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How do you move projects to a new drive and not have to specify replacement files?
This is something that has always troubled me. I always put everything related to a project in one folder on my PC’s hard drive. After I’m done with the project, I move the entire folder to an external HD. But sometimes I need to access that project again.
When I open that project, it always asks me where to find a particular video file, etc. SOMETIMES when I specify exactly where the original file is (obviously in a new location on the external HD), it then asks me whether or not I want to find the rest of the “missing” files in that location. I select all and everything is fine.
But SOMETIMES I don’t get that prompt. It will ask me over and over again to find the next “missing” file and it is very tedious. My questions are:
1. How do I move an entire folder to a new HD and not have to deal with the hassle of specifying every single replacement file (or at least just having to do it once and then getting the prompt to find all the remaining files in this new folder).
2. If I do find myself in that situation where I am specifying replacement file after replacement file, is there any way to fix the situation short of naming every file?
Thanks. This would a huge time saver for me.
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3 Replies
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My approach is probably the same as yours in terms of having a single folder (usually with a number of sub-folders) that encompass all of the projects assets. To avoid the problems you describe, here’s what I do. Rather than simply copying the original folder to my “Archive” drive, I create a new folder in the archive drive, open my finished project in Vegas and then do a “save as” to the new folder, making sure the “copy media with project” box is ticked. In this way, all of the assets are copied into that folder. Another advantage is that sometimes I will use assets on another drive, e.g. music, and forget to first copy them into the original project folder. Using this approach guarantees that all of your project’s assets are in the same folder and thus you avoid the problems you describe.
One thing to be aware of. If you copy multiple projects into the same “archive” folder which use the same assets, Vegas will make make a copy of those assets, in essence duplicating those media files. To avoid this, I first copy the additional projects into a new “temp” folder. Then using a file utility program that searches for duplicates, I simply copy the “different” files into my “archive” folder.
And finally, just to make sure everything is working correctly, I will rename the original project folder and then open each project in the archive folder. It’s a bit tedious, but it insures that each project will open without having to search or locate missing media files.
wwaag
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[John Lee] “But SOMETIMES I don’t get that prompt. It will ask me over and over again to find the next “missing” file and it is very tedious.”
Isn’t that annoying?!!! I HATE when that happens and wish Sony would fix it. I haven’t nailed down what causes it to happen or how to fix it but I’m pretty sure it’s a bug.
[Wayne Waag] “One thing to be aware of. If you copy multiple projects into the same “archive” folder which use the same assets, Vegas will make make a copy of those assets, in essence duplicating those media files.”
Yes, I would be careful of using Save As with “copy media” for the reason’s Wayne outlined. It’s totally brain dead and will copy the same media over, and over, and over again making a nightmare of a mess to try and unravel.
I use to just move the folder to my archive drive and hope for the best. Honestly, there is not much more you can do since you are not doing anything wrong to cause this bug to rear it’s ugly head.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Here are two other ways.
First, you can temporarily change your drive letter so you can at least open the project file. Not an ideal solution though since you will probably also have to rename your working drive’s letter as well.
Second, you can actually change the drive letter within the veg file itself. I just tried this and it actually works quite well and is pretty simple (once you know how, LOL). You will need a hex editor, not a text editor like Notepad. The one I’m using is the freeware Hexplorer. You will first need to find the hex code in the veg file for the project’s drive letter. As an example, I always use F as my project drive, so I found the hex code for “F:”, which will always the first 2 characters in your file path. Within the veg file, the hex code turned out to be 46003A. As a test, I simply changed the drive letter from F to G, which translates into a new hex code of 47003A. Using find and replace, I made these changes and saved. The saved file then opened OK in Vegas and produced the familar message that the file could not be found in the specified location(now drive G). I specified a new location (back to the orginal drive F) for the first file and it successfully changed all the remaining items to the new location. So the procedure does work. If you try this, just make sure that you are working on a copy of the veg file, so if things go awry you will always have the original. Perhaps not for the fainthearted, but it does work.
wwaag
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