Clip split across cards, how to stitch it back?
 

Almost filled first card, camera gives warning it's about to switch cards. Stop and restart recording. Get same message but keep it rolling.
Get back to base and connect camera via USB. Start exporting clips from card to HDD as MXF. Clip browser throws an error saying it can only partially export take. OK, I think, need to load rest of clip from other card. Only then did I realise each card is seen by XP as a different drive. No worries so far, bring card B into clip browser and proceed to export clips from it. First clip again causes the clip browser to flag an error. I should also mention that the split clip is flagged differently with a dropped shadow behind its thumbnail. Anyway I figure no problem, I'll stitch the clip together on the T/L.
Well that didn't work out too well either, there's clearly lots of frames missing from when the camera switched cards. So I figure I need to get the clip browser to do the stitching but how is what I'm not getting. If I can only mount one card at a time in the clip browser then I can't get it to do it. The only possible solution is to import all the clips from both cards as mp4s into the one folder on the HDD. If that's the way to go I'm OK with it but it means having two copies on my HDDs and the disk space is going to add up.

That's what the manual says. Have not tried it myself but to stich two clips together all you need to do is copy the two parts, one at the time, to the same destination using clip manager and they will automatically be combined. Does this not work for you?

I posted this in another thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....9&postcount=26

which is a longer version of what Ola just said.

The manual also says that a clip is split into separate files if the file exceeds 4GB -- this is a limitation of the FAT32 file system.
So you would also need the Clip Browser to combine the files.

The camera and the Clip Browser software use info in the XML files that are saved together with the MP4 files to identify the clips that need to be linked together.

Nor have I tried it, but if you have the opportunity (because you are cutting after seeing the warning) it's probably a good idea to manually switch cards with the button on the side of the camera.

Thanks,
that's not exactly how I was trying to do it. I was trying to go straight from the cards to the HDD and do the rewrap from mp4 to mxf in the one go for Vegas V8. I'll try again tomorrow. What I ended up with was two clips that should have been the one.The clips also were given odd names.

Judging by the fact that the clip manager was complaining I may need to do the copy and then do the rewrap, perhaps once it's in mxf it cannot do the stitch.

Just to be clear for everyone, this isn't the FAT32 split, it's having a clip span the two cards. In this case the total size of the two chunks is well under 4GB.

Anyway, it seems like we have to do it in two steps, anyway - simple and full SxS structure copy in the field, exporting back in the office...

As I mentioned in the other thread, it's not a 'straight' copy if the clip spans across cards.
You need to copy the clips using the EX clip brower -- this updates the XML file within the destination BPAV directory and creates a special directory in the BPAV/TAKR directory -- these 2 (XML file and TAKR directory) together contain information about the linked files.

You don't want to directly copy the two cards into the same location and overwrite the XML file.

Sure thing Bernard - if I said "simple" copy, I meant without exporting to mxf on the fly; still using the Clip Browser though.

I guess you're all on Windows.

On the Mac, using the XDCAM Transfer tool 2.1, I can simply mark in at the head of the first clip and out at the end of the 2nd clip and it imports. On the lower right side of the tool there's also a checkbox for "subclip" which I think does the same thing.

Leave both cards in the camera...
 

If you leave both cards in the camera and connect it to the computer via USB, they will automatically join in the XDCAM Transfer app and import as one clip.

The name is a little different from the unjoined clip - it's in all caps and ends with .SMI, at least on my box.

Yes, I'm on Windows, and my main off-loading method will be using the ExpressCard reader of my VAIO laptop. So, it has to be one card at a time - would prefer to export to mxf on-the-fly, but from what Bob is saying the chunks will not be seamlessly stitched this way...

You can copy the cards into folders named something clever like card1 card2 card3 and make sure you copy the BPAV folder and all files inside into those folders.

Then you can create a folder named AllCards, I have only tried this with the Cars1-3 folder and the AllCards folder in the same location, lets say a folder named TheShoot.

Then open up clip browser and point it to the folder AllCards and choose the menu item COMBINE and then you are asked what folders to combine. Choose Card1-3 and then clip browsers combine them into AllCards for you.

Thanks Andreas, this makes sense.

Not having the EX1 yet and only testing the Clip Browser on a couple of clips downloaded from the Internet, I don't quite get the purpose of the two folder panes. Your described procedure cann all be completed using just one of them - what the other for?

My guess after testing it allot with single clips, two and three card spanning clips etc, is that it has two folder panes for the average user using a EX1 and usb to computer connection and that have clips spanning a total of two cards.

Since it can read two cards at once it can combine two card spanning clips without using the combine feature and export them as mxf direct without copy to hard drive.

We had a clip spanning three cards and where forced to fix it using the combine feature.

If you have a clip spanning two cards you will see it as two clips if you read them both using usb. The filename will be similar but with a end name that I have forgotten showing you that its part of the same take split into two.

If you select part one and choose export to mxf it will read part one and two and create the mxf. If you only have card one in the camera it will start to do the mxf conversion but halt with an error saying its missing parts of the clip.

The clip browser is probably only a ugly quick hack, and will be redesigned in the future. If it ever will be a future for it when the NLEs get up to specs for EX1 direct import.

We have all our 14 now, so we have 28 cards to test spanning clips on :)