Objective: Customer has a hardrive (HDD) camcorder or a flash memory card or an SDcard with a whole bunch of clips. These clips are named using a sequence number. The customer would like the clips organized on the DVD menu by date with only one menu item for each date (ie. no multiple dates on the menu). In many cases there are multiple clips for each date that could subsequently make up a single clip, event, or scene. However we do not want an event for every little clip; we want to perhaps associate each day's events into a menu item on the end result of the DVD.

Dividing the Clips For Each DVD

It is unlikely that a given HDD will all fit on one DVD. In general HDD clips should be divided into chunks of about 3 to 4GB for each DVD. For example, a Sony HDD 30GB camcorder with a full HDD will have about 8 to 10 DVD's of data.

Time to Process

To move the clips, place on the NLE timeline, render, author, burn DVD, and create and print covers should take about 30 minutes per DVD or per 3 to 4GB of data (approx 1.5 hours). 30 minutes should equal 50% of our hourly rate....ie. $37.50

Steps:

Isolate and copy the needed clips from the memory or HDD to a working directory.
Use the ReNamer program to rename the clips from the number sequence to a creation date sequence:
1. run the ReNamer program on the directory of clips
2. select the directory (folder) or directories that have the clips...this can be selected in one go
3. Both actions can be done in the same run. The first action is to rename the clips so that the "last modified Date" is the start (prefix) of the file name and the remainder of the name is the original name. "Click here to ad a rule" will open a dialog box used to create the first rule: A. click "Insert" (it is on the top of the list so should be selected by default. B. To fill the "What:" box click on "Insert Meta Tag and select "File_DateModified" and click Insert. C. "Prefix should already be selected so now click "Add Rule"
4. The second action is to delete the time part of the modified date. The can be done by "deleting" columns "positions (the starting position on the "delete" edit rule dialogue box should be set to 12 and the count box should be set for 8; some tweeking may be needed).
5. Preview and then rename it!
6. I used the last mod date because the creation date had changed to the current date and the last mod date was still the original
Pull the clips into the NLE
1. Note: Remember the tips and tricks of Vegas here whereby copying a large selection of files - after selecting the files make sure you grab the first file in the list when moving them to the timeline; otherwise the order of the clips will be all jumbled up!
2. drop the clips onto a Vegas Pro time-line...this may take a while so be patient. The easiest way is to select all the files from Explorer and drag and drop them onto the timeline.
3. drop only one to two DVD's worth of clips onto the time-line otherwise you may run into odd "low memory errors" in Vegas. Within a Windows Explorer folder you may add a "Length" attribute as a column to get a quick view of how much time you are dealing with on the selected files.
Creating markers in Vegas/UltimateSPro to use for the menus in DVD Architect
1. Open Ultimate S and go to the "Markers" tab
  1. Go to "create markers" section
  2. Select - "entire project", marker type "Marker", Naming "Use active take name", and "create markers at events"
  3. Click the "Apply" button
  4. This will create a marker at the start of every event naming the marker the same as the name of the clip
  5. Now unselect create markers - remove check from "create markers at events"
  6. Now save all the markers to a txt file by checking the "Load/Save Markers", with "Markers" from the dropdown list, and "Saver Markers to a File", adjusting the filename to correspond to the project/DVD name. Click Apply.
Use Ultraedit to open the markers txt file that you just created
1. ...and manually go thru and delete all but the first marker of each date
2. Change to column mode
3. Now, delete the sequence number at the end of the marker name and leave only the date portion that will be used for the menu name. Save the file in the project folder.
Ultimate S - go back into the "Markers" tab
1. Remove all the markers. Check the "Remove Markers", use "Entire project", and check "Markers". Click Apply. Be sure to UN-check "Remove Markers" before the next step.
2. Create the "regions" for each DVD on the timeline.... then..
3. Load the changed marker file back in. Click Apply.
Then, render for the region the video for DVD Architect... which will include the markers to a "render" folder marked corresponding to the resultant DVD #, within the project folder. The preset used will most of the time depend on whether Widescreen in needed or not. These two presets are at the top of the list as A.) NTSC DV with AC3 Audio, or B.) NTSC DV Widescreen with AC3 Audio. Choose as required.
In DVD Architect
1. Load the rendered video file
2. Create "scene selection" and it should automatically create the menu items using the markers' names.