Comments

Grazie wrote on 2/5/2004, 11:23 PM
Hiyah !

Carl : Yes I too like the concept of a group initiative. Please don't feel bad - I've had many of my ideas taken forward in "other" places - aint the first time - wont be the last. But, the time validation thing is more of an intellectual "puzzle" than anything else at the moment. I could still do a hand written diary type thing - yeah?

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roger_74 : THIS I LIKE! I don't have the programming background to do this, but I can see and imagine a really sweetly engineered option. As to the reporting . .hmmm . .. once the info could be exported as a . .well I don't know . .some type of EDL - look I'm punting here - then maybe just maybe . . .

I'm glad that it IS working on others machines. Even this "fact" could identify where things need to be changed on mine - yeah?

Roger, I'm not sure what the difference would be? I know I can elect to 12 or the 24 hour clock. And yes there is a difference between "dots" and "commas". However, I've used the same nomenclatures within Excel .. norminally I can get my head around these conventions. This had got me beat . . for the moment . ..

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Rafalk : "I'm assuning everything is installed." How would I know if something is missing?

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Look Guys, I'm really "touched" by your caring - You're great people! ! !

IDEA 1
Okay . .I've just had an idea. If I've got a position on a tape of say: 00:23:53;14 then this is equivalent in terms of a database identifier ( After all that's what it is. We can't as yet get this db to refer this information back to my cammie and thence onto Vegas, yet [ HAH!] ) as 235314. So using this concatenated "code" this would be sufficient means of "getting" to the place on a tape. All this depends on me either "laying down T/C on all my tapes OR not having breaks on the tape itself. I could imagine having "two" places having 235314 - messy! But the way around this would be to have the first letters of another brought together with that code. If in the "Subject" field I could have say "Flowers" and another row an subject field saying "Waterway", the identifier could come back with FLO235314 and WAT235314. Okay this aint a "sweet" solution, but it could get me going.

IDEA 2
Another thought would be to have a calculated field that would break-up the "digits" into recognisable T/C. Is this a possible?

IDEA 3
The other idea, which I've floated past Carl, would be to have 4 separate fields for each T/C INs and the same for T/C OUTs:

Col 1 - TChoursIN - 00
Col 2 - TCminsIN - 23
Col 3 - TCsecsIN - 53
Col 4 - TCframesIN - 14

Similar for T/C OUTs . . .

This would give "discreet" fields that would be filled correctly. AND these fields could then be used within reports to as a concatenated single field as 00:23:53;14 - I think this is neat - tricky - but doable . .But beyond me for the moment.

. . .well, these are my responses so far.

You Guys & Sony okay with us going on about this here? Don't worry me . . I feel there will be others, who maybe newbies to NLE work and VEGAS, who could be interested and may also be DB programmers. Hey, after all if it makes the whole process of using our beloved Vegas work better and give more creative options for others . . I'm game!!! I'm game? - HAH! Always have been . . . he .. he . .. he .. ;-)

Best regards,

Grazie
jcg wrote on 2/6/2004, 5:49 PM
This may be obvious to everyone else, but must one purchase MS Access to be able to use this clip tracker? Are there any similar efforts designed around MS Word or MS Excel? I do not have MS Access but need to get something on board to help with tracking clips. Thanks.

JCG
Grazie wrote on 2/7/2004, 1:08 AM
JCG . .I've thought long and hard about a reply . .. honest!

I've needed to "split" your question into 2 parts.

For my money both these parts are "contingent" on each other and can't be appreciated separately. But for the purposes of "understanding" your understandings of the issues under discussion I've needed to do this - yeah?

The 2 parts are:

Part 1 - Can't I use clip tracker with the Word or Excel?

Part 2 - Do I have to make a buying decision about Access?

Part 1
Yes you could "use" both of these packages - but not with this clip tracker.

I'll try/attempt to outline here the drawbacks that Access counters:

1 - Word - This would be a "Flat Table", this means that although one could search for an item using the Search function, you can't group them. Well you could Group them by a "sort" alphabetically but this is NOT what Excel or Access would do. You certainly could apply a Query as easily as Access and THEN apply a report for printing or viewing such a Queried Report. You could I suppose run a mail merge Query and collect and collate the results via a mailmerge - I 've done this for printing labels for mail outs. This is one solution. But again Access and Excel are meant for the application of this type of function . . . In any event one would need to "repeat" substantial pieces of information in each row to make the process "work" and thence, IMHO, too unwieldy.

2 - Excel - The major "problem" with using a SS is that again it is a "flat file" database, meaning you store and invoke searches and queries and reports against one set of data. Linking Excel tables is not something I'd like to attempt within Excel. And yes there is much programmability within Excel. Again, one would need to repeat the same information in rows to get a result. Very unwieldy. But yes it would be doable.

Okay . . the beauty of a relational database, such as Access, is that it can "relate" one set of information AGAINST another in another table and allow you to come up with a report that is contingent on your QUERY and MEANS something to each bit of the information. One can "store" these queries and reports independently and have them supply this information to printable report formats, they themselves being designed by yourself in the format you wish.

Bottom line here is that a relational database can create a relationship from Table1 to Table2 [ or many many more tables ] by just one identifying piece of information. This is what is called a "One-to-Many" relationship. For example, here it would be the name of the "Tape". So, a Table named "TapeNameTable" would just store all the tapes you have and some other piece of info to identify that tape - maybe the camera the tape was shot on - Tape1 would Identify the tape and in a separate table, Table2, the many and varied items captured on that tape would all be identified by having Tape1 say in its first field. Then all Access has to do when commanded by you to search out all items on Tape1 would be to go to the Tape Table and "lift" all the Tape1 details. Now supposing I've got 200 mindv Tapes - numbered 1 to 200 - and I've got say 1,000 items about "flowers" sprinkled all over the same 200 tapes AND I only want those flowers that are RED. I've roughly got 3 layers of query: Colour: "Red"? ; Item/Subject "Flowers"? ; Tape "Tape"? .. oh . .. let's for fun stick in a minimum length of clip . .say 20 seconds - yeah? So that would be a t/c query with the parameters of TotalT/C>=20<=TotalT/C . . .I think I got that right .. I'm sure "others" will jump over me here with a correction . . .so that's at least 4 levels of Query complexity - How on earth would Word or Excel cope with this type of complexity? I've done something similar with a totally different subject/project - something like 1000 rows of data and some five tables - all related to each other in some way - and it took 1 second, yes 1 second to "pick" or "Query" and sort the info I needed! Plus Access has the ability to "store" these "Queries" and "Reports" for future use. Very flexible and very fast . . .


Part 2
Look, for flat file non-ish Queried reports Excel and at a real pinch Word CAN do something .. Why buy Access? I haven't said this, I think, Access came with my original suite of MS Office. I'd used a DOS based relational database - very very fast - so it was a no brainer for me in terms of purchase.

So to answer your original question - To make that which is presently under discussion, you need Access. Period. Could one design and build one similar in Word or Excel ? No - for the reasons outlined in the long winded reply I gave above. But I hope you now realise it would be a different, very different approach and design. I wouldn't have wanted you to think that the complexity I am searching for, and may not be at the level you require and you couldn't see - not your fault at all - what on Earth I have been banging on about.

Promise, I've tried Excel and Word. I may need to return to them [ yuck! ] if I don't get a solution to the Timecode Masks and Data enter requirements for the "00:00:00;00" "feature, that is DV video . . . .

Hey at the end of the day I may just fill in the boxes on a piece of paper that I've printed . . you've guessed it . .from MS Word . .full circle, eh?

Regards,

Grazie