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Alexa Footage – Media Manager Error 34
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I didn’t use an Alexa XML to import. The footage was given to me as “dailies” on 4 separate drives from each day of the shoot. They had an editor on set who was synching the video ProRes output with the WAV files. That was a mess. There’s random drifting that happened upon synching using timecode. We found out that there’s a problem with the camera – firmware update or something like that. So everything had to be synched by eye and ear the old school way. Regardless, that’s all another story.
So, I compiled all the merged footage per series in Final Cut Pro. No XMLs. Just bins, etc..
Plenty of space on the hard drive. So, that’s not the problem.
I was able to pull up the QT select outputs that Final Cut tried to export by manually dragging them into QT. I can save them as a self-contained MOV and everything seems to be ok. It’s just a pain in the ass to have to open every single clip and re-save them. I’m waiting on the DaVinci operator to break from session to see if he can directly open the outputs from FCP without the wrapper, but it still is a problem and shouldn’t be giving me errors on export. Not sure if it’s Alexa’s fault or FCP.
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So…the DaVinci colorist said he wasn’t able to import ANY of the files I gave him that Final Cut spit out. Even the Phantom footage selects that open fine in QT. I forgot to mention that all the files have “-v” at the end of the titles. Not sure why.
I can give him the complete source files like I did before, but the difference is 66GB of footage to find and move as opposed to 4GB and a helluva lot easier to compact together instead of manually locating all the files of the different takes.
Media Manager should work for this. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks,
Eddie -
[Eddie Kesler] “I forgot to mention that all the files have “-v” at the end of the titles. Not sure why.”
That usually means that your drive that you are using is formatted incorrectly, and won’t accept files over 4GBs.
What format is the hard drive, probably not OS Extended, correct?
66GB is not that much. YOu could give him 66GBs and an EDL and probably be done with it.
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That’s not it. I have tons of files over 4GB on here already.
It’s not that I mind giving him 66GB of footage, but it’s a lot of leg work to manually look through the edl and find each take. Plus, I don’t want to miss one, etc… Media Manager’s function is made specifically to do this task, but something’s not working properly.
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[Eddie Kesler] “That’s not it. I have tons of files over 4GB on here already. “
On the drive you gave to the colorist or your own drive? Can you open any of the files you created? Walk me through what you did to media manage.
[Eddie Kesler] ” Media Manager’s function is made specifically to do this task, “
Mmm kinda, but it can be finicky, especially with merged clips. Do you have merged clips or how did you marry the audio to video? Do all of your clips have reel names? And as far as the drifting, my guess is that whoever started this mess imported the audio with a 29.97 easy setup and subsequently stamped the audio with that frame rate which will cause drifting if not fixed. For next time, you can delete the audio out of the project, setup a new 23.98 easy setup, save and quit FCP, then reimport the audio and all should be well. Or you can look here to fix it via XML:
https://library.creativecow.net/lyon_matt/fixing-fcp-assets/1
Is this DaVinci Resolve or no?
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Most clips are merged, but there are several that were shot MOS and some is Phantom Footage that came from a different prodco with no audio. The Phantom files show up with thumbnails in the finder and open in QT easily. The rest do not – merged or not merged.
I think that the renaming at the end of all these clips is part of the reason that the colorist can’t import them. The other issue is the fact that FCP is giving me the #34 error on all the Alexa files.
As far as the audio, the prodco who shot the footage confirmed that there is a bug with the video and audio files being out of sync after we alerted them to the problem. They said there’s a patch for the camera that should fix it from here on out.
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This is a mess. So you are saying that you can’t see ANY of the original Alexa files? They all have a -v?
I don’t see how camera firmware is going to fix double system sound.
This is all starting to sound like everything was mishandled as soon as the camera was turned on.
Do you still have the original 4 drives and the separate audio?
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So it was Media Manager that made the -v files? We don’t use Media Manager (thankfully) or the merge command, but doesn’t the -v indicate separate video and audio files? They’re aren’t a matching set of -a files anywhere?
Tell me if I have the steps correct…
1) 23.98 Alexa shoot
2) 23.98 dual audio
3) Both synced in FCP on location
Given there was drift I assume the syncing was done clip by clip on the timeline and not using the merge command? If so how were the clips joined? Were these synced clips exported or only existed as “clips” in a FCP Bin?
4) These synced clips were edited into a seg.
5) Seq Media Managed which produced error prone clips with -v that can’t be opened anywhere? -
[Jeremy Garchow] “This is a mess. So you are saying that you can’t see ANY of the original Alexa files? They all have a -v?
Yes. Along with a sequence # for those that have duplicates.
(i.e. A004C001_101208_R1TZ-v
A004C001_101208_R1TZ-2-v)[Jeremy Garchow] “I don’t see how camera firmware is going to fix double system sound. “
Me either, but that’s what they said. Remember, it’s all digital.
[Jeremy Garchow] “This is all starting to sound like everything was mishandled as soon as the camera was turned on.”
Not necessarily. It’s a brand new camera and technology. We had issues with footage from RED when that first started to hit a couple years ago. Many of those issues are worked out. This was a big-budget shoot from a highly-reputable, LA production company. Not that we haven’t had problems in the past with other technologies or prodcos, but it wasn’t a bunch of amateurs.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Do you still have the original 4 drives and the separate audio?”
Yes, but it’s all been consolidated into my RAID at the beginning of the job last month. Once the sync issues were resolved, there really hasn’t been too many issues. The only other thing is that in my dynamic trimming of the merged clips in the timeline, it would offset what frame I was seeing in the trim window by 9 or 10 seconds. I worked around it, but it was annoying.
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I saw this thread by chance.
With the Alexa – as with any new hardware or software there had been issues – with the early firmwares/releases.
The firmware might have been responsible to write not complete FCP compatible QT files as FCP looks deeper into the file than for example QT Player 7.
Earlier versions of the firmware did write more and especially different timecodes to the QT file. These TC tracks could have different timebase, for example 24 and 25 and 30 or whatever. This might cause a sync issue. Different from the RED the Alexa saves a real flag to each timecode track and FCP will read that because of the flag.
As the Alexa does not record audio this can be a serious issue.Earlier versions did write a ‘film info’ into the QT file which could make FCP to be confused . As far as I know the current version does not do that any more.
But latter can make the FCP Media Manager working a bit strange as it doesn’t know what to do. The ‘-v’ normally shows that a file isn’t complete.To solve the current problem you may write a little AppleScript for QT Player 7 which automates to save all your stuff as a new file.
Next time make sure to have the latest firmware installed and the camera operator will have done the camera setup in a way you need. The Alexa manual is not that thick or big, but you need to understand the options.My AlexaTool can help FCP to understand better what’s going on – as long as you use XML. XML can make FCP to modify the actual QT metadata of a file when working with FCP. That’s the reason sometimes people see a new modification date of a file even though they think they never touched it before,
The Alexa has been proved to be working fine with FCP and that tool in a real lot of soaps here. Also ARRI did support kind of complex commercial with some big company and some big car manufacturer in the US in last december using the tool and everything was flawless.
There will be an Alexa firmware update probably next week. Also ARRI support will be probably very willing to help (I’m in Germany and can call them here, in the US I think they have an office in Burbank)
Maybe it helps a bit to understand.
Andreas
P.S.
I don’t work for ARRI nor do I have any business relation to them. I even haven’t touched or or seen an Alexa — only the files created with it. And I’ve read the manual.Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools
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