I'm cataloging about 45 hr of video shot for a non-profit documentary. Material is mostly DV-AVI shot on a Panasonic AG-DVX100p, and 1080i AVCHD shot on a Canon HF-100.

The initial phase is clipping without recoding using AVI Splitter, etc, and tagging the clips into an Excel spreadsheet. I've evaluated various cataloging software options, and have decided (for us) the manual approach is better.

I'm sure many people have done similar things. Does anyone have suggestions for what metadata proved most useful? E.g, Orig. filename, clip filename, length, camera, shot location, comments, etc.

The more metadata the better, but since it's a manual process, I don't want more columns than necessary. For those who have done this before, what metadata proved useful and what did not?

What editing software will you be using? I use Avid Liquid (now discontinued) and that allows you to import spreadsheets laid out in a prescribed style and use them as Edit Decision Lists.

Whatever software you're using probably has a similar facility. What metadata you put on the spreadsheet will depend on what your software will accept.

My software is Premiere Pro CS5 but I'm not the main editor.

Our primary editors use SpeedEdit, don't know what version.

Thanks for the advice, will examine what spreadsheet import capability these have.