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AVCHD - how can I extract and save separate clips?

Advocate ,
Feb 15, 2013 Feb 15, 2013

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My first go around with AVCHD which I know nothing about except that after buying a nice new Sony video camera I have as a result on my first try-out, a single file called AVCHD even though I took several separate clips. When I click on that file on my computer, it opens up and shows thumbnails of each of the separate clips. When I click on one of the clips it opens in QuickTime and from there I can export the file to save it as a separate clip on my computer.

Is there an easier way to batch save the separate clips or do I need to go through this process of opening each one separately in QuickTime and exporting it in order to save it?

Any information on how I should approach working with this AVCHD format would also be greatly appreciated.

TIA,

Ken

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Feb 17, 2013 Feb 17, 2013

OK.

Mac OS recently mucked this up.  It no longer sees them properly as a bunch of folders as files (as any good file manager should), rather it seems them as a QuickTime package.  You have to 'open the package' as it were to get at the files inside.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 15, 2013 Feb 15, 2013

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You on a Mac?

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Advocate ,
Feb 16, 2013 Feb 16, 2013

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Jim Simon wrote:

You on a Mac?

Yes, nice fast MacBook Pro with i7 processor and five external drives.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 17, 2013 Feb 17, 2013

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OK.

Mac OS recently mucked this up.  It no longer sees them properly as a bunch of folders as files (as any good file manager should), rather it seems them as a QuickTime package.  You have to 'open the package' as it were to get at the files inside.

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Advocate ,
Feb 17, 2013 Feb 17, 2013

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You get Five Stars for that reply Jim, I gathered that it seemed good to double-click on the resulting file, which does open in Quicktime and does show all of the clips and does offer the ability to export in the original format to folders where I save original clips. I have no problem with that and planned on continuing that way as I don't want to rely on Premiere to handle my original files - Only after I have previewed them outside of Premiere and decided which one's I want to include in any specific project. I keep specific projects 'whole' and 'isolated' as 'stand-alone' and 'complete' in respective folders.

I don't consider this arrangement to be 'mucked up' at all, I'm just glad to know how it is and what I have to work with before I start tackling any serious work. I'm new to Premiere coming from FCP and I'm liking Premiere better every day. I'm just getting my ducks in a row at this point.'

Here's my 'I Wish':  I wish there were a way to extract all of the files in the AVCHD or 'Private' file as a batch save so I could have all of the individual files (clips) extracted and ready to preview without having to go through, one-by-one, viewing and exporting. Saving time is a major consideration for anything to do with video production for me.

Thanks A Whole Lot Jim,

Ken

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LEGEND ,
Feb 17, 2013 Feb 17, 2013

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I have no problem with that and planned on continuing that way as I don't want to rely on Premiere to handle my original files - Only after I have previewed them outside of Premiere and decided which one's I want to include in any specific project. I keep specific projects 'whole' and 'isolated' as 'stand-alone' and 'complete' in respective folders.

I am not exactly sure what you are trying to do here... but it sounds wrong and I think you have a misunderstanding of the work flow and NLEs!

I am not sure also about Jims advice ...although I am sure he is right...but I think he is advising you about something else.  ie not the ingesting of the source files into Premiere (Project Bins)

Premiere is a non destructive editor.  It wont harm your source files by working "with " them.

Keep all your source files exactly how they came of the card ( camera card) on your local hard drive.

THey will be individual files in side Premiere.

Dont mess around trawling through them, viewing them  in an external player and sorting them..  You will bust something!

The place to sort your files is in the Bins in a Premiere Project. 

Basically...Edit in the editing Application.   (Premiere)

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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I don't consider this arrangement to be 'mucked up' at all

What I mean is that a file manager, which Finder is, should be showing you the folders and files exactly as they are.  That's what a file manager does.

I wish there were a way to extract all of the files in the AVCHD or 'Private' file

That's generally a bad idea.  Like Craig says, you should be keeping the Private folder intact and unaltered.  The media will usually work better that way.

If you want a way to see the individual clips outside of PP more easily, talk to Apple and get them to fix Finder so it works correctly.

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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I wish there were a way to extract all of the files in the AVCHD or 'Private' file

That's generally a bad idea.  Like Craig says, you should be keeping the Private folder intact and unaltered.  The media will usually work better that way.

If you want a way to see the individual clips outside of PP more easily, talk to Apple and get them to fix Finder so it works correctly.

You guys know best. The smartest thing I can do right now is listen to all of you and learn.

If you could get the message through to Apple I'm sure it would be better than having it come from me, with my lack of actual experience along the lines that you see most clearly. From what I understand, I should ask Apple to not keep files hidden in 'encapsulated form' in a 'Private' file but have the contained files available by clicking on the 'Private' file?

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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There is no chance Apple will do this.  Forgedaboutit.

You dont need to use the QT player at all in your Premiere editing workflow  is the advice that Jim and I are telling you.

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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shooternz wrote:

There is no chance Apple will do this.  Forgedaboutit.

You dont need to use the QT player at all in your Premiere editing workflow  is the advice that Jim and I are telling you.

Okay, I'm now going to do an about face and revise my workflow routine to start in Premiere.

"Copy entire AVCHD file from your card  to your local hard drive ( not C;)

Open Premiere Pro.

Go to the Media Browser Panel

Locate your Source footage on the local hard drive directory.

Click down to the individual source clips.  Where varies a little depending on camera  but eg. VideoStream

Import into Premiere.  ( one way..Drag them to a Folder in the Project Window eg "Holiday Clips""....

... Keep all your source files exactly how they came of the card ( camera card) on your local hard drive.

THey will be individual files in side Premiere.

Dont mess around trawling through them, viewing them  in an external player and sorting them..  You will bust something!

The place to sort your files is in the Bins in a Premiere Project.

Basically...Edit in the editing Application.   (Premiere)

Thanks shooternz et. al.,

Ken

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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My only last concern, because I am so used to working 'outside' of an application to store resouces into individual files by 'project' is:

What if I need clips from the AVCHD file that are now open in a project in Premiere, brought into other projects? Do I need to open the same AVCHD file again in each project to sort out which clips belong to which project?

Ken

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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A Project refers to your source files only by name and location.  It "points" at the files to be used in the edit.

Importing / Ingesting the files into your Project only tells Premiere where the files are in the system.

It does not import the actual physical  file and it is non destructive.  It does not harm the file.

Any number of projects can "reference" exactlty the same files and any singler project can reference that file multiple times even though it only appears once in the Project Bin.

This is the same for any NLE.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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What if I need clips from the AVCHD file that are now open in a project in Premiere, brought into other projects? Do I need to open the same AVCHD file again in each project to sort out which clips belong to which project?

As ShooterNZ says, all you have is a link to Asset (your AVCHD in this case). It can be used in multiple Projects, and you will just Import it into each. Also covered by ShooterNZ, you can any number (might be a limit up there somewhere?) of Instances of that file, and each can have different In & Out Points.

As an example, I have an AVI file titled "The End," with some intricate animations. I have used it 100's of times, in different Projects. One thing that I do, related to such Assets is to Copy those to a folder structure within my Project's folder structure. That allows me to work with the Assets, but not touch my "originals," but only Copies. I do that for all Assets in a Project, so cleanup is easy. The one downside is that if I have the Project on, say my G:\ drive, with Copies of all Assets in sub-folders below it, I do give up some performance vs splitting things over multiple HDD's. If I feel the need to go for the improved performance, and some times I do, then I will create a "root folder" [Project Name] on each HDD, and create appropriate sub-folders below that. Then cleanup is a bit more complicated, but with all Assets under that [Project name] root, I just navigate to it, on each HDD, and Delete it, taking all those Copies, etc. with it. For me, it pays to spend an hour in contemplation on how I wish to work on a Project, then set it up, so that things work best for me.

Good luck,

Hunt

PS - for a bit of background on what is contained IN a Project Files (PRPROJ in this case), see this article: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3392837#3392837

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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The best thing is I know you guys are steering me in the right direction. Before I amass a fortune in AVCHD files I need to have a plan of attack. Here's what I'm thinking of doing then after weighing what has been said: I will keep a separate hard drive (a really fast one) as the place to store my original files taken from the camera. Those files will be stored each in folders with the shooting date and the subject as a refeence in the folder name. This way, I can catalog what I have to work with and be able to navigate to it easily when a new project comes up where I want to use certain clips that already exist. As Bill Hunt said, 'spend an hour in contemplation' which is what I am doing now. Your feedback is primary in me beginning work on several video projects coming up.

I'll go to the link that you posted now Bill and thanks to you and shooternz,

Ken

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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I will keep a separate hard drive (a really fast one) as the place to store my original files taken from the camera. Those files will be stored each in folders with the shooting date and the subject as a refeence in the folder name. This way, I can catalog what I have to work with and be able to navigate to it easily when a new project comes up where I want to use certain clips that already exist.

Absolutely right and correct for an efficient workflow and for storage / archive.

FWIW: I copy the scrd from a shoot to an External Hard Drive (Permanent archive and backup) and I copy same to internal local drive for editing.

Foder Naming protocol is Job name_Day/Date_Rushes.

Becareful  not to put AVCHD files from different cards in same folder. THey may overwrite. 

Separate Rushes folder for every card - Important at many levels.

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Okay, Now I'm going to work and will pay special attention to the practices and workflow given in this thread.

Thank You and wishing you all much success ahead,

Ken

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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I will keep a separate hard drive (a really fast one) as the place to store my original files taken from the camera.

That's a good plan, but only half way there.  As tapeless media have no tape for backup, you should seriously consider using two hard drives, an internal drive for editing, and an external for backup.

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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I have five external drives and three backup drives. It only takes a few times of losing irreplaceable images to teach one to make backups, having learned the hard way, I backup to the extreem now. Better safe than sorry. Time making backups is never wasted. I agree with you completely Jim.

Thanks for making sure this important step was covered. Excuse me now, I have to go make some more backups!:- )

Ken

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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You guys, you can't be serious. Why should I triple the amount of work I have to do under near impossible conditions?

1. The media browser is small and difficult to navigtate

2. The filenames are clipped because the browser window is so small it won't allow full file names to be seen, so it makes you fly blind. (okay, I did find that you can drag to resize the browser, which is nice.)

3. The AVCHD file 'Private' has all the clips, but what am I supposed to do? Double-click on each one?, More that 75% of them I don't want for any particular project.

4. After I double-click on each clip to see what it contains, I can't even rename the clip to make it more meaningful as to what it was when I opened it. Can you rename clips that are in the AVCHD 'Private' file so they are more identifiable without having to open and preview again every time you want to see what's there?

5. There is no way to 'delete' or take away clips I don't want cluttering up the browser window, clips I will never use on this project.

This looks like an awful mess to me, with no way to clean it up, and the thought of having to go through this process 'starting from blinded' not being able to see what each clip contains without going through previewing again every time I start a new project just seems impossible to try to work with.

Where Am I missing the fun part?

Ken

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Welcome to the wonderful world of tapeless media.  It has it's flaws, but this is how it works.  If you don't like it, write to Sony and Panasonic who invented AVCHD and complain.  (I did.)  If we're lucky, the next iteration of AVC-Ultra won't be so stupid.

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Advocate ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Well, at least I'm not alone. Thanks Jim. At least, if I save the clips outside of the application as I have been doing, I can name the clip's filename.

Tempting to want to work in the most convenient way. I'll stay with the way you guys recommended here because if you can do it I can do it, mostly because you guys have some serious mileage under your belts and I respect that.

Back to fiddling. I mean, I'm going back to the much easier task of playing the violin.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Well, at least I'm not alone. Thanks Jim. At least, if I save the clips outside of the application as I have been doing, I can name the clip's filename.

Jim has an issue in that regard but it is not the same as what you are discussing. eg a problem with Premiere.

Jims issue does not describe workflow or the way it works in Premiere.( Its a fixed paradigm issue come down from the  world of tape and digitising)

@ you..  THere is no need to re name clips in the digital tapeless editing world .  You said ..

Why should I triple the amount of work.

Re naming clips would  do that ..with no benefit.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Well...I can see the benefit myself, were the AVCHD spec properly designed to put everything in one MXF file recording to NTFS cards.

It's our loss that it wasn't.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 18, 2013 Feb 18, 2013

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Maybe .

Meantime you have confused the O.P. and got no where by ..

write to Sony and Panasonic who invented AVCHD and complain. (I did.) If we're lucky, the next iteration of AVC-Ultra won't be so stupid.

Classic Jim ( how did they respond?)

...and no one else seems to have issue with how it works..

Simplest management  of data seems to work absolutely fine in my world.   Never been easier IMHO

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