Can you RENAME footage to be imported (using metadata)...without transcoding?

Question

Is there a way, or a program in the suite that can rename all the files using the file's metadata (namely the date and time it was shot) that we plan to import without transcoding them? They are AVCHD files (.MTS files)... For years we've transcoded to prores proxy and then eventually to ProRes422 when final edit is locked for export, but since Premiere handles native avchd files (.mts) pretty well now, I'd rather not have to transcode and save some hard drive space. Transcoding doesn't appear to offer any benefits over editing natively anymore, right (for basic editing with basic color correction)?
So is there a program (prelude? bridge?) that I can use to access all the mts files and rename them by the date and time it was shot so that I can take all 5 or 6 SDHC cards and combine them and have them all listed in chronological order? Right now I end up with either a folder for each card, or if I try to combine all the clips, I end up with a bunch of files with the same name (eg. 00000.MTS, 00001.MTS, etc...) since that's how they were named coming out of the camera on their respective card.
Please advise. Thanks!

Answer 1

jamesp2 wrote:
If you've got a moment, try this, assuming you're on Windows:  shoot a few clips, copy the entire file structure to disk, navigate to the "stream" folder, open it, highlight all the files, right click on the first one, select "rename", rename it (say, with the date& time shot), and execute.  All the highlighted files will be renamed to that time and date, but incrementally numbered ,(1), (2), (3), etc. in sequence.  So each file now has the same root name (date and time), but is numbered sequentially after that.  No duplicate names.
Now, using the Media Browser, import those clips.  Then go back to the stream folder and see if PPro created .xmp files for each imported clip.  If so, it would appear you have metadata.  If not, no metadata, because PPro couldn't find any after renaming.
I'm on a mac. But I still tried a few things after reading your post...
First, I copied two existing SDHC card's folders to a new location so I could mess with them. I went in and renamed all the clips 2 different ways:
1) For one folder I just renamed them straight from the "stream" folder (although on a mac I don't think you can rename them all at once using Finder (which is mac's "search app"). So I did one at a time and then went back to Media Browser and they did not appear anymore. I click on the PRIVATE folder and nothing appears (before renaming, all the files would show except the "duplicate spanned clips" as discussed above). So that didn't work.
2) Using Finder, I navigated to the stream folder on my 2nd copy of the original SDHC card and then I right-clicked and selected "open with" and selected Adobe Bridge. Bridge opened up that whole folder with all the clips (including the duplicate spanned clips). I renamed them there using date/time, etc. I went back to Media Browser and they also did not show up now. So...instead of using Media Browser, I just imported the whole folder into the project panel. The clips now did populate into the project panel with the new names.
The new clips generated .cfa and .pek files but did NOT generate .xmp files. Only if I did NOT rename the files did it generate .xmp files.
Not sure what all this means. I could just transcode to rename, or use clipwrap/prelude workaround like in post #11, or do my 2nd method above using Bridge and just deal with no XMP files (not sure how that will affect anything?)...or hope for another alternative.