Multiple copies of clips are imported

[MartynMoore]

Hi there

I've had this problem before but none of the previous safeguards seems to have worked this time. I've shot a long interview on two Sony cameras recording in AVCHD. The interview was shot in two parts with a break between. There are eight camera files on the hard drive, four from each camera, and all are different. I guess this is because the clip sizes went over 2GB so the cameras started new clips.

I placed the entire folder structure from the two cards into separate folders on my hard drive, then imported them through the media browser. In the footage bins in my project panel I see four clips from each camera. But 00000.MTS is exactly the same as 00002.MTS and 00001.MTS is the same as 00003.MTS.

I think this might be because of some automatic 'joining' of consecutive clips by Premiere Pro.This is all based on hazy memory from last time it happened. With only eight clips to sort out, this isn't a problem but it will bug me until I'm reminded what is happening here and if it can be prevented.

Joining the 2GB clips to the shorter second clips is useful but then importing the combined clips twice could get confusing. Any suggestions that help me better manage my media will be welcome.

[excited_Genie16B8]

In the footage bins in my project panel I see four clips from each camera.

That only happens when you don't do the following.

I placed the entire folder structure from the two cards into separate folders on my hard drive, then imported them through the media browser.

[MartynMoore]

Thanks Jim. That doesn't explain why it happened when I did do it as described.

[excited_Genie16B8]

The only explanation I have is that you...didn't.

You can test in another project, see what happens.

[MartynMoore]

Well Jim, at first I thought this was a really unhelpful answer and that you don't actually know what's happening. But then I thought I should at least do the test you suggested and the result was interesting.

When I navigate to the clips folder through the media browser I have been reaching the folder with the camera name, which contains the whole AVCHD folder, right-clicking on the camera-named folder and choosing 'import'. This pulls in the clips as .MTS files and I get an error message that says the import of .CPI, .BDM and .MPL files has failed because they are not video clips. I always ignore this.

It is this import method that results in very long clips, over 2GB in file size, being joined together and then appearing TWICE in the project panel. Two very long identical clips with different filenames, as described in my original post.

In the test you suggested I left-clicked the camera-named folder in media browser and allowed the thumbnails to open in the right-hand column. Then I selected 'all' and right-click imported them. Using this method I don't get the import fail message for the non-video files and I don't get the duplicated clips with different names. But neither do I get the joining of the long clips, the one that exceeds 2GB and its adjoining neighbour.

The joining of the clips is quite useful but the duplication of the joined pair isn't. My guess is that you will tell me I should always follow the second procedure and that rejoining split clips on the timeline is no big deal. You're right.

And even the weird duplication thing isn't a big deal. When I saw what had happened I realised that the interview edit was much closer to being finished than I thought, so I had a beer.

Sorry I doubted you.

[excited_Genie16B8 · Accepted solution]

Importing assets into Premiere Pro from tapeless formats