Would like the ability to see all metadata from files

[dave (David McClure)]

Continuing the discussion from Why is the SonyRAW tab missing from my F55 files:

@24pdailies

But here’s a question - is it possible to have Cortex show all the metadata for the recorded clip? (even though it’s not editable) For example, in Sony’s RAW Viewer it shows that the clip is XAVC, but it also shows ISO/exposure, white balance, etc. I don’t see these columns in Cortex (at least not in 1.5.2 b5004)

From RAW Viewer:

A few others have requested something similar in the past…

[24pdailies (Digital Dailies)]

Giving this a bump - would like to see this extra data in the Cortex bins. Especially with the recent revelation about XAVC and variable ISO not being baked into the XAVC files.

[dave (David McClure)]

One of the issues is that different types of files have different metadata fields, and the names for the same pieces of metadata may be different.

There are a few ways we could go about this:

1. We could identify a set of fields that are important to expose, and then map metadata from various fields into those fields.
2. We could allow for ‘custom metadata’ to be exposed. Look through all the clips in the list, and whatever fields they have, add a column in the clip list. You may end up with a ‘Color Temperture’ column and a ‘Kelvin’ column if you have two different formats in your bin that use different nomenclature.
3. We could expose key-value pairs in a metadata table just for the selected clip. This way, you’d see all the metadata we are able to parse from the clip, but you wouldn’t get a ton of extra columns in your bin with empty values when you have mixed formats.

We could also combine approaches 1 and 3 if there are a few ‘essential’ fields that should always be there and it still is deemed necessary to expose everything in some fashion.

If you have an opinion about the best approach, let us know and describe why you prefer it.

[24pdailies (Digital Dailies)]

While option 2 would, technically, give us ALL the data, I could see this causing confusion and information overload. I just looked through some metadata from an Alexa ProRes file - it has tons of info that might not be very useful. Instead of being useful, it would quickly become an ocean of text in the bin making it hard to find the good stuff (there’s fields like SxsSerialNumber, ProductionInfoC and ProductionInfoP, EyeIndex [single or stereo], etc, etc).

I like the idea of a combination of option 1 & 3. Option 1 would be great to see things like ISO and Kelvin/Color Temp in the bin, to be able to compare clips easily and quickly. But a separate, out-of-the-way area for displaying ALL the data for more “forensic” type research (ie a specific camera ID is recording bad video, or which display LUT was on the camera during production).

[dave (David McClure)]

Thanks for the input. As far as #1 is concerned:

@dave

We could identify a set of fields that are important to expose, and then map metadata from various fields into those fields.

Which fields would be most useful to expose in a more structured way?

If others have input on this topic, please chime in as well.

[24pdailies (Digital Dailies)]

Because we work primarily with F55 material (both RAW and XAVC) I would say start with the metadata columns from Sony’s RAW Viewer (as posted in the screenshot above).

Of course, F65, Arri Alexa, RED all have different variants and lots of different metadata, but starting with Exposure (both ISO and EI), color temp (Kelvin) and Gamma should be pretty universal.