Setting Up Ingest and File Naming So Footage Never Gets Lost

Start with where the footage actually goes

Before you change anything, trace one story from the moment a card leaves a camera to the moment a clip plays in a bulletin. Write down every place it lands: a laptop in a car, a shared drive, an edit suite, a playout server. Most newsrooms find at least one stop nobody planned, such as a personal folder on a desktop or a drive passed from hand to hand.

I do this on paper first, with the people who do the work, not the people who manage it. A camera operator will tell you honestly that the card sometimes sits in a jacket pocket overnight. An editor will tell you which folder they check first when a clip goes missing. Those small admissions show where the process leaks.

Once the path is drawn, mark the points where responsibility changes hands. Each of those is a moment when footage can be lost, duplicated or renamed by accident, so each deserves a clear rule about who does what.

• List every location a clip passes through, including informal ones
• Note who is responsible at each stop
• Mark each hand-over point on the page
• Ask operators and editors separately, then compare answers

Build one ingest routine and keep it boring

A good ingest routine is dull on purpose. The same steps, in the same order, every time, whether it is a quiet Tuesday or a developing incident at night. We usually settle on four: copy the card to the main storage, copy it again to a second location, check that both copies match in size and count, and only then clear the card for reuse.

The second copy matters more than people expect. A single copy on a single drive is one fault away from a lost story. Keep the second location physically separate where you can, even if that is simply a different machine.

Write the routine on a single laminated sheet and fix it where ingest happens. Under pressure, nobody reads a long procedure, but everyone glances at a short list on the wall beside the card reader.

• Copy to main storage, then to a second location
• Confirm file counts and sizes match before clearing a card
• Never clear a card until both copies are checked
• Keep the written routine within sight of the card reader

Name files so a stranger could find them

File naming is the part newsrooms argue about, and it is worth settling once. A workable pattern puts the date first in year, month, day order, then a short story slug, then the camera or operator, then a clip number. Sorted alphabetically, everything from one story then sits together in time order without any extra tools.

Keep names plain. Avoid spaces, apostrophes and symbols that some systems handle badly, and avoid words like final or new, because three files called final soon appear. If a clip is changed, increase a version number rather than inventing a new word.

Agree the slug vocabulary too. If one person writes flood and another writes flooding, searches miss half the material. A short shared list of slugs for running stories costs minutes to keep and saves a great deal of searching later.

• Date first, then story slug, operator, clip number
• No spaces or special characters in names
• Use version numbers, never the word final
• Share a short list of slugs for running stories

Make the hand-over to the edit a short, fixed note

The hand-over from shooting to editing is where context is most often dropped. A clip is only useful if the editor knows what is in it. We ask for a brief note with every batch: where it was filmed, who is speaking and how their name is spelled, which clips are usable, and anything that must not go to air, such as a bystander who asked not to be shown.

Keep that note in the same folder as the footage, not in a separate message that gets buried. A plain text file with an agreed name is enough, and it travels with the material wherever it is copied.

Spelling of names and titles deserves particular care, because a caption error reaches viewers. Having the operator confirm spellings on location, when the person is standing in front of them, is far quicker than chasing them afterwards.

• Location, speakers and exact name spellings
• Which clips are usable and which are not
• Anything that must not be broadcast
• Keep the note in the same folder as the clips

Decide who owns each step and write it down

Routines fail when everyone assumes someone else did the check. Give each step a named role rather than a named person, so the routine survives holidays and shift changes. The role of ingest, for example, is held by whoever is on that desk, and the sheet says so plainly.

Also agree what happens when something goes wrong. If a file will not open or a card reads empty, who is told, and how quickly? A short escalation line, with a phone number, prevents a small fault from turning into a missing story.

Review the roles after a few weeks of real use. People find shortcuts, and some of them are sensible. Fold the good ones into the written routine and drop the steps nobody follows, so the sheet always describes what really happens.

• Assign steps to roles, not to individuals
• Add a clear line for who to tell when a file fails
• Review the routine after a few weeks of use

Test the routine before the story breaks

The worst time to find a weakness is during a live incident. Run a short rehearsal with a few clips of ordinary footage: shoot, ingest, name, hand over, and have an editor locate the material using only the folder and the note. Time it, and watch where people hesitate.

Autumn is a good moment for this. Darker evenings and weather-driven stories bring more late shooting and more handling of cards in poor conditions, so the routine gets tested harder than in summer. A rehearsal now means the habits are settled before the busy months.

Repeat the exercise whenever staff change or a new piece of equipment arrives. It takes under an hour, and it turns a document on a wall into something people have actually done.