limits of clip browser
 

Is there any experience of the limits of files in clipbrowser.
At this moment I work with HDV and I archive every clip as AVI into my windows explorer. With explorer I can find every clip by name and date (or thumpnail).

Now I switch to an EX-3. I can preview my clips only with Clipbrowser (sorry when I am wrong), so I am curious what limits of clips clipbrowser can handle at once (can I fill up my 4 TB harddrive and load it all in clipbrowser or must I make different maps)

Thanks for sharing some experience

As I understand it, if you're using a Mac and Final Cut Pro you should be using XDCAM Transfer. If you're on a PC, you can use Clip Browser. Clip Browser only allows you to transfer footage from the camera to your hard drive, for archiving, etc... It won't unwrap the files and "rewrap" them into a different format.

Many PC based editing systems can edit the native MP4 files. On the Mac, FCP cannot open those files, so XDCAM Transfer rewraps them into proper Quicktime movies.

XDCAM Transfer is available for free from Sony's website. Do a Google search to find the latest version (version 2.8).

copy your footages to a directory on your hard drive, one per card content (like : cardA, cardB, cardC...)
Open clip browser, browser to the directory and select EVERY directory at the same time. You will see them in clipbrowser AND clip browser will be able to link clips that are spread on many cards.

I don't know how many "clips" you can handle before clip browser crashes, but I think it's a lot.
Remember that, to be able to use the clips, you will have to "convert" them, so keep some place on your hard drive for that.

I hope this is what you asked for.
Also, you can watch the content of the clips easily with the latest version of VLC. Just browse inside the card folders to find the .MP4 files and drop them on VLC.

This is an interesting comment... I always manage to cause the clip browser to crash and it is very frustrating. I'm not sure whether I'm getting off the topic but this is what's happening to me.

- I shoot always in 1080 50i
- I usually have between 450 - 550 shots (per wedding)
- I record on a 32GB card
- I copy all the clips with the clip browser (without any crashing) onto my hard drive
- Then I use clip browser to convert the mp4 files to MXF. Here the clip browser never manages to convert all the clips in one go. It always crashes somewhere between half to three quarters of the files chosen.

Any help? I'm using a HP workstation with 4GB ram, Caldigit hard drives and Sony's card reader.

Thanks

I don't know how it works on windows, but are you sure you "copy" the clips to your hard drive using clip browser ?
What if you copy them by drag/drop in a desktop folder ?
Then, add all the folders in clip browser for copy ?

Whatever, it seems your problem comes from the MXF conversion, not the real use of clip browser.

Are you using the latest version of clip browser ?
Maybe you should report a bug to Sony
Maybe you should ask for a mac (too late for christmass though... :))

1)We were constantly told to use the clip browser to copy files instead of drag and drop because this is the only sure and safe way

2)Yes the problem is in the conversion to mxf whilst using the clip browser - it is the browser that is crashing - so I'm assuming that the browser is at fault.

3)....I did have a long dilemma wether to go for pc or mac..... I chose pc because the faster than real time encoding of the Matrox Axio card won me over....

My question is this. Why are you copying the files to your hard drive and THEN converting? Why don't you simply do the conversion from the card? I've never even thought to copy the whole mess with the clipbrowser to the drive, and THEN convert. It takes up twice as much space unnecessarily.

That said, I have copied the entire BPAV folder with exporer to a hard drive, then used ClipBrowser to convert them all. But that's just when I was dumping in the field.

Clipbrowser has never crashed on any of the 3 machines I've installed it on. I and dump footage once a week, and have for months now.

I'm copying both the BPAV folder with the clip browser and then I use the clip browser to convert the files from the card to mxf. I know that I'm using twice the amount of space but it a double guarantee that I have two copies of the files before formatting the card. (I also copy everything then on a second hard drive as backup). When I finish editing (in this case the wedding) I delete the mp4's and keep only the mxf - thus gaining more hd space. By this way, if something erroneously has happened during the file conversion to mxf, I would still have the original mp4 files.

I'm also having to convert to mxf since the Matrox Axio drivers have a bug - the Axio should be able to edit mp4's natively but it is not so (it causes PPRO CS3 to crash when a large number of mp4's are imported). We are still waiting for an update on this issue.

Since I've never heard anyone complaining about clip browser crashing, I'm assuming that there is something wrong at my end - I will start by re-installing the clip browser. BTW I'm using the latest clip browser.

for Mac...
 

I have found that you can transfer directly from the card to a .MOV file, using the Transfer application. For many purposes in the Mac world, this is sufficient. No need to import or store any of the stuff in the BPAV folder(s).

However, if you have a clip that is split over two cards, then you must use the Clip Browser to bring both cards' contents onto the hard disk so they can be put together..... (I simply try to avoid splitting a clip if at all possible.)

Jim McQuaid