Thanks for that great workaround, Andrew.

Just as an update, with Bridge 2020 & Premiere 2020, the Reel name of a previously imported clip will automatically update in Premiere if you update it in Bridge. You don't have to do the reimport/consolidate duplicates workaround.

We need to have ability to batch copy file names (or only parts of it) into tape name column, not to add one tape name to multiple files. With Adobe Bridge we can't do that. Many cameras writes filenames into tape name field. Many times, during transcode to proxies, tape names are not persist and there are problems to reconnect them to camera files on other platforms.

Try this:

In Adobe Bridge, in the Content panel, select a batch of clips you want to change.
Right click and choose 'File Info' then select the Video Data panel.
Change the Tape Name and click OK. The metadata will be amended for all files.

There’s two things to consider from here on.

1. If you do this prior to importing any clips into Premiere the Tape Name will automatically be attached to the clips and there’s nothing else required. If you make any new proxies, subclips, duplicates etc they will all carry the metadata in the files.

2. If you have already imported the files into Premiere the Tape Name column will not automatically update (even if you restart Premiere).
To fix this problem import a second copy of the files into a new bin within the original project.
Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and select ‘Consolidate Duplicates’. The metadata from the new files will be merged into the older versions and the Tape Name column will be updated.
The new bin should be empty now because Premiere has discarded the second versions.

***Previously made proxies will need to have the metadata updated in Adobe Bridge if you want to re-attach them utilizing the Tape Name option.

A little bit clumsy but it works. It took some trial and error to work it out. I would prefer if Adobe would make it a simple process within Premiere instead of this work around.

Yah, That would be great instead of copying them manually one by one, it is a long process