How do you guys do ?
 

Hi there

Just a quick question.

How do you guys go about capturing your video footage off your camera to pc?

For example do you load it all on in one go or do you batch all your shots?

I'm using the Matrox RTx2 with Adobe PP2 and the Sony Dcr VX2100 and I was just wondering the best way to go about geting off the camera then into Adobe ready for easier editing.

I look forward to your comments.

Regards
Wayne

I capture the tape in its entirety to a folder on the drive. After capturing individual folders are created for each segment of the tape. Clips from the main capture folder are moved to a pre ceremony folder, ceremony clips to a ceremony folder, reception clips to a reception folder, etc..

After all of the clips in the main capture folder are moved i use the batch rename function of the irfanview software. Irfanview is a free download available here:

http://www.irfanview.com/

I repeat this for all of the tapes.

When finished I have a pre-ceremony folder with two subfolders
Camera One, Camera Two.

A ceremony folder with three subfolders
camera one, camera two, camera three.

A reception folder with two subfolders,
camera one, camera two.

The subfolders have more specific names than camone such as balcony cam.
Each folder contains the clips numbered sequentially beginning with 001.


In premiere the folders are imported and each designated to its own sequence, this keeps the timeline and project windows organized.

hope this helps

I also capture it all. Much faster selecting clips on your computer then having to constantly rew and ff your tape, not to mention the wear you save on your transport :)

I usually name the clips accoring to their camera, etc. For example, on a wedding, I will do SmithWedding_002_C1, SmithWedding003_C2, etc. etc.

SmithWedding - description of the video
002, 003 - tape number)
C1, C2 - Camera angle

This makes it easy to work with. I keep a seperate piece of paper with what footage is actually there, like 001: Ceremony, 002: Reception, and so on

Although I use Final Cut, I think you can use this same technique

I too capture the complete tape. Put it in the deck hit capture and let it go. While thats going on 1 machine I edit on another. Once I'm ready to edit the job then I look at the clips, can't do anything about them anyway until then.
I agree, I don't need to FF and REW all the time. (this applies to weddings and seminar type work not work that has scenes setup such as informational or training videos)
I simply apply a name such a the B&Gs last names and tape number:IE 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 etc. I know pretty much whats on each tape and have marked the job bag label and shooters notes in the bag with that info.
Don

I used to REW/FF and choose the best bits.

Now I just capture the whole tape on one computer while I edit on another.

Even before I got my 2nd computer capturing the whole tape saved me heaps of time. It really improved the speed of my workflow.

I figure I've got to go through the footage anyway so why not be doubly productive by capturing the whole tape while I'm doing something else.

Im putting everything from a particular wedding into one folder.
name of b&g, cam# and tape number.

Im using scene detect.

it splits each clip.

i prefer this because it allows me to delete unused and not needed waste using adobe bridge.
on the timeline rightclick the clip, choose reveal in project, in the project window right click the clip & choose reveal in bridge. then delete from bridge.

It used to be that you would have to choose which sections of the tape you wanted to capture because hard drive space used to be so limited and more expensive. Nowadays, that isn't so much a problem so capturing the whole tape will probably work out better for you.

scene detect?
 

does PP CS3 have scene detect? if so, where?

Yes, capture the the complete wedding to your HDD, warts and all. Means that I have 5 hours on a Sunday morning to read the paper, there's far less wear and tear on the decks mechanism, GBs are cheap and huge chunks of the timeline can be cut away with one click of the mouse.

tom.

I capture the whole tape and Scene detect is a MUST for me..

This way, I can easily identify and remember bad clips by their thumbnail. If the whole tape is captured as one huge file, it's difficult to keep track the content in that video file.

This is where the Sony XDCAM EX comes in....

Stelios

flash memory based cameras like the Sony is welcoming but in the current iteration, it only solves two issues but creates others.

Solves: capture time is greatly reduced. Dropouts are history(hopefully).

Creates: Cost of media is high. You need a laptop onsite to dump your footage to.

If memory price comes down, then it would be a no brainer to go with a flash memory camera for event coverage.