Retaining time code information

Videot wrote on 2/14/2005, 7:21 PM
When you take video the time date stamp tells you when your video was taken & this I find can also be very useful when you wish to sort your clips into the sequence in which they were shot. As far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong this time date information will stay with the clip even if you rendered part of the clip to another AVI file.

I have created a few clips using Steadyhand. This seams to create a new AVI file that carries a creating date of today even though the original clip could have been taken days, months or even years ago. Is there any way to get the information to reflect the date you originally shot the video? I notice in Window XP under properties you can sometimes add up to 3 dozen columns to display, even date created but I can't see how you even a add this information here & even if you could it's unlikely that Vegas could pick it up if the data wasn't embedded in the original DV footage. Any ideas?

Comments

filmy wrote on 2/15/2005, 7:14 AM
While time code can be entered in Vegas I have not seen the info ever retained. Info is only kept at a project level, not carried over during a render.

The date_time fuction is another story. Anytime you change a shot the original date and time stamping is lost. You said you ran your footage through Steadyhand - that would cause your original info to be lost. To the best of my knowledge Vegas has no method in which to type in new date_time info.

On the final part of the question - when you render you can enter in information. Under "Project Properties" click on the "Summary" tab. This is the info you see in Windows explorer and you are correct saying that it would be "unlikely that Vegas could pick it up".
riredale wrote on 2/15/2005, 8:17 AM
One solution would be to name a clip after its time/date stamp. You could do this manually (ugh!) or have a capture program do this automatically for you.

For example, I capture all clips into my hard drives using ScenalyzerLive. I've told the utility that the name for each clip should reflect the date stamp. So a typical clip will have a name like

Tape07'20040712 13.15.56.avi

which is a clip I just pulled at random out of one of my drives. This clip lives on "Tape07" and was shot last July 12th at 1:15:56 pm local time.

Is this what you mean?

Another advantage of this naming method is that you automatically pull in a batch of clips in the correct shooting sequence. Just make sure you paint over the series of clips (or click-shift the first and last clips) and then grab the whole batch by the first clip when you drag them to the timeline. Windows apparently puts the clip you've grabbed first. The rest of the clips will appear in the proper order behind the one you grabbed.
BrianStanding wrote on 2/15/2005, 2:57 PM
Never tried this with Vegas, but I think it should work:

http://www.baobab.net/dvfeatures.htm
filmy wrote on 2/16/2005, 7:14 AM
>>>http://www.baobab.net/dvfeatures.htm<<<

I tried to talk to him a few years ago about getting DV Converter to read Vegas TC info but all emails just bounced back. I did track him down and he said that he wasn't developing anymore. The program works very well but for Vegas work it is pretty usless because Vegas stores the TC info in a different place than other programs. At the time I thought it would be great to create offline files and use the "recapture all offline media" feature to build the final version - I created the files and they worked/read perfect in Premiere and in SCLive however Vegas - nothing.
BrianStanding wrote on 2/24/2005, 10:34 AM
Sorry for the delayed response... I just saw your post. That's too bad... the Baobab converter was a nice product in its day.

Why on earth would Sony store timecode in a non-DV-standard way? Is there a good reason for this, or is it just an oversight?

Sony?
2G wrote on 2/24/2005, 3:05 PM
Is the date/time code for AVI available via Vegas scripting? I can't seem to find it in the API.
Videot wrote on 2/24/2005, 3:19 PM
I took a clip of just one event & made a small cut in it & then rendered it out. The new avi doesn't carry the time time & date stamp data from the origainal. It's hard to see why this could not be included, perhaps as an option when creating new clips.
michael_morlan wrote on 2/25/2005, 3:31 PM
Rendered clips contain new timecode, not that of the source clip. The reason is simple. How does Vegas know which timecode you would want -- especially if you are rendering a clip from a multi-layered project timeline.

Vegas *does* retain timecode when you "Save as..." the project and click the "Copy and trim media with project" option.