organizing clips into searchable database

Hi obviator,

Personally I don't like the clips viewer myself and drag all from the finder. But if you go to preferences>import>Place clips in clips pane you can re-arrange and name them here in iM regardless of name by moving them from pane to pane You can then double click them give them a unique name while preserving the default name that the camera (I'm assuming a number) gives it. I am also curious as to how iMovie behaves when you do this as it seems most of the people posting don't specify and I am assuming they are importing directly into the timeline.

On the file organization note keep in mind that computers sort numbers first and always in a column type fashion. We have all experienced something like this at one time or another 1,10,11,2... I have had a too much experience re-organizing faulty file systems when programs, formats etc change or files are moved from one place to another via the finder so to make your organization method work throughout your computer. You may want to think about character parameters as if you were creating inventory/ item lists or the like so that every "name" contains the same number of characters. I have also found that if date is to be part of the file name and or search criteria it works best being first and will help keep things organized by the game according to the date. You'll want to create abbreviations for the rest even if they don't conform to typical sports lingo, they all must have the same number of characters to sort properly. Personal names wreak havoc on a computers organizational abilities that is why most applications that rely on strict organization such as accounting programs never rely on names usually use ID tags Like Player ID: OBVTR (obviator).

The only suggestion that I would have for an application is Filemaker pro. I've used it for all types of databases. You can create team cards with the team information stats etc. that will reference player info cards with full information about the individual players name stats etc, game cards with relevant info temp, weather condition or whatever. View the clips and set any criteria you can imagine for searching for what you are looking for. I stopped upgrading at 5.5 because it still works for me and I'm not in the data base creating business. It is the best customizable database program I know of and very easy to use. There are also a lot of people who will create databases for you if you should so desire. It will also allow you to simplify your clip names to allow a single clip to be sorted under numerous players Joe Offensive Quarterback's bad move was Bob Defensive Lineman's play of the year. Not really a sports person and hope I make sense.

061203 GNTS DLPN OBVITR D TKL
061203 GNTS DLPN JONES O FBL

2006 Dec 03, Giants v Dolphins, Obviator, Defense, Tackle (or could be tickle if you've ever heard of the Bradford Beavers)

I think you get the idea just remember place holders are important throughout, so just because Jones's ID is shorter than Obviator's ID it still requires the same number of place holder so your computer doesn't send it off into left field some where.

With Filemaker pro that name could be simplified 061203 GNTS v DLPN even the options you have to list and view the clips individually by player touch downs, one at a time, however-many will fit on your screen, a browser with a viewer-.. AND it plays very well with others created on Mac Made for Mac and Stayed on Mac but became cross platform quite some time ago. It used to be part of Claris Works which is now Appleworks and Palm Desktop was Claris Organizer and FileMaker was retained and the company renamed. The separation was a bummer for many at first but their focus on nothing but database creation made it absolutely unbeatable. it is also one of the original ODBC (other database compliant) applications which makes exchanging information between other applications easier. Communicates with Palm and Address book and I am sure many others that I am unaware of.

As for the highlighter thing there is one available I believe for free sorry I can't direct you to it. I believe I came across it through one of the links posted here. It was pretty cool as you could adjust the beam radius but I am not sure if you can make it follow a subject so the cameraman would have to be good at following the subject and use a mono-pod to keep things steady. I used to photograph cycling events and even though it seems that the action was easy to follow a tripod didn't work out to well as you couldn't move around at the speed or angles you needed to or when you simply needed to get out of the way of body and bike parts. I couldn't imagine using one for a foot ball game.

FWIW
Whacked

I don't know what this board does as things seem act funny sometimes or if it is he font width thing happening but in those sample file names the O should be directly below the D with an empty space under the R.

W1

There are probably databases that do what you want. Sorry, I'm not familiar with them so I can't recommend any.

There are built-in features of your Mac that can help, and they are free.

1. Mac OS X's Spotlight feature. It lets you search for all kinds of data on your Mac, data saved lots of different ways. You can find files by name, by the text inside a file and lots of other features.

For example, if your iMovie HD project contains a clip you've named "Smith's 3rd quarter Touchdown against Tulane" you can search for "Smith", "Touchdown", "Tulane", "3rd quarter" or any text combination to locate the iMovie project containing Smith's touchdown clip. When you double-click on the project in Spotlight's list, iMovie will open it.

2. Or you can put the searchable text inside the clip file itself. To be able to find the clip file WITHIN a project (instead of the iMovie project containing the clip) use the Finder to store a Spotlight Commend inside the clip file.

Select the clip file in the project's Media folder, choose File > File Info, and type "Smith's 3rd quarter touching against Tulane" in the Spotlight Comments field. Now Spotlight will open that clip in QuickTime Player when you double-click on the Spotlight found list.

3. Mac alias files can also be very useful. If the clip file "Clip 03.mov" in the iMovie project Media folder is of Smith's touchdown, you can create an alias file to the clip file and drag the alias to a folder where you store such aliases. You could name the alias file "Smith's 3rd quarter Touchdown against Tulane". Spotlight will find it by name.

You could drag the alias to your "Touchdown Clips" folder, for example. Or your "Tulane" folder. Wherever it is, Spotlight will find it by name.

4. You could even create a group of folders, organized by game. One folder for each game.

5. You could create a "Game Clips" template folder containing the subfolders "Touchdowns", "Penalties", "Flubs", "Running Plays" and "Pass Plays". After each game, make a duplicate of the template folder, then name the duplicate "Tulane at Home" or whatever. Drag clip aliases from your iMovie "Tulane Game" Media folder into the appropriate folder.

6. Create Smart Folders in the Finder that automatically show all the "Touchdown" clip aliases/Spotlight comments on your computer. When you type "Smith's 3rd quarter Touchdown against Tulane" in the Spotlight Comment of a clip file it will automatically appear in your "Touchdowns" Smart Folder. Or your "Smith" Smart Folder. You can create as many Smart Folders you want. They update automatically.

(Some clips show up in my test Smart Folder and some don't. Check it out before using. Maybe there's a Spotlight update issue here. Or some Spotlight features don't work for files inside a package?)

7. Later, to create an iMovie project containing a collection of touchdowns, drag the Touchdown aliases into the Timeline of the project. iMovie will import the source clips from the various projects.

You can even drag a touchdown clip/alias from the Spotlight found list directly into the Timeline.

Or double-click on the movie in the Spotlight found list to open it in QuickTime Player. If it's the clip you want, drag the little icon in to the QuickTime Player window titlebar to the iMovie Timeline.

(To access the Media folder inside the project package, Control-click on the project icon and choose "Show Package Contents" from the popUp menu. Important: do NOT change the name of files in Media folder. That will screw up the project.)

Some of these solutions require keeping the iMovie project intact on the same disk. An alias link will be broken if you discard the source clip, for example. Others — like the Spotlight Comment stored in the clip file — will survive as long as the clip survives.

Lots of ways to go.

Karl

Gil,

In addition to some of the other suggestions you've received, I want to mention that Final Cut HD Express has much more robust features for logging and organizing clips than does iMovie.

The downside, of course, is cost and a steep learning curve.

Nonetheless, I wanted to mention it as an option.

Matt

Gil,

Final Cut Express allows you to tag clips with various metadeta and then do searches on it.

I have to confess that I use iMovie and only toy around with FCE. Still, I do know that FCE is more capable when logging video.

Honestly, my best advice is to fire up FCE and see for yourself.

Matt

Hi Obviator,

"I'm very familiar with MS Access" eeoow-!! You poor soul, you have my unfeigned condolence ;D

"Are you saying that you can sort in imovie?"No, not sort as a database would but as a place to simply import and rename the clips. You can move them around the clips panes as well. FileMaker can either read them from the iMovie project file or you can drag them out to a folder somewhere else.. this is part of the ODBC compliant thing alhough not to the true extent as it woulld not open the iMovie app, all you would be doing is creating a little routine to open the package contents of the project and read the clips from the media folder there.

AFAIR FileMaker uses the term "card file" as data entry and access points.

As I said I am not too knowledgeable in sports so forgive me if my scenarios are half baked.

In my personal experience I have found that keeping the data entry to a minimum is the best and easiest way to control and use it. Every individual piece of data should be entered only one time if a "card file" needs to display other information it should be looked up from the area where it's entry is most relevant. If you shoot a movie, from here we'll call it game, and say it has 10 clips that is all the clips you will ever have in your database for that game. Even though these 10 clips can be accessed numerous ways. i.e.. 1 league, 10 teams, 20 coaches 150 players theoretically each clip could be associated with and displayed 181 times in 181 different card files. (if every team and every plater played in every game) Basically it comes down to wether you want to deal with 10 (game) clips 181 times or 1810 clips 1 time each.

This is a simple breakdown of the card files with the basic data entry.
field names written after >is data entered in this file. Field names entered after <is data displayed in this file gathered from another file. field names are separated by a coma and anything with a * would be selected from a drop down list or menu.

Keep in mind everything in bold should be as independent of the others as possible i.e.. in a coach file you would use a team name field such as a drop down list or a self completing field that would automatically fill in the rest of the info such as school, address etc. in all the other fields from team card file.

League > geographical area <Team(s)*games, coaches, player, stats etc. (The reason why team names would not be entered here is that that may change and the list of teams may grow, new school regional changes)

Team> school name , address, playing field name, location, maps, directions etc< league, games,Team*, coach, players stats, total TD's FBLS total wins loses total season points etc

Coach> name, information pertaining to that individual only, previous team*, current team* etc. < games, players, stats,

Players > name, position, jersey number, TDs, FBLs, age team<games

Game Team*, Team*, winner* date container fields (clips)<coach, player

This is very rudimentary. Some of the fields in some of the cards are calculations i.e. total touchdowns per game per team would be information gathered from the individual players who made the TD with the sum placed in a calculation field wherever required. Keep in mind the main goal is to enter the data only one time as the more places you enter data the more room for error the touch down is most relevant information to the player who made it.

My businesses final product was graphics and technical drawing including QTVRs and QT movies of 3D computer models that would generate a large amounts of graphics/image files and the program that created them didn't have any way to organize, access and display them until about 4 years ago. The QT movies are much more "intense" as they were created by placing "cameras" throughout the models and you told it how many "frames" you wanted from point A to B and played back with a slider type control. So you could have a hundred frames and play them back in a second FM often handled them better than Movie Player/ QT player and Meander.

Did this in 2 sec. Just to show you an idea of a clip browser type window this is what your game "card file" would look like . Sorry, but I just repeated the same field and the clip starts out black. This is 5.5 remember and you can make these windows look anyway you want and here you would have other fields as well.<teams* which at this point would automatically bring in the caoches players etc all you would input is the dates and select the teams from a list. you can place buttons links ->> also note this version 5.5 on the MBPro the two are lightyears apart as this predates the G5 and movie playback and sound is clean as a whistle.

http://www.megimage.com/easyupload/picstore/200612/200612000002696.tiff

I did go to their website for a brief moment and they have something about The Pirates of the Caribbean and how FM pro was used to organize all the special effects or something like that don't really have time to read it at the moment. Here's the link.

http://www.filemakertrial.com/upgppc/defaulta.aspx?ovmkt=O5M3PJVLTCEPRD8T2ID54FN20G&WT.mcid=O5M3PJVLTCEPRD8T2ID54FN20G

BTW there should be a 30 day trial on your MBP I believe it is full feature and if you like you don't lose what you created you simply register the product and keep going.

I hope this made some sort of sense to you. Excuse me as the lingo changed a bit here and there but I have used too many products for various clients and some apps. used call, some use look up, put, get-..

FWIW
W1

However, I've been unable to work with the actual
files/clips outside of the application. How do you
bypass the mac-dummy-proof-veil? When I search with
finder or spotlight it only brings up the project
folder.

I had that happen too, at least sometimes. Sometimes Spotlight failed to search inside the iMovie project package.

Spotlight seems inconsistent on this point. When I search using the blue Spotlight icon in the menubar, Spotlight locates files inside the Media folder of an iMovie project. When I search using a Smart Folder, it does not.

So if you use Smart Folders, that will require your creating aliases (to the files in the projects' Media folders) and storing the aliases outside the projects. Smart Folders will then find them. Put your Spotlight Comment in the alias file.

You said, "to be able to find the clip file WITHIN a
project use the Finder to store a Spotlight Commend
[sic?] inside the clip file." I need some
clarification. I'm sorry I don't understand how to
store a commend.

Sorry for my typo. "Commend" should have been "comment". When you open the File Info window in the Finder for a selected file or folder (choose File > Get Info) there's a place to enter Spotlight Comments. Later, you can use Spotlight to search for those words.

In fact, Spotlight lets you LIMIT your search to the Spotlight Comments of files. It's one of the special places Spotlight lets you search. In the Finder, choose File > Find. The New Search window that opens lets you configure your search. In the Kind popUp menu along the left side, select "Other...", then "Spotlight Comments". Now the search looks (only) there.

Enter the word to search for in the Comment, then press the Save button in that New Search window. The Mac will offer to create a Smart Folder.

(Tip: instead of choosing to show this Smart Folder in your Sidebar, create a new Smart Folder later that searches for names that contain ".savedSearch". Keep THAT Smart Folder in the Sidebar. When you click on it, a list of ALL your other Smart Folders will appear. This saves space in your Sidebar.)

You also mentioned the template
folder and smart folder - are those pretty straight
forward to implement with a Help search explanation?

Officially, there is no such thing as a Template Folder. I'm suggesting you create a folder called "<Replace this name with the game name>" or something, then put other (empty) folders inside it, with names like "Touchdown clips", "Passes", etcetera. After each game, you would use the Finder to duplicate the folder "<Replace this name with the game name>", then change its name to something like "Tulane away game 2006". Then you would put other files — or file aliases — inside its subfolders. A "template folder" is just an easy way to make a new place to save aliases after each game.

Again, this could really work. I just need a little
more detail. My learning curve is on the steep side
for now.

Although I find Spotlight a bit frustrating to use — that it starts searching before I'm done entering what to search for — it is very powerful. And Smart Folders let us create a "folder" that updates its contents each time it opens. It's not a folder at all, of course. It's just another way to show a Spotlight hit list.

Karl

If I name clips: 120406 le o 2ng ty 9, 120406 le o
tov ty 4, 120406 o 3gd ty 8.

For the purposes of this discussion, I assume you mean the clip name you assign in iMovie. Not the file name.

And If I then make a smart folder with criteria:
keyword = ty and a smart folder with keyword = 4.

To search inside the iMovie project file (the file stored inside the project package) I think you'd set up the search using the contents category, not the keyword category. Something like this:
Kind -> Others -> iMovie Project
Contents -> Touchdown

When the Smart Folder opens, click the Edit button to search for something other than "Touchdown".

Would all three files be in both smart folders? In
other words would the smart folder system support the
one to many relationship and would keyword mean an
instance surrounded by spaces or just a instance - ie
would only the 120406 le o tov ty 4 file be in the
smart folder with keyword = 4 or would all three
files be in there because they all have a 4 in the
date?

Spotlight searches for the text as a phrase. "120406 le o tov ty 4" is searched for as a string, not as "120306" OR "le" OR "o"...

So "120406" would find all the projects whose project file contains the string "120406", while "120406 le o tov ty 4" would search for the longer string.

"4" wouldn't be a very good search term, for almost every project file contains "4", either in a default clip name or some other project value.

Also,
Would this be case sensitive?

I don't think so.

Terminal can do case-sensitive searches, however.

Would there be any reason to use the alias feature if
I can just name the clips within imovie?

Naming the clips within iMovie lets you search the contents of the iMovie project file with a Smart Folder.

Using aliases lets you search Spotlight Comments you place in the alias file. That makes your hits clip specific, which is a benefit to you. If the Smart Folder lists an iMovie project, you have to open the project in iMovie to locate the clip by name. But if the Smart Folder lists an alias file, you don't have to locate the clip. The clip is pointed to by the alias. You can double-click on the clip listed in the Smart Folder to open it in QuickTime Player.

Can I store the smart folders anywhere? (when I
created one it only gave me a couple choices).

Yes, you can place a Smart Folder anywhere. When you make it, place it in Saved Searches. Then go to your User/Library/Saved Searches folder. Option-drag the new Smart Folder to the Desktop, or to some other folder. (Option-dragging makes a copy, which keeps the original in the Library's Saved Searches folder.)

You may want to create a folder holding all the Smart Folders you use frequently, and place that folder in your Sidebar.

Would there be any benefit to making a sub-folder
structure for my alias files (assuming it makes sense
to use alias files) if the smart folder function
could do the sorting/organizing for me?

You don't have to do both, but you can. You'll want to configure whatever works for you. If it were my project, I'd probably want some combination, and some redundancy. I'd want to be able to search for clip names inside the iMovie project file, PLUS a set of Finder folders containing aliases (configured by game) PLUS some Smart Folders that lets me search all games for touchdowns by Fast Frank, or all Tulane games across multiple years. And I'd want to protect against aliases losing their connection to a project clip

(You need to test the vulnerability of aliases. If you move a project to some other drive, will the aliases that point to a Media file inside a project still work? They probably won't, unless the alias is stored on the same drive as the project, and moved with it. You might want to try placing the iMovie project package AND a folder containing the aliases inside an enclosing folder. To move the project, move the enclosing folder. Then the aliases are more likely to continue working. Mac OS X aliases are more fragile than Mac OS 9 in this regard, probably for security reasons. Do some testing.)

Later: I tested creating a enclosing folder and moving it to a different drive. The enclosing folder contained the iMovie project plus a folder I named "Project Aliases". It contained the aliases to files in the Media folder. After moving the enclosing folder to the new drive the aliases continued to work, pointing to the project on the new drive.

Hope I'm not asking for too much. I just want to
avoid as many mistakes and do-overs as possible.

It's very wise to test everything you plan to do before settling on it.

Karl

Karl - nice solution to a Digital Asset Management system without a huge database. I was looking for a way to keep track of wrestling clips and this might work on the cheap.

Obv- Why are you still working on football film, it is wrestling season now 😉

Gil:
I made the jump to FCPE at the end of the sport season to make a highlight video set to music. iMovie was not limiting my ability to get the sound synch'd just the way I wanted, so I spent a couple nights coming up to speed on FCPE. Now the "BOOM" in the audio hits when the "BOOM" on the mat happens....even when I have to speed/slow the video to match
- Paul