Thanks Bob for the swifty. I reeeeallly have taken what you and Robbo said yesterday. Very important. I think I'm getting closer to a better way of working - and this "Take" business is going to be part of it.

I'm now "dumping" a whole miniDV into a folder called "miniDV 1 hour Tape Bank" - on my D: drive. It is from here that I will do my 1st review and clip audio adjustments - see below - and also my region creation. Do a Project cleanup and then move all this stuff to a larger drive. My thoughts on this are that the files I swap over will be in be in a contiguous state? Not fragged. It would also free up the D: for what I tend to use as the final or penultimate or pre-rendering drive. So, D: for Primary review and then swapped to F: > F: for clips to be worked on > D: for final renderings and assembly. Any good?

My decision making, about whether I keep a clip or not, is based on the visuals and the audio. Ok, I have to film in some of the most unappealing audio-incorrect situations. However, I've also found that SF - and my abilities - can turn that which would have landed on the "floor", as now being more than just acceptable! This is a good thing.

So in my journey to discover a better "capture" review process, I can accumulate several audio Takes as part of my very quick SF treatments. I'm trying to discover a simple way of making this whole process streamlined and a bit more "sexy".

Bob, now that I am capturing a whole tape - and while I'm typing this too! - I have the monitor reviewing for me, so I can keep an eye out again for "those" shots! I must say this IS a far more relaxed way of doing things. AND I get to get a feel of the sequences too - not a bad thing either. I suppose the AdvVidCap thing did turn my head, 'cos my client gave me back a dope sheet of the items he wanted. I could then locate them - almost robot like - and set AdvVidCap off to do its thing. I just sit back and the tape gets shuttled back and forth and the HD sits there amassing all this stuff. ( oops tape finished! switch off . . )

So, what do you think of my primary capturing process - viz D: to F: and the audio take biz?

TIA,

Grazie

Definitely not - I delete stuff often during audio projects particularly, and takes sitting there on the timeline remain.

You probably already know, Grazie but the "Remove all unused Media ...." lightning icon only removes it from the Media Pool, not from hard drive.
To do this, select, right click and "Remove from project and delete files."

edit - just read your reply to Bob and needed to mention that if, as I do, you capture tapes as single clip, then of course you can't delete anything from hard drive - this is where Save as / Copy and Trim Media with project will write new copies of only the footage you've used, then ALL your previous captures can be deleted.

Peter, thank you. Just tested prior to your post . . Takes remain.

"You probably already know, . . " .. well .. . Pete . . no! I've never used the "lighting" icon 'cos I was too scared to! I'm wanting to do a primary review of the miniDV; really choose the clips and takes I want; have Vegas "prune" the project from what it would have been - here it is 97 clips = 12.2gbs - down to say, 10 minute max of stuff. See?

Oh yes, Peter, I know and do use the "Remove from project and delete files." on separate files - but how do I instruct Vegas to "see" what's ON the T/L and then go and remove, "prune" the stuff off the hard drive that isn't? No? It can't be done? Have I got the wrong end of the stick? Wouldn't it mean visually cross checking off each and every file/clip? Ugghh!

TIA,

Grazie

Pete . . I think we got kinda outta synch with our replies and questions . .. sorry . . I'm a bit confused now .. . I do Scene detect, lots of clips.



:( G

I'm not 100% certain. Are you shooting for a specific project or do you have a library of footage that you might add to but in general look for stuff that you've already shot?

Probably what I'd do is treat the captued stuff on a HD just like I would a tape. So you got through it, find the bits you think you're going to want and then just render then to a folder on another drive, naming them as suits you, maybe include the tape number as well in the name. Then I'd just join them all up in some sort of order in a Veg file and do a VHS tape with burnt in TC for the client to look through at their leisure.

Now if you have stuff that you're accumulating into a library I'd be doing much the same but adding a spreadsheet or database to track it all and that's where it gets intersting, being able to do xref searches etc. Also you can keep track of when it was shot etc, in years to come that could be invaluable info.

I think each and every one of us does things differently, it's got as much to do with how our brains work as anything else. I see you've got a history of linear editing, I haven't but my old friends in the biz do too, they mostly think I'm nuts the way I work (the feelings mutual BTW!). So when it comes to this kind of thing my best advice is 'whatever works for you'.

The only reason I raised the issue of the fragility of MiniDV tape was becuase well, it's risky. If you were using BetaSP or DB, I'd still think it a wierd way to work but much less risky so I probably say nothing.
Bob.

Bob.

> " but how do I instruct Vegas to "see" what's ON the T/L and then go and remove, "prune" the stuff off the hard drive that isn't? "

No, I don't think it's currently possible, but maybe it should be - I mean if the "lightning" icon can identify exactly what's on the timeline and what's not, then remove unused media from the Media Pool, it shouldn't be a huge step to go on and delete the same stuff from the hard drive.

Such a feature would need careful handling, though, in case material also used in other projects got deleted inadvertantly.