Left/Right split of Sony MVC files?

[Matt Faw]

Originally Posted by Bruce Schultz

But I'm unclear as to why you can't go back to the camera originals you processed with PMB and start over again with CMU? Are the PMB processed files the only remaining versions?

That's right. When I was in Tucson, I tried pulling the footage off the camera, using CMU. When that didn't work, I first copied the entire file tree off the camera. I wish I had stopped right there, but I was worried that wouldn't work (this was well before I called you), and I had to clear the camera quickly, to make room for more interviews. So I went with the one solution that I had found to work, in the past, which was the PMB software that had come with the TD10. It was just me, being too rushed to figure CMU out, and too afraid to go with a solution that I hadn't tried before. So, I used PMB for the next couple days.

After that (after my phone call with you), I started copying the entire contents of the camera, again, and this allowed me to extract the files via CMU, and thus, split them into L/R. The remaining files are all PMB-only extracts, and those are the ones that are kicking my butt now.

[Matt Faw]

Originally Posted by David M. Cole

> You can always decode Cineform and set the decode preferences. That part of the codec is free. You will lose the ability to encode and modify metadata once the trials run out.
No problem. You can do it right in Quicktime7 or compressor - you can generate a left and right image sequence for After Effects.
You know - even if you DID have the Content Management Utility working, you'd have to transcode the resulting L&R H.264 files into an intermediate format with decent headroom (422 color) before you did any color work... so... this really isn't an extra step. Of course, you could have ingested into ProRes 422 for free - but - then you'd need Dashwood to cut it. And that workflow has many steps too.

Thanks again, David, for your feedback. You've given me a lot to think about, even though I'm still not quite sure what my next step should be. All weekend, I left files to convert to Cineform, on HDLink, and none of them processed; not sure why. And my Vegas trial just expired...

On the run-up to my big shoot in Tucson, all my attention was focused on production, but none of it on post. I thought I'd figure that out, once I got home. Foolish, in hindsight, because (as someone's signature points out), post is not an afterthought!

[David M. Cole]

[QUOTE=...I left files to convert to Cineform, on HDLink, and none of them processed[/QUOTE]

You need to use GoProStudioPro for the MVC files, not HDLink. Also, be sure to install AC3Filter 2.1 (32 AND 64 bit) to make sure the audio transcodes.

[Matt Faw]

Ahhh... I see. How nice. Thank you so much, David!

[Paul Newman]

How to Split Stereo MVC files that have been imported by Sony PMB software to seperate left and right channels using Sony CMU.

If you use Sony PMB soft to import files from say a TD10 to your edit system, and then find you want to split the files into separate L&R streams, you will find that PMB imported files will appear as "unsupported" in CMU and will be skipped.

I prefer to use Edius to split files, however, CMU is free, so..

1) Open your source file folder, locate each xml file for each clip, they will be named: file number.m2ts.modd - one for each clip.
2)Rename the extension for each xml file with the extension: file number.cmuprops
3)Now set the default programme to open the xml file as Notepad.
4)Now open each xml file and edit the last string in the file to read:

<key>XMLFileType</key><string>ModdXML CMU 2.0</string></dict></plist>

It looked like this before:

<key>XMLFileType</key><string>ModdXML</string></dict></plist>

All we are adding is "CMU 2.0" to the last but one string, note the "space"

Save and exit notepad, open CMU after modifying all your related xml files, and export your Land R seperate files.

If you are nervous, keep copies of your .m2ts.modd files..you can also edit, add camera data to the xml's as well if you need to.
Paul :-)

[Matt Faw]

Awesome! Paul, thank you so much for sharing what appears to be a powerful and timely fix!

At first, I wasn't getting it to work, because I was renaming it in Windows, where it wouldn't change the .modd suffix, but I then brought the files into Mac world, and renamed them there, and now (thus far) CMU handles those (formerly) PMB files, no problem. This has been a major technical stumbling block for me, so it's a great relief to get beyond it.

Thanks again! (and to everyone else who has made such great efforts to help out)!

-matt faw