Get your videos organized - Part 1

Does this sound familiar? Your video library is less of a library and more of like a garage sale. Organizing a video collection is not easy, but Videux is here to help. 

The natural inclination we often hear about when trying to corral large video collections is to start with moving directories around and moving files within those directories. However, that can be especially tough with videos due to their sheer size (moving videos from one device to another, for example, can take hours). However, with a tool like Videux, directory organization is less important, because we can organize clips using other methods. The following may seem a bit daunting (and not so much fun) at first, but the whole idea behind Videux is to make this part go fast and easy, so you can get on to the creative work more quickly. 

First of all, just getting all of your video clips viewable in one place can be a huge step forward. Even if your clips are on separate disk drives, start by adding them all to a single catalog, even if you can't have all of the drives plugged in at the same time. Videux will store info about each clip, including a thumbnail, that is still visible if you eject the drive. You may be hesitant to add all of your clips into a single catalog - but Videux is designed to be able to handle tens of thousands of videos. Once added, you can then easily scroll through ALL of your clips, in one place. The video file themselves are still stored where you put them, but now you can view them altogether. 

Next up - culling. Getting rid of clips that you don't need is useful because it reduces the clutter and frees up disk space. Now, for some video libraries, culling is not an option; for example, if you have a customer that insists that nothing is deleted. But for most, culling is useful and desired step in organizing video. Videux makes it much easier to cull than with other methods. Simply press the "X" key on a selected video, or set of videos. This marks them as "Rejected", but does not delete anything. This gives you an opportunity to change your mind before deleting. Once you're ready, then go to the menu item "Catalog->Remove and Delete Rejected...." or "Catalog->Remove Rejected from Catalog...". In either case, the video will be removed from the catalog, but in the "Catalog->Remove and Delete Rejected...." the files will be deleted. (actually, they are moved to your Mac Trash Can, unless you are working on a drive without a Trash Can). In the "Catalog->Remove Rejected from Catalog..." the files are removed from your catalog but not deleted; they are sort of  "zombies" this way; taking up disk space but no longer in the Videux catalog. 

At the same time you are viewing clips for culling, you will run into clips that you want to use for something. To mark these clips, hit the "P" key to indicate these are "Picked" and/or give them a star rating by hitting 1-5. 

Adding keywords to clips is fast and easy. Just select one or more clips, and click "Add Keyword" over on the right side column. If you see a keyword there in italics, it means that some of the selected videos have that keyword, and some do not. If you click the little checkmark, then that keyword will be applied to all selected. If your workflow demands certain types of metadata, Videux supports a free-form metadata approach where you decide what metadata keys are used and what the values are. 

Collections are another great way to organize by letting you group together otherwise unrelated clips. You can add as many videos as you want to a collection

This might seem like a lot of work, but there is a big payoff. This is where the left hand side of Videux really comes into play; instantly finding videos, whether a large group (like search for all 29.97fps clips, for example) or the proverbial needle in a haystack (finding a single video that meets several filter parameters). And if you are ready to edit, All of your keywords and metadata are shipped to Final Cut Pro X, for example, meaning your editing session just got a whole lot more organized as well. See Part 2 of "Get your videos organized" for more info about NLE integrations.

Download Videux today to get started.