Sort clips and stills by time taken

Al Min wrote on 10/30/2010, 10:44 AM
I've just videoed my granddaughter's wedding and the bulk of the editing time went into sorting the stills and clips into order by time taken. It occured to me that someone may have written a script for this. So, is there a script or similar that will sort clips into order based on the time each was taken?

Comments

xberk wrote on 10/30/2010, 11:29 AM
Al -- I don't know of a script to do this .. Probably one exists ..... but if you load all the media into the project media bin - stills, video etc - (you can do this without putting anything on the timeline),-- and IF you have not modified any of the files since you recorded the media, then

1. click Project media tab.
2. choose "details" on the "view" button
2. Find the "modified" field header . You may have to slide the horizontal slider to see it. You can drag this field left or right for convenience.
3. Click on "modified" to arrange in date/time order. Click again to reverse the order.

This only works if files are unmodified. There is a "date/time Stamp" field but my media shows nothing in it. I don't see a "Date created" field.

Paul B .. PCI Express Video Card: EVGA VCX 10G-P5-3885-KL GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 ULTRA ,,  Intel Core i9-11900K Desktop Processor ,,  MSI Z590-A PRO Desktop Motherboard LGA-1200 ,, 64GB (2X32GB) XPG GAMMIX D45 DDR4 3200MHz 288-Pin SDRAM PC4-25600 Memory .. Seasonic Power Supply SSR-1000FX Focus Plus 1000W ,, Arctic Liquid Freezer II – 360MM .. Fractal Design case ,, Samsung Solid State Drive MZ-V8P1T0B/AM 980 PRO 1TB PCI Express 4 NVMe M.2 ,, Wundiws 10 .. Vegas Pro 19 Edit

PeterDuke wrote on 10/30/2010, 3:33 PM
When I capture my video clips from my camcorder I always use a utility to name the files according to shooting time and date so that they sort chronologically and so I can see the shooting time and date from within Vegas. (WinDVD, HDVsplit and PMB for DV, HDV and AVCHD resp.)

There is probably a utility to rename stills according to time/date but I don't know of one unless Bulk Rename Utility will do it. (It has a section devoted to date, but I have not used it.)
Al Min wrote on 10/31/2010, 2:01 AM
Xberg, thank you for that. I guess by "unmodified" you mean before NeoScene? Peter, if I wanted to use one of the utilities you mention, then for AVCHD I would use the one called PMB? Sorry, but I don't know what PMB stands for. Can you explain please. I'm hoping that the method I finally use will sort both stills and clips in a consecutive order.
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 10/31/2010, 2:13 AM
AVCHD records the files as 0001.m2t 0002.m2t.... and the canon 60D records to MVI_0001.MOV..... which are meaningless when editing. Click on explorer tab. Browse to your media files. Hightlight 0001.m2t hit space bar and files play's. Press F2 and give the file a short descriptive name. I usually name them something like:

"00 gardn up down pan"
"00 bride thru rose"
"05 rec enter"
"07 1st dance"
"07 dad dance"
"99 car driv off"

The "00" still groups them in a meaningfull and chronological order. This step is time consuming but a necessary one and at the same time you get to sift out unwanted media.

TIP: keep names short as possible because on the timeline you don't want loooong names.

Previously I made the mistake of using Windows Explorer and hightlighting a group of files, then inside the hightlighted group right click and rename eg Church. This names them as Church (00)......... Church (99) which is not numerical. Although Windows displays them as properly ordered Vegas doesn't. Vegas display's them alphanumerically which is a bummer especially for timelapse where you'll end up with thousands of JPG's incorrectly named.

Al Min wrote on 10/31/2010, 2:22 AM
I should elaborate. I walked around the wedding with a still cam and a movie cam slung around my wrist. I would shoot some movie, then take a still of the same scene. I cant really be bothered previewing each clip to try to work out where it fits with the other clips and stills - it takes too long. I just want to dump a mix of stills and clips and have them sort themselves out. Then my time and energy can spent on editing, rather than trying to decide if this still goes in front or behind and then what comes next. You cant always tell from the clip where it fits chronalogically.
PeterDuke wrote on 10/31/2010, 2:43 AM
Sorry, if you don't have PMB it is unlikely to be of use to you. PMB stands for Picture Motion (Movie) Browser and is bundled with certain Sony cameras, which are required in order for you to install it.
xberk wrote on 10/31/2010, 12:20 PM
>>I guess by "unmodified" you mean before NeoScene?

What I mean is any processing of your media that would change the "date modified" .. this will mess up the order.... I don't use Neoscene but if it changes the "date modified" field it would mess up my scheme. I sometimes us use "Proxy Stream 1.5b" (free script) for Vegas 9 to create MXF files for AVCHD editing. By the way, the MXF files work like butter in Vegas 9 .... Proxy Stream does not change the "date modified" field so it would work.

Paul B .. PCI Express Video Card: EVGA VCX 10G-P5-3885-KL GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 ULTRA ,,  Intel Core i9-11900K Desktop Processor ,,  MSI Z590-A PRO Desktop Motherboard LGA-1200 ,, 64GB (2X32GB) XPG GAMMIX D45 DDR4 3200MHz 288-Pin SDRAM PC4-25600 Memory .. Seasonic Power Supply SSR-1000FX Focus Plus 1000W ,, Arctic Liquid Freezer II – 360MM .. Fractal Design case ,, Samsung Solid State Drive MZ-V8P1T0B/AM 980 PRO 1TB PCI Express 4 NVMe M.2 ,, Wundiws 10 .. Vegas Pro 19 Edit

Al Min wrote on 10/31/2010, 11:56 PM
Peter, I do have PMB as both my cameras are Sony. I'd just forgotten about it as I've never bothered with it. Does it sort as per what I want? Or do I have to go through manually and find the time/date myself? How does it work?
PeterDuke wrote on 11/1/2010, 7:03 AM
PMB is really a database for photos and movies, but it doesn't organize the way I want so I only use it to transfer files from my camera to computer, and then I move the transferred files to the folders where I want them. I stop it after it starts looking for faces to recognize (takes ages!). The transferred files will be renamed according to shooting date and time automatically, rather than the sequential numbers as in the camera.
gpsmikey wrote on 11/2/2010, 8:13 PM
I'm not sure if it is available any more, but I use a utility called "set name to time" to rename all my still images as I bring them in to my computer. It renames them as DC_090829_1416_54__Mikey.jpg for example which was taken in 2009, August 29 at 2:16 and 54 seconds PM using my camera (it allows string substitution for various things in the EXIF - in this case, I replace the camera model with which member of the family shot the image on their camera). Works very well. I believe there are a number of other utilities like Picture Information Extractor (PIE) that can do most of that except the string substitution feature. The rename uses the EXIF timestamp in the image for the renaming.

mikey
Al Min wrote on 11/8/2010, 9:18 PM
Peter, I installed PMB and grouped by date taken (I couldn't find a time taken option)
You wrote
"I only use it to transfer files from my camera to computer, and then I move the transferred files to the folders where I want them. The transferred files will be renamed according to shooting date and time automatically, rather than the sequential numbers as in the camera."

I tried the transfer but the files did not rename according to time taken - they ended up in the new folder with the same names as per the memory stick. Can you please explain to me what to do.
PeterDuke wrote on 11/9/2010, 12:25 AM
I didn't do anything special that I remember. I just used the default settings, except for the destination folder. I'll have a nose around to see if anything jogs my memory.

I am using a version of PMB that I downloaded from the internet. Perhaps you should try the latest version. Mine is 4.2.10.15030. It is also known as SPU (Sony Picture Utility) just to confuse you.

I notice that you are using flash cards whereas I am using a hard disk drive. The folder structure is slightly different I know, but I would not have thought that to be important. Do the creation dates of the files on the card look reasonable? There are other smaller data files as well, but I don't know their purpose.

The video file names on the hard disk in the camera are numbered sequentially: 00000.MTS, 00001.MTS, 00002.MTS, etc. Once transferred, they are named in the form YYYYMMDDhhmmss.m2ts. For example, 20100615093037.m2ts.
PeterDuke wrote on 11/9/2010, 12:38 AM
You are using PMB to do the file transfer from your camera via USB to your computer, aren't you? The files are renamed during this transfer.
Al Min wrote on 11/10/2010, 1:29 AM
I guess you are saying Peter that the files will only rename from the card. I certainly will do that next rme. I had done the movie in question before I asked here.
PeterDuke wrote on 11/10/2010, 4:59 AM
Why not do a test run of using PMB to transfer to see if it renames for you? I suppose you have cleared the card after transferring your files. Copying the files back again may not work because PMB may need extra info in data files that you may no longer have. Worth a try though.
altarvic wrote on 12/10/2010, 9:07 AM
"is there a script or similar that will sort clips into order based on the time each was taken?"

The last version of Vegasaur toolkit has "Sort Events Chronologically" command that will do what you want. In addition you can use Quick Properties tool to rearrange clips by timecode, by rec date, in a reverse or in a random order.