Trimming the Fat
 

Due to the nature of most of my projects I tend to capture large clips (ie the entire tape) then break them down into subclips to export and reimport, to save on disk space. On a few projects I have my timeline all linked up to the one large file. Is there any easy way of chopping down this file and only keeping the pieces I am actually using within the timeline? I don't really want to have to go to timecode to break up the subclips then export them as self contained files then edit them back into the timeline with proper trimming/transitions and everything else...

Any suggestions?

Either log and capture in small chunks, usually scenes or similiar subject matter. This way you have smaller media to deal with.

OR

Go through your main captured clip and export and re-import the stuff you want, then toss the main clip. But this is a VERY BAD was to go about things. More time consuming than logging and capturing. And you may lose your timecode information, which is very important.

OR

Use the Media Manager to create a new project with your cut and only the clips used in it (with small handles...say 30 frames). Then you will have a project with ONLY the cut and ONLY the media used in that cut. Nothing else. Then you can toss the other media.

This is only recommended when you are done cutting the project, as all the other media will have been deleted.

I agree with Shane. It's really best not to capture full tapes, tempting though it may be. If you encounter a timecode break, a dropped frame, or another glitch, the whole capture file may be useless; it's happened to me. Ever since, I try to limit my captures to 20 minutes max. If you have long continuous segments, just overlap your captures by a few seconds. It's a simple matter to splice these back together later; I do it all the time with my performance archive tapes.

I used to avoid batch capturing myself too, but recently I've found that it really is much more efficient and it doesn't take all that much planning.

Ok, I used media manager on the projects that I didn't batch capture or clip capture. Worked great.

I don't mind batch capture, just my XL1 won't have any of it. If i set it up, I have to manually stop it about 30 seconds prior to the in point otherwise it will FF to the end of the tape and say it can't find the clip, makes no sense, but I think thats an entirely different thread. I really need a decent deck to batch capture from anyway...

Thanks guys.