OT: A couple of tips for GH* (etc.) users

NickHope wrote on 1/27/2015, 10:02 PM
Still refining my Panasonic GH4 post-production workflow here and I discovered a couple of useful things in the last couple of days. These almost certainly apply to other cameras too...

Firstly, I was looking for a Windows program that can name video files on ingest according to the shooting date and time. I'm so used to having that information from my DV and HDV capture programs (Sclive and HDVSplit). I use it for example to help me identify which dive site I was at when I shot the clips. Also I'm running 2 camera bodies, several SD cards, and I want to avoid duplicate filenames.

Having researched/tested loads of ingest options, I've discovered that Lightroom (yes, really) is the only one that can dig the shooting time and date out of the exif data during "import" and rename the files accordingly. It can also append the original filename, so my filenames now look like this: 150123-083709-P1040483.MP4. i.e. Date-Time-Original-Filename.

As far as I can tell, this could not be done by PHOTOfunSTUDIO, Catalyst Prepare, Bulletproof, Offload, Prelude or Shotput Pro. On the downside I don't think it's doing a checksum verification as such (as some of those other do), but it makes a nice report if it fails to ingest a file or ingests a file that it cannot decode. Also I found it a little slower than PHOTOfunSTUDIO but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Secondly ExifTool along with ExifToolGUI can access the data in your GH* video files and show tons of information about camera settings etc.. More than Panasonic's own PHOTOfunSTUDIO can. Really useful tool.

EDIT: Screen grabs don't seem to be displaying. You can see them at [url=http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21489814/ExifTool-Exif.png] and [url=http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21489814/ExifTool-Master.png].



Comments

wwjd wrote on 1/27/2015, 10:15 PM
Thanks for all your research and info, Nick. have you posted this to GH* dvxuser.com?

I been dropping my dailies into folder named after the scene/shot list.
NickHope wrote on 1/27/2015, 10:22 PM
Have only posted it to the Panasonic GH4 User Group on facebook. Feel free to quote and post anywhere!
Marco. wrote on 1/28/2015, 3:16 AM
You can also let name video files based the shooting date and time directly in Vegas Pro using elCutty's extension »ShowRecDate«. Works great also for GH2 and GH4. Download -> here (I think registration is mandatory).
NickHope wrote on 1/28/2015, 4:26 AM
Very useful extension Marco. Will be keeping this one!

It shows exposure etc. as well as the shooting time.

I didn't need to register.

"Set Event Names" sets the active take name, as opposed to the actual filename.

EDIT: Embedded images still not working on the forum for me. Screengrab at [url=http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21489814/ShowRecDate.png]