Using Datecode to organize video

[mikeul]

I am attempting to organize all of my home videos that I've taken over the past 2 years of my kids. I can capture the video and name the files with the date using WinDV, but the .avi files are too large to fit everything on my hard drive. Using another software program, Powerdirector, I am able to batch capture the video and save it as .mpg which is MUCH smaller. The only problem is that I am unable to sort the videos by date because that program names the files using a 'generic' name such as video1, video2, etc.

Is there a program available that will take a .mpg file and use the datecode to rename the file accordingly?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mikeul

[Hal_loe]

Try Siren from http://www.scarabee-software.net/ , it's freeware has lots of options on renaming methods.

You will need to read the manual to find exactly what you want but i'm fairly sure is should do what you want.

Hope that helps.

[mikeul]

I tried Siren and it is a cool program. But it only allows me to change the name to the date the file was created, rather then when the video was taken.

Possibly when Powerdirector creates the MPEG2 video, the date creation data is lost in the file????

I still do not want to give up. I've got 2 years of video that I have to organize.

[CogoSWSDS]

WinDV, as distributed, will put the date code of the first frame in the file name. If you use this to transfer your DV from the camcorder to the computer, your AVIs will have file names based on date code. Then use TMPGEnc or other encoder to convert to MPEG2. The wizard in TMPGEnc Plus will set the output file name to be the input file name with the extension changed from .avi to .mpg.

WinDV will also let you break your avi files up based on a certain amount of discontinuity, in seconds. So if you want each clip you film to be in a separate file, you can set the discontinuity to 1 second. Then WinDV will start a new AVI each time you began recording when you originally made your tape. I don't usually use 1 second as this creates too many short clips. Instead I usually use a break of 3600 seconds (=1 hour).

TMPGEnc also has a batch mode to make life even easier - you can put all your avis in a queue at once, then let it run overnight if necessary to encode all your clips to MPEG2.

CogoSWSDS

[Hal_loe]

I tried Siren and it is a cool program. But it only allows me to change the name to the date the file was created, rather then when the video was taken.

Possibly when Powerdirector creates the MPEG2 video, the date creation data is lost in the file????

I still do not want to give up. I've got 2 years of video that I have to organize.

Yes, thats all siren can do. As there is no date code in MPEG2 files, unlike mp3's they do not have a tag section of details.

Only method's I have found is to rename video files with a date code as I go along.

Or to use a small program which allows you to alter the date modified of the file.

I prefer the first method.

Sorry I can't suggest anything else.

[AlanHK]

the .avi files are too large to fit everything on my hard drive. Using another software program, Powerdirector, I am able to batch capture the video and save it as .mpg which is MUCH smaller.

Maybe look at Avirecomp. If you don't need to make standard DVDs, AVI can give much better quality for the same size than MPEG.