Any wya to globally change clip names in browser?

[Jerry Hofmann]

Fraid not…

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Dekkoman]

You could try manipulating them at the Finder level by writing a script (easy) with Automator. You’d then have to re-import your footage though, which might reek havoc with your timeline.

[Andy Mees]

the power for this kind of thing lies in the Export > XML… option
if you have any applescript experience, or basc coding skills, you could write an applescript to handle doing this with an xml of your project file.

at a more basic level you could even try just taking that xml and doing a “find and replace” on it.

[Jerry Hofmann]

I thought of this too Andy…But it would still be a problem relinking, depending on just how many edits are in the sequence and how many clips you’d need to reconnect, this could be a bit cumbersome… might be faster to just rename them in Browser.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Andy Mees]

yeah, i’d definately have to test it personally… but seems it could be doable if working on an xml of the project as that should affect both the clips and sequences equally making the relink unnecessary (I think it would require a somewhat selective find and replace as one wouldn’t want to change the name of the source)

a bit too busy at the moment, otherwise i’d have a bash a knocking up an AppleScript Studio based app to put a GUI on the idea.
bet the guys and gals from Spherico could do it overninght!

[Andy Mees]

ok, so a gui would be nice, but the basic premiss is sound as a pound

created a project with some test media
created a timeline with random application of clips applied multiple times
exported project as xml
opened xml file in a text editor and did a find and replace on one of the known clip names
replaced every instance except the “parthurl” item
saved changes
double clicked the xml, told fcp to create a new project and checked the reconnect media box

everything was exactly as before except the clip name had changed globally, reveal in finder linked back to the original file

cool.

[Michael Buday]

Andy, wow – thanks so much for taking the time to test that work flow for me. I will try that next time this problem arises. Last night, I had to make a decision, so I went ahead and did it the cumbersome way. I did a global search and replace at the FINDER level to fix the media file names, then I manually changed all the clip-names in FCP (ughh!), then spent several hours relinking all the clips and sequences to the new media file names.

This is where AVID really learned their lesson a long time ago. Many people don’t know this, but you actually change the name of a media file at the OS level while the Avid is playing that file, and it will automatically re-link to the new name without user intervention. This is because Avid doesn’t rely soley on the name of the file, since it can be so easily screwed up when transferring between systems, OS’s ,etc. Instead, if it can’t find the file by name, it looks into the file header where it stores a GUID that can’t be screwed by the user or the OS.

Apple should adopt this kind of robust media file linking! Other then that though, I’m pretty happy with FCP so far!

Again thanks . .

Michael Buday

[Les Kaye]

[Michael Buday] “This is where AVID really learned their lesson a long time ago”

Well, it wasn’t all that long ago. If you recall, Avid’s file naming used a hexidex convention that made it just about impossible to know what a file on the desktop was. They finally cleaned it up (I think).