Get organized...with V4 vidcap?

Randy Brown wrote on 2/12/2003, 10:06 AM
Good morning everyone,
I'm looking for suggestions on the organization of files using vidcap (or any other suggestions you may have). I have 7 or 8 DV tapes with about 40 minutes of clips on each...all high school basketball to be used for a 30 minute highlight video. I'm thinking of sorting as follows:

*capture and edit one tape at a time (then save results for final project)

*put those clips on the timeline

*for all clips not wanted (most) right click and select "select media in media pool then remove from HD

*trim wanted clips as needed

*save trimmed project on DVD as data

Before saving though, it would be wonderful if I could rename the clip somewhere in the process, to say, player #34 and put it into a rated "interest" folder, say 1,2,or 3. This way if the project was starting to get a little slow I would go to my number 1 folder and pick one of the !!!POWER-PACKED!!! clips to insert on the timeline (of the overall project) and pick #34 (cause we haven't seen him in a while).
Problem is I can't find a way to export these folders (to save for later) or rename the clips (except to do it in explorer, but I was thinking (for some reason) that in V4, we would be able to rename it in the media pool)).
Anyway, this seems like it could be a real nightmare and feel sure some of you have dealt with the situation. So if you would be so kind to indulge your secrets...or maybe BillyBoy or Marty would like to do a tut on the new vidcap : )
(Sorry to be so long-winded this morning)

TIA guys,
Randy

Comments

Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/12/2003, 12:11 PM
Hi Randy,

There are a couple of thoughts:

You might log and capture in a fairly traditional fashion:
Create a bin in capture for the project.
Using Adv. Capture, play the tape and mark IN and OUT for a clip, then pause,
Type the clip name starting with the player's number, keep the tape name, descibe the action and keywords (blooper, punch, fouled, etc.)in the comment-field and set a rating to pertain to a level 1,2,3 like you described.
Log the clip to the tape bin, and repeat for the whole tape.
Now you have a lot of logged-clips you can sort by name (=player number), rating or tape.
Send them to batch-capture and they will be sortable and keyword-searchable in the media pool when done.

This way, you only capture the footage you need. It does require the up-front effort to log, but then the back end (editing) goes faster.


Another method is to capture the whole tape first:

Open the big clip in the Timeline.
Mark regions, naming them with the player number, rating and action.
Save that veg when completed for posterity.
Save-as that veg as name+"cut".
De-select all events and ripple-delete footage between regions making sure regions move up with footage.
When all excess is deleted, you should have a TL of all regions.
Render to avi and save to disk or tape.
Delete original capture.
Repeat for each tape.

For final edit, you can capture or load all rendered "selected footage" and the regions should appear in the trimmer.
You can then use tracks as bins based on rating 1,2,3 and place markers at minutes corresponding to player's numbers (player #34 footage is at 34:00)
Drag or paste segments into the tracks from the trimmer at the appropriate time.
You now have a matrix of shots laterally by player number, vertically by rating.
If you need to know the action (described in the region-name) you can right-click on any clip and open in the trimmer to see the region.

This method permits capture of tape in one pass and search and log in the digital domain, but some extra steps on the back-end, making the track-bins. No keyword search here, either.


HTH, MPH

Tips:
http://www.martyhedler.com/homepage/Vegas_Tutorials.html
Randy Brown wrote on 2/12/2003, 12:37 PM
Thank you very much Marty, you've given me several things to experiment with...this should keep me busy for a while :)
Thanks again,
Randy
Randy Brown wrote on 2/12/2003, 1:40 PM
Marty, your first suggestion will work great for me...true, a bit of a pain initially but the organization and search capabilities later will definitely pay off tenfold.
Thanks again Marty,
Randy
xgenei wrote on 3/1/2003, 11:31 PM
I'll bet not another person in the neighborhood would tackle your second method -- but I will. The way you've presented it of course hits a wall if there's more than a minute per player and you don't have big gaps in the numbering. But the problem basically is that you're not using the vertical effectively.

Instead of only using three tracks, if you just flip the axes so that a player's number is a track title (rather than a track number, because there are gaps for one thing) and then prioritize the clips by simply auditioning each one and moving them forward or back in the track timeline -- maybe that might work.

How about it coach?
Tyler.Durden wrote on 3/1/2003, 11:50 PM
Hi,

Well done, xgenei... I like it! As for forward or back in the track for priorities, howbout setting markers based on priority or action... long shots, fouls, blocks etc., to sort shots laterally.

Party-on,

mph
xgenei wrote on 3/5/2003, 2:30 PM
"ACHH-HAAA!" says the old rabbi, "you are trying for a fourth dimension in a three-dimensional array. This has a very limited potential before it gets really dirty and cluttered," he says, speaking with the grizzled wisdom of plenty of efforts. "Per-chhaps you would consider using a specialized tool at some point, a four-dimensional organizer? There are many. The cheapest and easiest to is The Brain. I am thinking about it," he strokes beard. "I cham not sure if The Brain can load hundreds of media files like it can HTML. I will find out because it is an interesting challenge," his eyes lit up with a distant fire. "The thing that I like about the challenge is that if such a thing can be done effectively, then it would persuade everyone to handle clips as small independent files, and not as a single large file with an associated markup file. This I think could be a very good thing, as it makes a path clearer, even if it has elements of both. And ambitious good people can contribute profitable method-technology. I am sure, for instance, that the author of Scenealizer would be very much interested in where this could go."

He took his hand from his beard and pointed, "I will be back."
vicmilt wrote on 3/6/2003, 3:14 AM
Just finished a project with 16 rolls of tape and hundreds of clips.
I work at the Explorer level, in this way.
At the Explorer level I create a number of folders appropriately named:
Boats
Beach
Skiing
Food
etc.
I move the clips into each of these folders (at the Windows Explorer level).
As I edit in VV, I have the appropriate folders open on a second monitor with viewtype "Thumbnail", which gives me tiny pictures of each scene.
Having perused the appropriate thumbnails, I load from Explorer window in Vegas.
A little unweildy, but a good way to work with hundreds of clips.
xgenei wrote on 3/8/2003, 2:55 AM
VICMILT:

Yeah, basically that's what I'm saying. But how are you seeing thumbnails of your scenes? All I can get is the same dumb icon for each file type -- no real thumbnails. At the moment I only have Win98 SE and both Windows Explorer and PowerDesk. What are you using?

(I don't get it -- you're using VV3 -- CAN SOMEBODY GIVE ME A CLUE HERE?)

I'm working on a couple of things from my message near the top of this thread: first -- forget about the Personal Brain. Even with version 3 you have to manipulate each link individually to show a thumbnail -- like a minute apiece -- AFTER you generate the thumbnails (see next). The guys are missing the boat on its capabilities as a file-system interface IMO.

What looks PROMISING is MEDIA RESIZER. You can use TEPX or Scenealizer but they only do AVI-DV files and not post logging. This leaves all those juicy cable-media files untouched. Media Resizer works with AVI and MPEG-2 and it strikes me that the author will likely expand in the future to include MPEG-4 for example. Hell it may even do something useful for audio. Not to mention that it is backwards useful for image thumbnails and RESIZING of course.

Anyway the way that this works is you select your main directory(s) where your image & video files are, and eliminate any files you don't want from the list. I had one file that wouldn't thumbnail and caused the program to hang (was normal otherwise -- but it was 2gig) and so eliminating it from the list let me proceed.

There's no drag & drop or even basic functions like delete (except in browse I guess) -- what it does is create JPEG thumbnail files for each image or video file and dump them in with the original files (which is smart -- see below) -- or in a different directory (see program help).

NICE: You can hand select the frame to capture from a video clip, crop it as you want, and change the thumbnail size to suit (in batch). Let me cut to the chase and focus on a suggested method:

Choose a SUFFIX to rename the thumbnail files (if you don't also have JPEG files as source files you can skip this.) Do not change the filename because you want the thumbnail and source file to hang-out together.

SEND the generated jpeg thumbnail files TO THE SAME DIRECTORY as the source files.

Get yourself POWERDESK (maybe XP Windows explorer has a "view thumbnails" feature but I couldn't find it with Win98), and click thumbnails under "VIEW." You now have a very snazzy way to find the exact clips that you want visually, and right next to it is the actual file to drag or open.

The nicest part is IT IS 100% PRIMITIVE -- a non interfering supplement to augment "bins" or what what have you.

PLEASE TRY IT AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. Be sure to tell the author of MEDIA RESIZER that you are an SF video head and deserve a discount on the pro. He's giving 25% off on the cheapie ($39/$29) but the pro is stuck at $79. Maybe if enough of us ask ...

XGENEI
xgenei wrote on 3/10/2003, 10:44 AM
The following is a transcript -- you can figure it out. I'll post a new thread for a discussion. Here it is: http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=164788



Hi John,



Thank you very much for your interest to our product!

We have decided to give you 25% off discount for Media Resizer PRO:



Please use the following link:

https://secure.shareit.com/shareit/checkout.html?PRODUCT[173236]=1&cartcoupon=1&COUPON1=SF-25OFF-CEGTH&languageid=1¤cies=USD,all

or just enter coupon code: SF-25OFF-CEGTH on the last step of registration process.



Have a good day!

PS. This discount coupon is for SF users only – please post it on SF forum ONLY!

--

Anton



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-mediaresizer_site21@ns3.cifnet.com [mailto:owner-mediaresizer_site21@ns3.cifnet.com] On Behalf Of John Meghly (MALLEY)
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 3:16 PM
To: mediaresizer@sibental.com
Subject: Request for ad-hoc group discount



Hey -- nice job. Please check this out:



http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=164384



Scan to the bottom to see the thread view.



Can we get a discount on the pro? I'll report it in the forum. If the method works well it could be one of the standards. Do a search on "Scenealizer" for example. There are at least a hundred hard-core video-head regulars in there, and many cross-pollinators.



It would be nice to have the same discount as on the basic. Just a suggestion.



John (xgenei)
xgenei wrote on 3/19/2003, 2:04 AM
Anybody try it yet?