Managing clips

[Ken Veal]

I have a project to assemble from video taken with two cams.I want to
extract scenes taken with both camera's that have the same subject and
show them so that they follow on from each other in the project.What is the best way to organise all the scenes so I do not have to search the library every time for the two scenes.Would this involve the library manager?.......................Ken

[sjj1805]

Is this what you are looking for?
Multi Camera Editing

[Ken Veal]

Not exactly, perhaps the 2 cams being mentioned were a bit of a red herring.What I want to do is put together in clips videos that were taken with both camera's that were of the same place.No fancy mixing etc, just to show the video taken with the 1st cam followed by the shots that were taken with the 2nd cam.This is so that there is continuity in the project and all the video of one particular place is shown using film taken from each camera in turn.What I am spending a lot of time on is finding all these scenes of the same places taken by each camera.I just wondered
if there is some way of putting associated scenes in some kind of named order
in the library to speed things up a bit............................Ken

[Ron P.]

Ken,
As you're aware VS's naming convention (uvs080102-002.avi) for video clips captured using VS, is awful at best. In my example, the only sortable means would be by date, since the first numeric portion is the capture date. The portion to the right of the hyphen is the split-scene. The only other sort order is by Name. That could provide some degree of sorting on the split-scene part of the name.

Ok, with that said, you can try this..
1. Create Libraries for your clips from each camcorder, example: Wide-shot Camera, and Close-up camera.
2. Import the clips into their respective Library.
3. Rename the Clips in each Library. Can be very time consuming, as this must be done one at a time.
4. Then use one of the 2 Sorting Orders, by Name or Date.

Try renaming your original source clips on your PC, after capturing to something meaningful, reflecting the camera used, and what the clip would show. (Example: WSC-airport-001.avi, CUC-airport-001.avi. Note: WSC=wideshot camera, CUC=Closeup Camera ).

Once you have all your clips renamed, then import them to the proper libraries, and again you can sort them by either Name or Date. Also note that when you are importing them to the Libraries, you are presented with a small prompt window, asking Change clip sequence. This is a sorting dialog, where you can click on any one of the headers in that dialog to change the order in which they are inserted into your library.

[Ken Veal]

Thanks for that Ron.There is one thing that also can put clips out order-
after multitrim they go to the end of the line.....................Ken

[sjj1805]

One way you can try starts at the capture (transfer) stage.
When you transfer video from a DV camcorder to the computer using firewire you have an option to split by scene during capture, alternatively you can capture the entire video as one file and split it into scenes later.

To achieve your aims for this project you need to use the split by scene during capture so that you end up with several (perhaps a hundred or more) scenes in your capture folder.

Once you have accomplished this then you can use some free software that will mass rename those files into something more legible.

Two such FREE programs are
1. The Rename
2. Bulk Rename

[Clevo]

I wouldn't split by scene at all...especially if two cameras were rolling on the same action in it's entirety.

You are then only dealing with 2 files rather than way too many. Dealing with two files means you then only need to sync it once and with Ripple editing turned on and scenes scenes edited out in project mode rather than clip mode you should be able to keep things in sync throughout.

I would then save the project under a different name at various stages so I could go back if needed if I'm not happy with a direction I am going with

[sjj1805]

I wouldn't split by scene at all...especially if two cameras were rolling on the same action in it's entirety.

You are then only dealing with 2 files rather than way too many. Dealing with two files means you then only need to sync it once and with Ripple editing turned on and scenes scenes edited out in project mode rather than clip mode you should be able to keep things in sync throughout.

I would then save the project under a different name at various stages so I could go back if needed if I'm not happy with a direction I am going with

.....What I want to do is put together in clips videos that were taken with both camera's that were of the same place.No fancy mixing etc, just to show the video taken with the 1st cam followed by the shots that were taken with the 2nd cam.This is so that there is continuity in the project and all the video of one particular place is shown using film taken from each camera in turn..........................Ken

To capture as one solid video file would make the above more difficult.
The way I read it is - lets say Ken went on a cruise.
Day 1 = Athens
Day 2 = Kusadasi
Day 3 = Rhodes.

As one solid file the audience would have to watch day 1, Day 2, Day 3 all in sequence from Camera 1, THEN watch them again from Camera 2
i.e. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

By using split by scene, Ken can now show the videos in this order

Day 1, Cam 1
Day 1, Cam 2
Day 2, Cam 1
Day 2, Cam 2
Day 3, Cam 1
Day 3, Cam 2

Which is what he appears to be trying to achieve.

[Clevo]

I agree but what I ment was that from the one file in the library you can do your selection in Clip mode in the preview pane then drop that selection in the timeline.... keep making several selections from the one piece of video file as you move along the clip...you can jumble the clips in any order you like on the time line but you are still only dealing with your original files (in your example...3) rather than managing dozens of clips in the library, renaming them in some sequence, etc etc.

I think we all know library managment in VS can be a cumbersome unless you have OCD traits

[Ken Veal]

Yes
Day 1, Cam 1
Day 1, Cam 2
Day 2, Cam 1
Day 2, Cam 2
Day 3, Cam 1
Day 3, Cam 2
is what I am after ......................Ken

[sjj1805]

Ken,
As per my earlier suggestion the most efficient way in my view is to
capture using split by scene from camcorder 1.
As pointed out by Ron

As you're aware VS's naming convention (uvs080102-002.avi)

I would then rename these clips using one of the free renaming tools available which I previously mentioned, so that they are more easily identified.
Then repeat the process with camcorder 2.

You can then import your videos either to the VS Library, or directly to the time line as/when required from the capture folder(s).

[Ken Veal]

Thanks for all the info, have downloaded The Rename and will follow
your advice..............................ken

[Clevo]

The way I suggested you dont need a third party programs to rename...and you will only need two files in the library...Cam 1 & Cam 2

And you can still have the finished product as:

Day 1, Cam 1
Day 1, Cam 2
Day 2, Cam 1
Day 2, Cam 2
Day 3, Cam 1
Day 3, Cam 2

I'm sure I haven't made myself clear of the process but it sounds like I might need to think of making a tutorial of some kind as a way of explaining

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Ken

Take a little care when re-naming your files. That is if you are going to re-name?

Video Studio is very poor at naming the captured files and Windows Explorer doesn¡¦t always see them as they should be. I use XP--maybe Vista is better?

Basically its very easy to get them out of order, even moving clips about Video Studio can end up in the wrong order.

First though, can you confirm that you have captured your files using ¡¥Split by Scene¡¦
If so then they should be simular to uvs090725-002.AVI

[Ken Veal]

My reason for posting was to try and get an easy answer to the time spent
looking through all the scenes in order to put them together in the order I wanted.I have not up to now split by scene on capture because I think it would end up with scenes that I did not not want splitting and unnecessarily give me more than I really wanted.(for eample- where
several shots were taken on the same subject but with stopping + starting
the cam recording each time for each shot- I presume this starting and stopping/pausing recording would result in a lot of split scenes where I would only want one scene for the whole suject- I wait to be corrected on this if I am wrong)
I have XP and when(+if) I master The Rename, next time I capture I will follow the above advice and use Split by Scene I suppose unless I can be advised it would not suit because of the reasons I have set out.
So, my present project is not split by scene.It seems that I will have to spend more on this file name issue.The captured files in the present project were where I determined the scenes by stopping capture + starting again are names like
uvs090725-002.AVI I guess this clip id thing is on the wish list !
What is OCD? ...................Ken