Archiving your video to DVD-R
This great tip was posted on the foottrack-users mailing list by one of our customers, Andrew Weatherston (Thanks!). These steps allow you to archive your video to DVD, have it cataloged in FootTrack and when you need it for a movie you are editing, just pop the DVD in and drag the clip from FootTrack into iMovie. Here's the steps:
1) Shoot tape.
2) Import whole tape into iMovie and remove junk. Close iMovie.
3) Copy the clips from the media folder to DVD (use Superdrive or external burner)
4) One tape minus junk usually takes 2 DVDs (which @ $1 each for TDK makes them a
cheaper medium than miniDV.)
5) Import each DVD into Foottrack
6) When I am working on a new movie I find and preview the clips i want in FT, insert
the appropriate DVD and then just drag the clips into iMovie.
Step 5 is probably the most important step in the process. When you catalog from the DVD-R disk FootTrack remembers the folder that the clips were in when imported. Then when you put the DVD-R back in your drive later the original footage will be found again.
Back up your FootTrack files on occasion
FootTrack (by default) keeps it's files in your user folder in Library/Application Support/FootTrack. You should back it up regularly. Don't let a hard drive crash lose all your cataloged footage.
You can also use FT to burn backup catalogs of your tapes onto a CD or DVD much the same way that iPhoto does for pictures.
Clip Viewing
You can select more than a single clip when you want to watch some of your footage. As long as they share a common format (either all DV or all compressed) you'll be able to watch them all as if they were a single clip.
Grouping
Grouping not only allows you to organize the clips on your tape, but it affects the results returned when searching. If the search term you type in matches any of the sub-group's names then all those clips in that group are added to the search results.
Importing and Editing in iMovie
As of version 1.2 you can name your clips, edit (i.e. trim) and split your clips from within iMovie. Then when you are done you can import them into FT by choosing the iMovie project file (instead of the clips themselves) from the import open panel.
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