How to label sports video clips and send your best ones to Premiere, Final Cut or Resolve

10 minutes the first time, then seconds per clip. Label Clips is in beta: it works today, and we're still making it better.

After a game, most video teams rename every clip so they can find it later: Hale pass complete to Brooks 23 yards instead of 489_9656.MXF. Then someone opens the editing app and rebuilds the best moments by hand. Label Clips in Metadata Express does both while you watch the clips once.

Label Clips: the clip list, the video with In and Out marks, the clip's info and the name being typed

1. Open your clips

On the Home screen, click Label Clips and open the folder with the game's clips (MXF, MOV or MP4). Work on a copy of the card, not the card itself: renaming is real.
Choose your team's roster at the top of the clip list (or build one with Create / Edit…, or From a Link…).
Shot in LOG? Pick your camera under Shot in (Sony S-Log3, Panasonic V-Log, Fujifilm F-Log, Nikon N-Log) to watch in normal color. Sony clips straight off the card set this by themselves. The LOG switch on the video shows them as recorded.

2. Name each clip as you watch

Press	What happens
`12` then `Enter`	Puts in #12's last name. If two players share the number (offense and defense), it asks which; or type `12o` / `12d`.
Your codes, then a space	Your own words for each play. Set them in Assign Actions…: `pc` → pass complete to, `td` → TOUCHDOWN.
`+` or `\`	Renames the clip and goes to the next one.
`⌘S` (Ctrl+S)	Renames the clip and stays on it.
`Tab`	Play / pause without leaving the name box.
`↓` · `/`	Skip a clip · back to the previous one.

Every key can be changed: click the i next to Assign Actions.

3. Mark your best clips

Star a clip you want whole: S (or ⌥S while typing a name).
Want just part of a clip? Press I where the good part starts and O where it ends (⌥I / ⌥O while typing). The part shows in yellow on the timeline.
Starred and marked clips get a ★ in the list. X clears a clip's marks.

4. Export Selects

Click Export Selects…, keep Selects chosen, pick your editing app and a timeline name, and save the file.
Open it:
- Premiere Pro: File › Import…, choose the .xml. It opens as a sequence.
- Final Cut Pro: File › Import › XML…, choose the .fcpxml.
- DaVinci Resolve: File › Import › Timeline…, choose the .fcpxml.

You get a timeline of just your selects, in the order they were shot, each trimmed to its In and Out and named with your label. Nothing is copied or re-rendered: the timeline points at your original clips, so it opens in seconds. Keep the clips where they are (or relink them in your editing app if you move them).

Good to know

Renaming never touches clips inside a camera card's folders; copy the clips off the card first. Sony's M01.XML files are renamed along with their clips.
The Info panel shows each clip's recording time, timecode, codec, frame rate and, when the camera wrote it, the camera, lens and picture profile.
Send… and Copy / Move… deliver clips to the same Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, OneDrive or FTP destinations as your photos.

Try it

Metadata Express runs on Mac and Windows, with a 14-day free trial. Download it here. Questions? Send us a message.

More guides: Tag photos by jersey number · Send photos to editors during a game · Make a roster file