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cannot recapture media from Canon T2i
Hi all,
I’m having some trouble shuttling my FCP Project between home and office. Here is the series of events that led up to my current predicament:
-I logged and transferred several cards of footage shot on the Canon T2i without incident, capturing some of the clips in their entirety and some of them after setting in and out points.
-Once I had captured everything I copied and pasted all of my bins and clips into a new project, in which I then renamed all the clips according to content and organized them in thematic bins. (side question: I created a new project because I wanted to have one project that had pure chronological dailies in which all the clip names matched the file names in the Capture Scratch folder. Is this a proper precaution to take? Otherwise there is no record of the clip’s file name in the Browser, which makes me nervous. If this is a foolish worry, I would be grateful to be told to put it to rest. Is it a better idea to put the original file name in the log notes?)
-I duplicated the second, thematically organized, project and put it on a shuttle drive to take home with me. Wanting to save myself a little bit of transfer time, instead of copying over the transcoded ProRes files to my shuttle drive I instead copied over the H.264 files (keeping the cards’ file structures intact).
-When I open the project file at home, all the media is offline as expected. When I highlight and select “batch capture,” the Log & Transfer window opens and prompts me to mount the missing volumes. I select the corresponding volumes on the shuttle drive, Log & Transfer churns for awhile and mounts the volumes. However, a window with an error message indicating that the volumes are missing remains open, and the clips remain offline.I transcoded the footage afresh and tried reconnecting the offline clips to the new ProRes files. However, because all of my clip names in the Browser are now along the lines of “B Roll – dinner,” they will not automatically connect to the ProRes files, which are all named MVI_1234, MVI_1235, etc. If I happen to remember that “B Roll – dinner” was taken from MVI_1234 then I can manually point it to that file and it will reconnect without issue, but otherwise I’m out of luck.
So my question is: somewhere along the line with my copying and renaming did I destroy my ability to batch capture from the original H.264 files? If the volume FCP is prompting me to mount in order for the batch capture to start does mount, has the correct corresponding Reel# FCP is asking for, and contains the corresponding H.264 files, why is batch capture not working? Is this a glitch in the Canon plug-in? It’s early enough in my process that perhaps this can’t be deemed a predicament quite yet, but I don’t want to move on until I know the proper workflow to ensure that I won’t be delivering a project that won’t be able to link to the accompanying media. I apologize in advance for any errors in terminology, unintentional omissions of pertinent information, or silly newbie mistakes and greatly appreciate any help in this matter!
Many thanks.
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14 Replies
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Unfortunately, there’s no easy fix for this. FCP uses the names of the clip and file for reconnection so if you change the name of a clip in your browser after you’ve captured it or transcoded it, and you don’t change the name of the media file to match, there’s no way back to the original media file names. In your case I’d not ever change the name of the file nor clip but use this method:
Don’t change the name column from the originals, then use a description column to describe the shot rather than the name column. If you then need to re transcode for what ever reason, the file names will always match the clip names in your browser.You’ll have to manually re-conform things where you sit now sounds like to me., unless you can retrieve the earlier media you transcoded.
But next time, use the suggestion above, and you’ll not have a problem with reconnection again.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.
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Thanks Jerry, I didn’t realize this was the case and just assumed the file name was stored somewhere in the metadata of the clip. I was following Shane Ross’s tutorial for tapeless media capture so thought that renaming the clips after capture was not going to be problematic. Did I misunderstand something in the video and is this problem unique to tapeless media? I thought that subclipping, renaming etc was standard when organizing a project so am glad to have caught this early.
Thanks,
Tory
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It’s not problematic with some media file formats (like P2 workflows don’t have this problem don’t think), but it is with the DSLR footage (there’s precious little metadata in them). If you can get back to the prores files you’ve already created, you’d be miles ahead. You should media manage the files if you want to copy them. Using the Media Manager always works to copy files and reconnect them to a copy of the project file at the same time. You can look up the workflow in the Help menu – just search on “Media Manager”.
If you change the name of a clip after it’s captured, there is a command in the Modify menu to “rename” the file to match the clip… but in your workflow that still wouldn’t have worked, because you were working with the prores captured media you didn’t bring with you (you only took the project file, right?). However if you do change the name of an online clip, it’s best to change the name of the media file to match using that command, so it can be reconnected/recaptured down the line.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.
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This is becoming clearer. A follow-up question: what if I transcode the footage at a low resolution, change the clip names, rename the files to match the clips and edit without incident but then want to deliver the final project with the H.264 files so that the online can be done at full resolution? Will a new batch capture be impossible? If you’re working with DSLR footage do you have to transcode at the highest resolution and deliver the ProRes files rather than the CF card volumes?
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Why not kill two birds with one stone and log the footage in the log and transfer window? That way it’s poperly named from the get go. If you need to change something after that, always use the modify command right away.
Fwiw, you should be able to relog and transfer the clips, even with a different name (at least I think you should be able to, even with DSLR video).
First, load all the footage in log and transfer window. Then go to your browser, select a few offline clips, right click and choose batch capture. What happens?
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Hi Jeremy,
I do hope in the future to spend more time in the Log & Transfer window rather than transcoding all the footage in one go. Not least because if I log several clips from the same MVI file they name themselves in ascending order, meaning that all clips logged after them will not have names that correspond with their corresponding files anyway (for example, if I log three sections of MVI_1000 using in and out points, they come in as MVI_1000, MVI_1001, and MVI_1002. Then the file that is actually named MVI_1001 is transcoded as a clip named MVI_1003.).
The scenario you describe is the very one that is giving me trouble. I mount the volumes containing the original H.264 files and when I direct the offline clips to batch capture a window opens, lists the necessary volumes with exclamation points next to them, and says that they are not mounted. When I click “add volume” and select the proper folders (again, I have not meddled with the names or folder structure of the volumes since the first successful log & transfer) a progress bar pops up with a message indicating that media is being scanned. When the scanning is finished nothing happens, the error window remains open. Similarly, clicking “search for volumes” yields nothing. I have attached a screen grab below of the error window with a section of the log and transfer window behind it in which you can see that the volume that is being listed as unmounted is in fact mounted. The names of the four clips I am trying to batch capture have not been altered in the Browser, they match the names of the H.264 files.
To reiterate: I understand that from here on out I should either commit to spending time naming the clips in the log & transfer window and/or making sure to modify the file names if I make any subsequent changes and as long as something doesn’t happen to the ProRes files I should be fine. However, I was under the impression from discussion threads on this subject that the reigning philosophy re backing up was that the most important files were the original H.264 files (which I have been dutifully backing up in three locations) and that no matter what might go awry, as long as those files are preserved any FCP project can be rescued (within reason) with a batch capture. If this is not the case then I will have to a) switch my attention to making multiple copies of the ProRes files and b) purchase more drives so that I have enough space to transcode and edit everything at full res as well as store multiple back-ups. Of course if I rename any clips subsequent to transcoding and then lose the ProRes files, apparently I won’t be able to reconnect the media to my back-up ProRes files anyway. Is the only solution to never change clip names? After purchasing “Getting Organized in FCP” I thought I was finally operating from a place of organizational competence but now I feel a little despairing. I hope that I’ve made some error in logic so that there is some hope in correcting it, I’d prefer that than to be working within a flawed system. Thank goodness for Creative Cow and thanks so much for all the help so far!
Oh and a final question: could this possibly have anything to do with having had to alter the Canon EOS plug-in to make it compatible with the T2i?
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[Tory Stewart] “Oh and a final question: could this possibly have anything to do with having had to alter the Canon EOS plug-in to make it compatible with the T2i?
“That was going to be my next hunch. What do you change when you modify that data?
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Here is a screen grab of the altered .plist file. The only change is the addition of the “Canon EOS REBEL T2i” string:
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Hmm, I haven’t seen that ‘hack’ before. I have some DSLR footage shot on 5dMII and 7d. I’ll see if I can batch capture those projects and perhaps it will tell us if the t2i is the culprit.
Jeremy
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So, some 7D test footage I have worked just fine.
Just to be sure, you have loaded the footage in the Log and Transfer window first.
Then you go back to the browser and choose the offline clips and right lick on them and choose “Batch Capture” the choose all selected items from the drop down, correct?
If so, it might be the t2i string that is making it not work.
Jeremy
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