Camera Archiving-is it good?

Hi Karsten,

Yes it is a riddle to me, and why I find the whole FCPX ingest a bit backward and not really fit for function, maybe it is just me, but how can I be so wrong?

Any way, hopefully before 2020 Apple will have updated or replaced or replaced FCPX, just when is the next update arriving????

MsJustine wrote: ... just when is the next update arriving????

25th October ....

October, really, what year???

On the Blackmagic Pocket Camera (and probably their other cameras) you DO NOT have the option to delete a single clip, you can only format the entire card. They do this because if you start deleting individual clips, you run the risk of corrupting the data on the card, so it's all or nothing.

The camera archive is the exact same thing in FCPX. FCPX is creating an exact copy, this way if anything happens to the footage you imported to FCPX, you'll have the card in it's original format so you can reimport the footage without issue.

For some cameras this is going to be much more important than others. The Pocket camera records in ProRes, so a camera archive isn't really necessary, but on Sony cameras that have the XAVC format, you can run into more issues if you aren't importing directly from a card. Sometimes I can import files directly from a folder that the media was copied to off of the card, but other times I can only import directly from the card where the footage was recorded.

If I have a camera archive from a Sony camera, I'll always have the original file structure that will be importable from FCPX. If I don't have a camera archive I will have to figure out something else.

I just ran a quick test connecting an Atomos Ninja drive to computer via USB thinking that I'd be able to select and import ranges of clips, but that did not work. I was thinking that if I had something like the Ninja connected, it would recognize it as a "camera", but not the case.

Oh well. I must have known this and forgotten that this was the case or I would have been using that feature all along instead of working from the original QT clips.

So yes, count me in as one who would like to see this implemented in some future release.

Sorry for hijacking the thread MsJustine.

All the best.

Jonathan

It is good to see others posting issues, I had one type of issue related to Camera Archive, this thread opened up to others reporting, maybe someone at Apple Pro Dev reads and thinks, "OH MY, maybe this was something we had not considered..."

There problem is when you import from a camera or camera archive you're forced to use a copy function. There is no option to leave in place as there is when importing from a hard drive. To edit selectively from within a clip the media has to be rebuilt so it has to be copied.

You already have Andreas' VirtualCamCard option, which works very well if you want to edit on import.

You should also make a feature request to be able to make selections when importing from a drive. All that has to be done, I think, and I'm not a programmer in any way, is as soon as you make a selection inside a clip, the leave in place function should be shut off giving the user only the copy function to library location.

@ Julian
The camera archive is only a kind of structure copy. It adds the useless meta data file and the the most important thing is it's in HFS+ format.
Another thing is that the archive always goes to the user folder.
For a real copy you need to make an ISO copy of the card (as I described above).
The advantage is that "bad" cards can be repaired in the camera or one of the endless repair tools on windows.

@ Jonathan
That's why I made the VCC tool. Nd as I said earlier QT 7 Player is always an option.

I any case you always should make a backup - though in some cases, like long time recording, it doesn't make to much sense.

- Andreas

Tom.

Yes I forgot to acknowledge Andreas VirtualCamCard tool. I will definitely check that out. Thanks so much for the effort Andreas!

I'll also reach out to Apple and suggest something. I know they are worried that they haven't heard from me in a while.

JL

There are good reasons for "no option to leave in place".
It would be like a call for trouble.

Look at the posts on the forums caused by partial import and missing cards - just one example.

- Andreas