during the ingesting (this is all the old tape based way, hopefully gone since we just bought PMW350's). Turnaround of a TV show is mostly within one week, so pretty quick... So TIMECODE is sometimes a necessity around here...

Well taken Doug & Vincent. We thought about the clip # idea. The problem I encountered here is that you don't see clip name in the camera display( or at least I can't find how to ) of my EX1R. So we would have to stop after the take, switch the camera to media, wait for boot up and look at thumbnails for a clip #. See where I'm coming from. I have shot with this client for years but always tape based. Timecode has always been our norm. Finally decided to use my EX camera. We are working thru the process so my editor feels comfy with it.
Thanks

To Perrone: I'm not going to get into a argument of how I should or shouldn't have done things, how to edit, the qualities of a good editor, what I consider cheap, frugal, slate or no ,or whatever else. All I asked is if someone knew how to display timecode in the Icons in clip browser. BTW a job can be done well, cheaply and quickly, if you are given the right people & tools.

Victor,

There's a much easier way to see the clip name than the way you are doing it. I use this method it all the time -- but I look forward to the day when Sony finally gets a clue and allows you to display the clip name in the viewfinder while you're shooting. I have been begging for this feature for 4 years. Good news, though!! They just added that fucntion to the F800/700 in last month's firmware update. If they have finally gotten around to making it possible on those cameras, then I have to assume it may be just around the corner for the EX cameras. Anyway, in the mean time, here's the work around.

Press the menu button and go to OTHERS > CLIP > TITLE PREFIX and setup your clip naming.
Press the menu button to exit and then begin shooting.
Anytime you want to see the clip name again (between takes), just press the Menu button again and you'll automatically go back to the OTHERS > CLIP page without having to drill down to it.
The number shown on the menu will be the NEXT clip that will be recorded. So if you want to make a note about the take you just recorded, subtract 1 from the number shown.
Press the menu button to exit, and begin shooting again.

It's not ideal, but it works waaaaaaay better than timecode.

The only time I use timecode is when it is necessary to make notes during long-running clips -- such as interviews, press conferences, etc. where simply writing down the clip name would not provide enough precision to find the segment I need.

Another option for identifying good takes is to use ShotMarks, but I don't find them very helpful.

Vincent is talking about tape, in which case timecode is valuable. I'm not sure why he's talking about tape here, however.

Victor asks: "why would someone want to look through bad takes all day?" In response, I ask: "Why are you keeping bad takes?" That's the beauty of these cameras. If the take sucks, you delete it.

Or maybe I'm seriously misunderstanding something.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to get into an argument with you. I see where you're coming from. And yea, not being able to see the clip number is a PITA. I'm going to have to try Doug's little trick tomorrow. I'll be filming all day so this might just be the ticket.