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FCP reconform after exporting offline through EDL – help!
Hello Creative Cow people.
I have been on-lining a HDCam feature on my G5 with Kona LH & 2 TB Sata RAID, FCP 5.0. Codec used is Kona / Apple 10 bit Uncompressed 1920×1080 25 (psf) via single link HD SDI.
To strip the project down for re-capture I exported EDLs of the reels and brought them back in with 3 frame handles. This is because Media Manager, as I understand, does not strip the project down nearly enough. And with full res HD that is a big issue!
The conform worked, after some serious tweaks, and now matches frame perfectly the offline.
So now editorial have completely re-cut the film! Or at least, taken out many chunks totalling almost half an hour. The problem is that all the offline clips generated in the previous EDL import / export are independent of the offline. All that links them is timecode and reel number.
So my question is, in FCP, can I re-conform the new edit to my captured quicktimes by timecode and reel, and not by clip name?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. As I certainly do not want to bring the whole thing in and start again. As you can well imagine.
Thanks in advance,
Tom. -
5 Replies
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If I understand you correctly, you up rezzed your feature once, un locked it, made changes and now want to relink your old up rez to your new picture. Right?
That’snot exactly the most efficient workflow! Whenever I’ve done something similar (and I always regret it), I create a “mixdown” or QT movie of the existing cut and put it on a higher layer. That way all of my changes are visibile in the timeline and I can see what I need to uprez. With out this reference you’re dependent on just relinking the existing high rez media to a new timeline. The odds of a successful result are slim.
Good luck.
Mark
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No, there was no uprezzing. I recaptured my media at HDCam uncompressed. But only the shots that were used in the final film. Because if you use ‘media manager’ to get rid of all the handles outside what you have actaully used, to allow recapture to ignore what you don’t need, it still keeps loads of extra media on the shots.
My problem is that I need to relate the two project files again. One offline project, 140 mb big (!) made by the editor with about 100 hours of DV media, and my Online project which was stripped down using EDL export / import to be just two hours of HD full res media.
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Ah ha. I think in understand now. And… unfortunately, I think you’re hosed! By going the “edl” route rather than sticking with media manager, you’ve effectively created new media with no relation to the old project. This works for a “one way” trip, and it seems like you got what you wanted, but now that you’re dealing with changes, the two different sets of media have no reference to each other.
If you brought it all in at full resolution, I don’t quite understand why you did all this media managing BEFORE picture lock?
Worse, by NOT using the media manager to do it, you’ve guaranteed yourself the issues that you’re now facing. Sorry.
Mark
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Hi Mark.
Thanks for the replies. Well they had supposedly picture locked, and I only had a week to conform it. Then the LA producers turned around and said completely change it. The sound guys and VFX guys are faced with similar problems, too.
Unless Media Manager has improved recently, it would never do what it was supposed to do for me. The media-offline recapture files (after media manager) would always still be huge. With a two hour feature, only 1.8 TB of staorage, and having to work 1920 10 bit Uncompressed, I had to keep the handles as small as possible (3 frames). Even if I had used media manager to go from the DV offline res to HD Cam Online, wouldn’t I still have the same problem? Because that also creates new master clips and a new timeline.
I guess it’s a case of ganging the two timelines together and seeing how much I can cut and paste. Thanks for your input though.
Tom.
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Tom,
I know that MM has a terrible reputation, but we use it on a regular basis, going from off-line to online on hours of network level programming per week. Sure, the speed ramps are an issue, and yes, still frames can be problematic, but we’ve NOT had an issue with capturing TOO MUCH material. Yes, we set approximately 1 sec handles for sutble changes or sync adjustments, but we’ve NOT had an issue with what you’re desribing.
As for the “unlocking” issue… well you can count on that being the case more often than not. My best defense against that is to make sure that everyone know that THIS WILL COST THEM MONEY! Sometimes they don’t care. But at least they’re aware of the consequences. I would suggest that you experiment with media manager to get it to do what you want.
Mark
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