Trimmer regions export/printout?

PierreB wrote on 11/28/2003, 9:51 AM

Hi everyone.

First time poster, researcher more than a movie maker. First off, thanks for everyone here, I've frequently searched the forum for newbie hints.

Issue: I've got 10 one-hour tapes on the hard drive, need to go through each, mark relevant clips, then build a 30-minute compilation.

With version 3 of VV, I worked off the timeline and used different tracks to organize material. Tedious and manipulation-heavy.

I've now (thanks to this forum) discovered trimmer to mark and (eventually) drop clips on the timeline.

Question: is there a way to export/copy/print out the region names in each file? I realize that I can sort them in the explorer window, but I can't seem to copy them (if I could copy them and, say paste the names to Excel, I could compile a master list, sort/resort/group, and generally build a first cut of my "movie" via the names of the clips).

Thanks ahead of time.

Peter

Comments

SonyEPM wrote on 11/28/2003, 3:56 PM

Timeline marker and region data can be exported from Edit Details (copy/ ctrl+ v), then pasted into notepad or any text editor (paste, ctrl+V).

PeterWright wrote on 11/28/2003, 6:55 PM

Edit details is for events already on the timeline - is there any way to do a similar paste job from Regions created in the Trimmer?

PierreB wrote on 11/29/2003, 10:40 AM

Thanks.

But as PeterWright points out, that's from the timeline. Is there a way to access (print/copy/export) the regions from the VV explorer window? Or in the SFK or SFL files if that's where the information is stored?

In fact, I notice that the trimmer region information does not travel with the clip to the timeline or am I not doing something right?

Best,

Peter

PierreB wrote on 12/1/2003, 2:42 PM

Hmmm.

I downloaded a trial version of Premiere and now realize that it appears to be able to do exactly what I have in mind, namely, code and sort clips on any number of text and boolean (yes/no) variables and then automatically build up a rough cut from this information using an "automate to sequence" command.

Peter

PierreB wrote on 12/6/2003, 6:49 AM

Peter,

I've been playing around with this and it doesn't seem as though there is another way of exporting except via the timeline.

The workaround, therefore, is to paste all trimmer regions into the timeline, where they become events (but they lose their "region-hood"). And once on the timeline it's then possible to not only export, but sort on the various properties, including name. By saving this sorted list as an EDL, and then importing the EDL it into a new project, it's possible to come up with an automatic rough cut!

Just saved myself the cost and bother of buying and learning Premiere! Woohoo.

Peter

Spot|DSE wrote on 12/6/2003, 7:39 AM

They also paste nicely to an Excel sheet, allowing you to insert comments. Just as a side piece, I've been doing a project with lots of subtitles, and needed to export a t/c list of all subtitles in print form.
Excel gave me the ability to delete extra or unwanted cells, and then a column for the subtitles in different languages.

PierreB wrote on 12/6/2003, 1:11 PM

Yes, that makes it quite useful.

Unfortunately, I think I was guilty of premature celebration in another message: saving an EDL only saves the timeline, not the edit details window, however sorted.

I wouldn't think it would be too difficult, though, to open the EDL list in Excel, add a column for the comments, paste in the comments from the edit details window, sort the Excel EDL by comment and have excel calculate new times from the length, and then export it from Excel in the same txt format.

Which would give me a "semi-automatic" rough cut.

Peter

PierreB wrote on 1/2/2004, 12:32 PM

Just thought I'd post one last message, both to help others and myself for next time.

Although it's possible to generate a semi-automatic rough cut via the method I described, creating and exporting an EDL is quite time consuming and fiddly, primarily because the EDL file doesn't follow any of the standard text formats that Excel offers (CSV, tab-delimited, whatever).

In retrospect, it would seem that a better strategy to analyze large files would be to break up them up into lots of little files on capture, using something like Sceanalyzer's optical and size-based methods to generate small avi's that can then be coded and rated (and searched) and organized within the media pool.

Next time ;-)

Peter