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FCP 7 EOS Footage and Proxy Mill Issue
I am using Proxy Mill to transcode some EOS footage to pro Res 422 LT. Works great.
But, I decided to see what The Canon plug in inside FCP 7 would do to the footage to compare.
Problem is, Once I transcode from the card using Proxy mill, Final cut Log and transfer wont recognize the media anymore.. I have backups of all the media, but i am concerned about why, Once Proxy mill transcodes footage, Final cut log and transfer dosn’t like it anymore.I have tried this several times and get the same result.
Any one care to test this out for themselves?
John M
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8 Replies
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I presume you are encoding from a card backup and not the card itself. My guess is the software is changing meta data. If you had a backup of the card and also a second copy, then does L&T have a problem with the one you used for Proxy Mill and the other copy?
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I am trancoding from the card, i was just doing a test. I am reluctant to try it with my backed up media, because i dont want jepordize it. I bought proxy mill mostly for the abilty to make downres window dubs, but thought i woul use it for transcoding as well. For now i am going to stick with log and transfer for transcoding.
One other thing, time code from the eos data should be drop frame, but proxy mill is creating non drop, no big deal but since it is time of day, it should be drop -
I was suggesting you try with a copy of your backed up media as I suspect it is changing metadata so encoding from the card is going to corrupt the data for L&T. No problems if you are just testing, but I would test the workflow from a hard drive backup, not the card.
If it is also getting DF and Non DF mixed up, then I would stik to L&T. It also offers the advantage of being able to recapture if you lose a drive or Media Manage a job.
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John,
As we discussed, ProxyMill is a non-destructive application. It only reads from a source, it does not modify the files there.
It is possible of course to set the output location of PM to anywhere you wish, but I don’t get the sense that you were attempting to write back to the card.
More likely the issue is with Spotlight. Any time you read media with a Mac you run the risk of Spotlight indexing the contents and writing a small index file back onto the card/disk etc. These are only a few kb, but if the card is entirely full one or more of your original source files may be damaged.
I’ve seen this repeatedly with P2 users who fail to physically lock the card before attaching them to a Mac. With P2, it was always a large file (the video MXF file) that was shortened, thus corrupting the last few frames of the clip.
In your case, if this is indeed what’s going on, it’s probably one of the .thm files getting changed that’s causing objections from FCP. The bad news is CF cards don’t have a physical lock, and it’s very difficult to turn Spotlight off.
As other respondents suggest, one should always work from copies, not the source material, just for reasons such as this. ProxyMill is designed to work in conjunction with ShotPut Pro so you can point it at one of your output locations and process the files as they become available on the copy disk.
As for the timecode, keep in mind the numbers are simply labels. They do not affect the number of frames in the clip. Many non-broadcasters do in fact use Non-Drop timecode, though TC itself is becoming less and less consequential. We will consider adding an additional choice in the TC preferences into ProxyMill for non-timecoded media.
Video logging is just the beginning…
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Proxy mill seems to work great, but if in the edit, they need to transcode stuff again for some reason, and they dont have proxy mill, I will hear about it if log and transfer gives them problems. I have not had time to test it with footage copied to a drive, but I cant see how this would be any different.
By the way, I took the card out of the reader and shot a few more clips of video, and when I put it back in the reader, FCP would see the new clips that had not been transcoded with Proxy mill, but none of the others that had been trancoded with proxy mill.
This is a link to a great review of proxy mill. I found it very helpful.
I wish I had more time to fiddle with it, but The shoot just started, and we are on for four weeks straight
If spotlight was writing info, where would i see that?
The time code issue is not a big deal at all.
Right now I am only using proxy mill to make the director low res TC burn Dubs of footage, and it works super fast. Perfect.
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It also offers the advantage of being able to recapture if you lose a drive or Media Manage a job.
Exactly.I did the test with the card precisely, because i did not want to jeopardize my the footage on the drives. the first thing i do is make copies to two drives, I treat these like shot tape. Once I have them the card becomes expendable. That’s why i did the test on the card. If the same thing happens with the drive, I have lost the ability to log and transfer with that drive. When I have more time I will do a short test, copying to a drive and using proxy mill from that.
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I have not done the test with an external drive, but when I put a card with shot footage back into the camera, after I have transcoded the footage using proxy mnill, the camera will not play back the movies.
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So I did a test with an external hard drive.
I know it is supposed to be non destructive, but even when trans coding from an external hard drive, once proxy mill trans codes, FCP log and transfer wont recognize the un-transcoded media.This may not seem like a problem, but I work with many different clients, I often hand off un-transcoded media, and a transcoded version. If the transcoded media I hand them comes from proxy mill, and they ever need to re-transcode, they will not be able to use log and transfer.
My testing shows Proxy mill destroys your ability to go back and use log and transfer to re-transcodeWhat am i missing? I see this as a problem.
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