XDCam Clip Browser Always creates a strangely named folder
 

I'm starting to use the XDCam Clip Browser on my Mac to copy intact BPAV folders from the flash media (SxS or SDHC) to my hard drives. I used to just drag copy from the SxS or SDHC card to a hard drive, but it seems the Clip Browser utilizes a safer way to copy them using CRC (cyclic redundancy check) after copying the clips over.

Anyway, I have a quick question: I like to name the Folders enclosing my transfered BPAV folders from the XDCam memory cards with something like this: "2009-01-12 Moonrise over the bay." I like to have my transfered BPAV folder right inside the folder I've created.

The XDCam Clip browser seems to want to create another folder with something like the Date plus some other information, like "200901120923049020." I wind up moving the BPAV folder out of that strangely named folder into the root of the folder I custom named. Not a big deal but just an extra step.

My question is: Can I tell the XDCam clip browser not to create this folder? I'm sure it has some use but I don't want it.

Yeah, it does that.

I use a very similar naming convention to yours, I combine a nicely sortable datestamp with a reel number - 20090113-01, 20090113-02, etc. I've almost always used this convention assigning a reel to a distinct piece of media. It still works well now that I'm tapeless.

What I do with Clip Browser is let it create the folder name like it does, then quickly edit the folder name in Finder directly (I'm on a Mac). It's quick and easy and doesn't require any copying.

The next step for me is to use XDCAM Transfer to re-wrap the clips for FCP and throw them in their final resting place. Then I archive the BPAV folders on optical and the QT files on a loose SATA drive using a NewerTech VoyagerQ SATA dock (which rocks BTW).

Probably more info than you wanted, but I'm feeling verbose tonight. ;-)

Also, the name it picks isn't so strange, it's the date and time that Clip Browser made the directory.

After using Clip Browser to copy the clips to my 2 portable hard drives and check the contents, I just rename the folder as per my project.

DVD-DLs as backup
 

I use DVD-DL as backup. During shooting the SxS cards will very seldom be full, and then there will be quite some empty space on the DVDs when I backup each and every card.

In order to save space on DVDs, I copy many clips with Clip Browser to a folder which can grow very big on my hard drive.

Then I split the folder to fit DVD-DLs before burning the backups and change the names of the created folders to something logical. Normal sizes on the DVDs then tend to be close to 8 GB, compared to a full SxS card which is 7.19 GB.

This backup strategy might be useful for some people ...

What do you guys do for archiving in the following situations:

1) The project spans 2 cards. How do I combine everything into one "correct" BAPV file? I would like to do this using Clip Browser as Sony frowns upon using the Mac OS to make changes to BAPV files.

2) There are two separate projects on the same card. I would like to archive them into separate BAPV files.

I think I have a solution, but I'd sure like a confirmation from someone else. :)

Move clips between folders with Clip Browser.
Create a new folder, name it and move the clips to the new folder, all within Clip Browser.

That worked! Thanks for the reply Sverker. Perfect!

Thanks for the suggestions. Since the Clip Browsers is creating the "strangely" named folder that starts with the date, I can use that, and then rename it later, without moving things around. And, yes, I know the name's not that 'strange' but it got everybody's attention, right?

As far as archiving, I use Drobo for an online backup, and I'm just getting into using the Toast Titanium backup functionality to archive offline to Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs (those have a very good rep for good value and stability). Apparently Toast Titanium can create backups where either files can not be split across disk (it will just ask for a new DVD when the current one is full or would be more than full with the next file), or if the files are larger than the DVD (>4.2GB) can hold, split in such a way that they can easily be put back together using either Toast or standard unix commands (cat I believe). I'm going to do some tests on this to determine the best methods, I'll check back in with the results.

In re: testing Toast's split files, here's how I tested manual recovery: (warning for the squeamish: OS X terminal-intensive)

1) find a large file, larger than a single disc's capacity
2) generate MD5 digest signature (example: md5 longinterview.mov > longinterview.md5)
3) burn the two files with toast, spanning two discs
4) copy the two pieces of the large file from the two discs to temporary storage location
5) combine them (cat piece1 piece2 > longinterview.mov)
6) generate MD5 of newly created file, see if it matches the original MD5

It worked for me. It was perfectly restored, bit-for-bit.

Or, you could just use the little application that Toast put on the discs and join them that way! ;-) (i recommend doing the manual test exercise so that you'll be comfortable with using Toast's spanning feature.)

Oh, and as part of my archive-to-optical process, I generate MD5s for all my files and put the MD5 results on the discs with the files so that I can validate them if I need to in the future. Helps me sleep.

HTH