Tech Tip - 4/20/12

Converting to tapeless recording media in our camcorders has been a learning experience for all involved.  We are continuing to find quirks of the medium and solutions to those quirks.

One such quirk was known that when recording long clips (longer than 12  minutes for HD, 30 for SD) the camera creates new clips when it hits this time limit.  I discovered its not actually a function of the camera but of the way that the media cards are formated. 

Normally this is not an issue, just put the clips togther in editing and you will be all set.  Some producers, however, have noticed "dropped frames" (loss of audio and video) at the point between clips that should be seemless transitions.  The other place this may be a headache is for those producers using multiple cameras and wanting to sych the cameras in a multi-cam edit session after the fact.

Both of these issues can be fixed by performing a simple step before editing and erasing your card.  You can use Sony's Content Managment Software (we have a copy on the PC in the greenroom) to transfer your clips off the camera card.  The software will take all the "chunks" a put them back together into one seamless clip which then you can import into Premier to edit or sync up in a mutli-camera session.

If you think you might have an issue, or just want to have less clips to worry about when you edit long takes, see Adam and he will show you how to use the Content Management Software.

Note:  This ONLY applies to recording of clips that go longer than 30 minutes for SD footage and 12 Minutes for HD.  Clips shorter than these lengths are not affected and do not need any addtional processing.

Happy shooting and editing. :)