Building a Video Catalog

As I have mentioned in this forum a couple of times, in addition to shooting video and making mini-documentaries about wrecks, places and environmental concerns, I am interested in building a library of video clips for my future use and, maybe, for future generations to see what the ocean looks like in our day. Not yet over-the-hill at 55, I do see a day when age and health may curb my diving somewhat. Hopefully at least 20 years away, one of my thoughts for that time, is that I'll have some sedentary time to go back over libraries of video footage and start recombining it to tell different stories. I already have nearly 10 years of footage which I am scrupulously maintaining, including migrating it forward into new formats as the old ones become obsolete. An earlier thread that I started was all about how to keep it safe through off-site backups. Here is the next topic on the subject, how to build a catalog of the clips.

What is the best way / tool to build a catalog of video clips?

Currently all the clips are in FCP X, including all the older clips which I have now migrated across. All stored on a Raid 5 system (currently about 7 Tb and growing). The more recent "events" do have keywords on clips, giving an indication of the content (place, type of shot, content, critter, etc). The older ones do not.

Before I do the massive exercise of key-wording all the older clips in FCP X, I want to make sure that this is the best approach.

One weakness that I see in using FCP X for cataloguing is that it tends to treat each "event" as a discrete database. In my case, an "event" is one dive trip (e.g. Truk Lagoon 2009). In FCP X, I can filter for "wreck" in one event but can not search across all events for this key-word. Maybe Apple will work on this in the future but it'll be a challenge, given that each event is in it's own folder.

I was wondering if I should use something like Aperture or Lightroom to build the video clip catalog, leaving the video clips in their current location but using Aperture to build a reference catalog. I have my image library, spanning 30 years of photography, all in Lightroom and all mainly key-worded. Would thousands of video clips, even in reference mode, swamp something like Aperture or Lightroom?

Or is there some better tool out there that some of you are using or have heard about?

Or should I just do the key-wording in FCP X and hope something will come along that can catalog event clips, loading in the FCP X keywords to start the tagging system.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Regards

Peter

Not yet over-the-hill at 55, I do see a day when age and health may curb my diving somewhat. Hopefully at least 20 years away, one of my thoughts for that time, is that I'll have some sedentary time to go back over libraries of video footage and start recombining it to tell different stories...

Gasp! ...and I always tried to think in terms of the "Leni Riefenstahl timeline". At age 71, she took up scuba diving and was an active underwater videographer (huge Betacam housing) until well into her 90s. Released her last film in 2002 at the age of 99!

Sorry Peter...can't help with video catalog ideas. No one but myself would figure my "method" out.

I use Extensis Portfolio Server. It's the longest lasting software that hasn't disappeared and continues to update for different cameras without extensive re-cataloging transfer when iView Media Pro died etc. I use it for all media including phone videos and photos.

Good software though not perfect. Interface is a tad clunky for imports but it works. For your purposes, the metadata allows for decent scene descriptions and cuts etc.

Works for most common modern and older formats (except Betacam and really old formats like hi8 but I've encoded those to .mov).

With some of your footage being so old, my guess is that you probably have plenty of clips that are 4x3 SD as well as HDV and other formats. It doesn't make a difference what you are shooting, but how to preserve and organize your clips appears to be the real concern. All my FCP7 and X projects and events are on my RAID 5 as well and that is what I work off of. However, I also do multiple back ups of all clips onto, at least, two or three other drives. What I do for my underwater clips after importing is go to the Events folder in X or the capture scratch in legacy FC, duplicate it so that I have all clips, and bring the copy over to another drive. For my underwater or African safari clips, I then create multiple folders by Species and format. My ancient hi-8 footage is on one drive with clips named and put in their proper species folder. I do the same with all other clips depending upon format. While I don't date each clip, that is not a bad idea to do so as you might have a few trips to Truk under your belt while I have only one, back in 96 with hi-8. (Would love to go back there. )

At to transcoding old footage to higher res codecs like Pro Res...I personally wouldn't do so unless I needed to use the footage for a specific project. Why make bigger files of footage that really isn't needed at this point and fill up your drives? The clips won't go anywhere and disappear, especially if all is backed up.

For current clips that you are shooting now, yes, transcode if they are needed, and then duplicate the transcoded files for archiving purposes but I just see no need to do so for footage that you might never use or need again other than as an attestation to diving and filming history and accomplishments.

Steve

I use Extensis Portfolio Server. It's the longest lasting software that hasn't disappeared and continues to update for different cameras without extensive re-cataloging transfer when iView Media Pro died etc. I use it for all media including phone videos and photos.

Good software though not perfect. Interface is a tad clunky for imports but it works. For your purposes, the metadata allows for decent scene descriptions and cuts etc.

Works for most common modern and older formats (except Betacam and really old formats like hi8 but I've encoded those to .mov).

Hi Drew,

I used to use Extensis for my photo library catalog - back when my portfolio library was all on actual film. I did not realise that it had survived the transition into the digital world. I'll take another look at it.

Thanks

Peter