"it cannot be copied because a nonexistent clip is included
 

I'm experimenting with changing the way i download my SxS cards (always used to drag and drop) so I shot a couple of cards just to fill them up o looking at nothing but a clock. The first card filled up and spanned onto the second. Then I stopped the second once or twice then finally let it roll until it ran out on its own.

So I am now trying to download using clip browser and figured - hey I can combine the spanned shots also - not a bad method. However when I go to copy the second clip I only see one clip instead of 3 or 4 and that had an exclamation mark on it. When I try to copy it I get this error message: "it cannot be copied because a nonexistent clip is included" .

What's up here ?

10 min later:

OK now I copied it with drag and drop and then opened the card with XDCam Transfer and that shows all 3 shots including the 1st one which is the 2nd half of a spanned clip.

When I open the the 1st card the 2 spanned clips immediately join up in XDCam transfer.
Why did clip browser have a problem?( ver 2.0 )

If I use clip browser to try to open the folder with the copy of that second card it doesn't show anything - won't open it up.

2 min later - OK I think I figured this out - I saw "combine folders" and put them together . Now I see all the clips.
Isn't life grand.
Thanks for all your help everyone - what a great forum!

I do have some more questions about this clip browser business but maybe I'll take a break first.

In Clip Browser
Make sure CRC is on in preferences for safe copying from cards.
Let it copy and create separate parent folder for each BPAV.
It'll have a bunch of numbers for each folder, which is actually a datetime stamp.

In XDCAM Transfer
Add all the above folders with the datetime stamp
Select All (folders)
Import All
XDCAM Transfer will import all the clips and connect all split and spanned clips.

It's really simple. Don't make it any more complex than that. Don't over think it.

Clip Browser would not download the second spanned card at all, it gave me that error message until I combined the destination folders into one.

Thanks for the tip about CRC - what does that do exactly?

By the way I finally checked out Clip browser today after using the finder to copy and download cards for a year. It was people on this forum who convinced me to try it.

I loved it.
- Its easy to use.
- You can can see exactly where you're sending your files and how you've labelled the folders, so its hard to make a mistake.
- You can play back the files to double check them immediately
- Its a safer way to transfer.

What's not to like.

Thanks folks.

Sounds like the card itself had an issue. If it wouldn't copy the card how were you able to combine destination folders?

Basically checks the integrity of the data while copying. It ensures the copy is good or will warn you if it's not. BTW saw another presentation by a Sony rep the other day. He was emphatic, never drag and drop. Always use ClipBrowser.

Just a thought.

The only time I got into trouble when downloading weddings and concerts (which always contained spanned clips) was when I downloaded the second card first, and was getting an error message.

It made me realize I had inadvertantly recorded on B card first, then when I got home, started copying card A, and had error messages as it couldn't see the first half of the spanned clip to join to.

When I started again using the correct sequence, the spanned clip copied perfectly.

Another trap to beware of!

Cheers,

Vaughan

Keep in mind that if you use ClipBrowser to copy all folders to your hard drive and then add all the folders to XDCAM Transfer and Select All, there should be no "non existent clip."

You need to make ALL clips available to XDCAM Transfer which means making ALL folders available.

I think Craig may have his finger on the issue. I didn't select both folders when I tried to download the second card .
I need to go back and look at this again as I don't remember the sequence of events.

The second card was fine. This is the one that said " It cannot be copied etc". All files eventually transferred and were intact.

it might be that it didn't show up in XDCAM transfer either until I opened both folders.

I'm going to redo the download and see what happens again.

By the way, what do you think of Shotput vs. Clip Browser?
I'm liking clip browser much more as I feel more in control of my files and where theya re going. Shotput just seems to automated to me, even in "manual mode".

Uh oh,
I tried this a second time. first by importing card one then bringing in card #2 and I'm getting the nonexistent clip warning again only this time nothing I do is allowing me to download it. Also in the List view window or the preview window all I see is a black shot - no image. Yet I know there should be 3 shots there.

now I'm really confused and disturbed. By the way I'm on a Mac using Clip Browser 2.5 in OSX 10.5.4

I have another question also - In the tree view inside the Explorer window -
- should I be able to see the stuff that is inside the folder that holds my SxS files.
In other words should I be able to see the BPAV folder and inside that the TAKR folder and the CLPR folder etc.

I can't see anything inside the SxS card folder. I see the icons of my shot in the List window , but the folder in the Tree view won't open at all.
Is this normal?

10 min later - so now I bypassed clip browser - and on my desktop used the finder to copy the BPAV folder of this disk to a new folder on my desktop. Worked fine.
Next Eject the troublesome card.
Go back to Clip browser and open new folder with copy of the troublesome card - Bingo! all 3 shots are now visible in the List window, and I can now copy them to a separate hard disk into the folder that wouldn't accept them previously.

Huh?

When ever a switch SxS cards WITHOUT Quitting and re-Launching Clip Browser, I get a bunch of question marks instead of thumbnails. The solution is to just go to View>Refresh and everything will pop up.

Also, I always create one folder for the project I'm shooting and drag all the clips (spanning multiple cards) into that folder. I use Clip Browser to create and name the folder.

I'm finding this quite confusing because this morning I tried it again and now I am seeing all three clips and there is no problem copying.
So I have seen this card 3 different way
1 - I see one picture icon with a thumbnail + an exclamation mark and get the "nnoexistent" error
2 - The thumbnail is black (as is playback in the preview window) with the exclamation mark) + "non existent"..
and
3. All three clips show up fine and it is able to copy

The First 2 both happened after copying the first of spanned clips - I didn't try refresh or closing & opening clip browser.

The third happpened after downloading a different card but still without refreshing or closing clip browser.
I'm going to try the original order again.
Download first of spanned clips and see what happens.

Again a question from previous emails.
Is it normal that the tree view window will not show me the folders and files inside my SxS card?