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Any workflow for “media manage” trim to used + handles? Willing to go way outside the box for this.
Hey there. At the moment there is only one thing stopping my shop from moving over to FCPX. Our workflow requires some of our media to go through an external process, and then return to the NLE.
On FCP 7 and Premiere, I do this with media manager, copy all clips, trim to used + handles. Then run my process on those clips, and then re open the project in FCP 7 or PP.
I could perhaps do this in FCPX by consolidating the media, and running my process on those (the entire original media), though I doubt FCPX’s willingness to stay connected to the media after I am done with it, as I hear it is very touchy about files changing. However, due to our workflow, we have potentially terabytes of source material linked into a 5 minute edit, and the external process is quite slow, which is fine when running on the trimmed ~10 minutes of footage + handles, but wouldn’t be ok on the raw original un trimmed media.
I see https://www.clipexporter.com/ which will spit out trimmed clips, but in lots of searching around, I don’t see anyone offering any solutions to relink trimmed clips back into FCP X.
As best I can see at the moment the only existing workflow to handle this would be to use XtoCC to go to Premiere, do the media manage there, and then 7toX to get back. Obviously this roundtrip is not going to work well for a complex project, so is a non starter.
So, I am going to start poking at FCPX xml, to see if I can work up a munger to cause FCP X to replace clips with their trimmed versions, but wanted to check with the community to see if anyone had heard of this being done before anywhere.
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21 Replies
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Roundtrip through Resolve.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Thanks Oliver,
How reliable is that roundtrip in your experience (assuming it is something you are using)? Does the resulting project back in FCPX look exactly the same with all the original filters/effects/fades/time remaps/etc etc on it? As I mentioned I am unwilling to consider the roundtrip through Premiere, as I have seen it be fairly flaky. Is through Resolve known to work well?
Unfortunately we would want to do this roundtrip as part of the finishing process, so it would be when the edit is most complex, with most of the finishing work at least started, meaning lots of complexity in the filters/effects department.
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[David Parker] “How reliable is that roundtrip in your experience (assuming it is something you are using)?”
In my experience, all roundtrips can have potential issues. I have done roundtrips through Resolve for grading purposes and the results have been OK, but I wouldn’t say perfect. It’s been awhile and I had some audio problems in the return, along with some issues with graphics. Resolve also presented some problems in relinking the same media on the return trip. It had something to do with working between different drives, but I believe that’s not fixed in current versions.
Of course, any roundtrip would only work for a single sequence and not if you had multiple sequences (projects) in the same library. Unfortunately FCP “legacy” was much better at this function. Also Premiere is better if you are working within it.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Just curious, but what’s the ‘process’?
I use Pr for consolidate and conform.
I get the media back, dupe the consolidated Pr project, relink to graded/composited media, and translate back over to fcpxml.
Some effects, of course, don’t make the round trip. Pr and fcpx handle audio in totally different ways, so sometimes the audio is funky. In my case, I am usually getting mixes back at this point so it’s not a big deal for me.
Better relinking would be greatly welcome in fcpx.
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Also, the consolidate codecs in Pr are very limited.
Resolve has better quality and more choice, but it does weird things to still graphics, and it used to ignore audio, but that’s getting better since v12. Still, the translation isn’t perfect.
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Thanks Oliver and Jeremy. Yeah, I am reluctant to make a roundtrip like this an element of our workflow, taking a sequence with all of its complexity from NLE to NLE generally hasn’t worked well in the past, and I’m not hearing confidence that it does now. Though I will give Resolve a look just to see how I find it.
The “process” I need to run is a script that takes the original files we edit with and transforms them into them into the final form, mostly in the area of things like removing duplicate frames and establishing the correct cadence. It would be nice to run this on the source material before we edit with it, but this is not possible due to the extremely tight cycle between ingest and edit. We work a bit like sports highlight editing, tons of content coming in as edit happens, during finishing is the only chance I have of making things proper. FCP 7 works beautifully in this way, and we are still using it, as all our editors (and myself) dislike Premiere, though it does work.
So, I will head under the hood and see if I can hack the fcpx xmls to point directly to trimmed files, avoiding the roundtrip to another NLE. It can’t be that hard right? (Famous last words).
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Are you changing frame rates in this process?
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Kinda. More like conforming the pull down to be correct. We have 30fps material in a 60fps stream, however it’s not locked and can drift. We edit with the sloppy 60fps stuff, and I can make it solid 30fps, and either leave it in a 60fps file, or make it 30. Either way is fine, and I’m sure fcpx will be happier if it remains 60. Premiere and FCP 7 have no problem with 60fps files becoming 30 all of a sudden 🙂 (well FCP will complain, but take it).
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My suggestion would be to bring an LTO archive into the workflow- very cheap vast storage and you’ll always have the entirety of the media available for future use. The downside of media managing with trim is you are throwing away a generation and risking reconnect challenges down the road.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops -
[David Parker] “Either way is fine, and I’m sure fcpx will be happier if it remains 60. “
Absolutely. If you are changing frame rates, my guess is that no matter what you do to the XML, fcpx won’t like it. FCPX simply isn’t good at this sort of thing on its own.
Also, my guess is that fcpx would simply do every other frame in a 60p clip to make it 30.
Have you tried Compressor for your conversions before the edit? It’s easy, fast, high quality and can now be made to use watch folders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvnM1s_p1f4
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