Camera Archive vs Folder Based

[skidude48]

Want to copy Hi 8 and Mini DV tapes to hard drive. Have put some footage into Camera Archive and it seems a simple solution, but Camera Archive cannot be read by other applications. And I haven't found a way to move it out of camera archive.

Any recommendations how to recover this source data if Apple comes out with something like Final Cut Y and it won't work with those archives created with Final Cut X? Or if I want to switch to Premiere Pro?

And do some of you just use a folder based system created manually, for this reason?

Thanks, Phil

 

[Small White Car]

You're talking about Final Cut X?

Nothing is locked. They're just Quicktime files.

If Final Cut ever disappears (or, more likely, you find yourself on a Mac without it installed) you can just right-click on the Final Cut Library and select "Show Package Contents." Everything is there, ripe for the picking using nothing but Finder.

 

[skidude48]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, FCP X.

I wondered because Larry Jordan, the online FCP guru, said only FCP X ( a 2012 post, I think referring to ver. 10.1.2) said he didn't use Camera Archive since no other program would read the files, and recommended doing this manually. I wonder if it changed in ver 10.1.4, what I have.

I just didn't want to put all my proverbial eggs in the Camera Archive basket and then try to access them 10 or 20 years from now and find that I couldn't open the files.

 

[Gwendolini]

I just didn't want to put all my proverbial eggs in the Camera Archive basket and then try to access them 10 or 20 years from now and find that I couldn't open the files.

In 20 years you might have a problem if QT does not exist anymore due to being replaced by something newer, and that you do not have access to the ProRes codec the .mov will probably use.

But on the other end, you might still be able to run a virtual machine of an OS capable to run QT Player for ProRes .mov files.
Or you might still have a working computer from this time frame.

 

[skidude48]

Thanks for the input. I will assume that Larry Jordan either was referring to an earlier version of FCP or did not know that Finder will read these files.

Since Finder will select these files just fine, then it also appears FCP's "Camera Archive" (my version is 10.1.4) offers no advantage to using a manually-created folder structure. The only difference I see is in the user interface look after revealing the files.