Metadata and Reports

Camera metadata

When indexing a camera card or a source drive, YoYotta optionally extracts full metadata from each clip. Open the Source Browser to view this metadata.
To enable this turn Extract metadata on in Preferences
This metadata will be stored in the project, then later on you can filter by codec, resolution etc in the Project Browser to help locate clips for restore.

If YoYotta is not able to read metadata, then it is possible that the camera clip has been corrupted. YoYotta will still make an exact copy of the file, however you may want to check that the clip can be played back. When this happens YoYotta will display a message in the user log panel 'Warning cannot extract metadata from file, it will still be copied'. The clips will be tagged orange in the Status column in the Source Browser file table.

This preference will be ignored for LTFS tapes as it will take too long to extract. Creating metadata will also take time when working with large source drives or volumes. Metadata is optional and can be turned off without affecting the archive.
When turned off basic metadata including file name, size, checksums, creation and modification dates will still be extracted.
If the option is off then you can manually create metadata in the Source Browser for specific folders.

ARRI ALEXA Mini LF and Sony Venice 2 MXF wrapped ProRes requires Apple Pro Video Formats 2.2.4 or newer to be installed

Checksum metadata

The Parse ALE, MHL, MD5 files preference enables parsing during indexing of checksums from metadata files inside all folders on the source media. After indexing these checksums will be visible in the Source Browser.

MHL is a standard, so it's easy for YoYotta to find file names, sizes and checksums. During indexing a message saying n files checked using XXX.mhl message will appear in the log.

MD5 files are less standard as there are various different formats. During indexing a status message Using external checksums from YYY.md5 message will appear in the log.

ALE is easy to parse, but the metadata items can have any header name so they might not match with the one that YoYotta is expecting. See the User metadata section below for a list of the ALE header names that YoYotta looks for. Note that ALE files might not include any checksums.

To see if YoYotta found any checksums, open the Source Browser as both MD5 and xxHash values are shown in the file table and also in the detail view.

In the indexed files shown in this screenshot there are two MHL files, one for each camera card folder. See the checkbox in the top left showing that Parsing MHL metadata files is enabled. YoYotta has parsed the MD5 and xxHash values from the MHL files and the checksums are visible for each MOV file.
Also selecting an MHL shows a green tick which means that the number of files in the MHL matches the number of files in the folder.
However there is no need to check each file as YoYotta will warn if there are any mismatches before starting the job. Then during the job YoYotta will warn if any files don't match the previous checksums.

It's possible to export metadata reports in all these formats from the Project Browser and they can used as examples for 3rd party development.

YoYotta will warn in the log if any files listed in the checksum files are missing. During the copy YoYotta will calculate new checksum values for every file and compare against the parsed checksums.

If the source was previously copied and verified using YoYotta, then the file checksums will be automatically added without needing any MD5 or MHL files.

User metadata

Click on the Metadata tab in the Source Browser and select a clip. Project, Media, Source and Clip Metadata can be added or modified. Double click or press the enter key to open the value field for each key.

Or click the Load metadata from ALE/CSV button to add metadata from ALE or CSV files.
YoYotta will look for these column header names. The case (upper or lower) is not important and there can be spaces in the header names.
After loading metadata from an ALE or CSV every matched clip will have a green status in the Source Browser file table.
When the job is verified this extra metadata will be automatically stored in the SOURCE and COPY snapshots in the Project Browser.
If you are indexing a drive or tape and adding metadata then click Store Index to create an INDEX snapshot.

To add more metadata to existing clips export a CSV or ALE file using the Project Browser. These reports can then be used as a template when creating metadata files using 3rd party apps.

Also the User metadata can be viewed and edited using YoYotta Server.

• Project
• Production
• Vendor
• Source
• Season
• Episode
• ShootDay
• ShootDate
• TransferDate
• Batch
• Clip
• Scene
• Take
• Shot
• File
• Name
• MD5
• xxHash

Imported metadata

In the Source table the Season, Episode, Shoot day and Shoot date have been imported. Along with the scene and take information for each clip.
The green dot in the Status column shows that metadata has been imported for that clip.
Now start the job, when complete the job will be stored in the Project Browser and reports will be generated. Alternatively click the Store Index button to store an INDEX now.

Project metadata

Imported Production and Vendor metadata from a CSV file is also shown in the Collection + Project panel.

Manually creating a report

Open the Project Browser. See that the Source metadata is shown in the table. It is possible to search for matching metadata. Select a job and click the PDF button in the Export panel to create a job report.
CSV and other report formats can be exported.

PDF report

The header shows the production, vendor, shoot day, shoot date and transfer date metadata. Each clip has Scene and Take metadata.

Extended attributes

YoYotta stores file metadata including camera clip info and checksums on all file systems that support extended atributes. Extended attributes can be accessed using xattr commands in the terminal and also by 3rd party applications on Windows, Linux and macOS.
To list the metadata, open the terminal and type xattr -l followed by the full path and name as shown here. On the Mac you can drag and drop the file from the Finder into the terminal to add the full path.

When testing it may be useful to remove extended attributes using the following xattr command.
xattr -c /Volumes/SOURCE/Alexa_Recent/Day_1/A001R6KI/A001C001_131009_R6KI.mov