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Consolidation tips and tricks welcomed
Feature length project – multiple attached drives – approaching fine cut stage. Want to consolidate for security and to get everything on one drive. (Eventually the final version will need to be consolidated to a removable drive for posterity.)
Some chapters have already been consolidated.
Is there a way of consolidating the rough cut without re-consolidating what has already been consolidated? (i.e. ignore media in *this* folder or already on *this* drive?).
I’ve tried ‘making offline’ some consoldated clips – but a test then seemed to have no path in the metadata to relink to – and I’m wary of reconnect issues down the line.
I suppose one option may be to media manage and create an ‘offline’ version of the timeline – then only relink files on relevant drives.
Alternatively I considered unmounting that drive or putting the previous consolidates folder into the trash to hide it from FCP, but again am wary of reconnect issues in a live project.
Anyone have rock solid workflows here? Or should I just let media manager consolidate everything… again.
Many thanks
Trevor
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5 Replies
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Don’t make this harder than it needs to be Trevor, just let Media Manager (re)consolidate everything.
Fwiw, you can display the “Source” column in the Browser to more easily isolate which media needs to be consolidated vs that which doesn’t … but this won’t help with the relinking which will still need to be done after the fact (as using Media Manager to copy media does not change the reference to the original media source in the exiting project).
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[Andy Mees] “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be Trevor, just let Media Manager (re)consolidate everything.
“Just trying to save time… it’s going to be 75min show at the end, with 5 second handles that’s a lot of consolidating. If I can get ahead and consolidate the rough cut….
[Andy Mees] “Fwiw, you can display the “Source” column in the Browser to more easily isolate which media needs to be consolidated vs that which doesn’t … but this won’t help with the relinking which will still need to be done after the fact (as using Media Manager to copy media does not change the reference to the original media source in the exiting project).”
THis is one of my bug bears with FCP. Great I can edit with XDCam or whatever in the timeline and right click and ‘media manage’ to recompress it to my sequence codec, with handles. But I have to manually reconnect that clip…
Also with the clips in the browser (and these are ‘create master clips’ clips as I only have sequences in my projects) I can’t ‘consolidate’ as I understand it – because it will be the full length master clip, rather then a selection of subclips as contained in the sequence… so any help here gratefully received.
I think I might end up with the 0 frame consolidate (i.e. a self-contained quicktime) to save me too much grief!
Thanks for your input Andy
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[Trevor Asquerthian] “Great I can edit with XDCam or whatever in the timeline and right click and ‘media manage’ to recompress it to my sequence codec, with handles. But I have to manually reconnect that clip… “
If you Media Manage a sequence (and hence all its contained clip instances) rather than the master clips themselves, and use the option to “Duplicate selected items and place into a new project”, then the duplicate sequences (in the new project) are already linked to the newly managed media.
[Trevor Asquerthian] “Also with the clips in the browser (and these are ‘create master clips’ clips as I only have sequences in my projects) I can’t ‘consolidate’ as I understand it – because it will be the full length master clip, rather then a selection of subclips as contained in the sequence… so any help here gratefully received.”
As above, the trick is in managing the sequence rather than the master clips. In your particular workflow you might sort your master clips by Source, select all that you wish to flag, and apply a colored label to them (Modify menu > Label…). Now in the sequence you should be able to easily see where the flagged clips lie. You might then break out these areas into separate sequences and then Media Manage only those sequences as needed into a new duplicate project, then copy those managed sequences or sequence content back into your master project or master sequence.
At this point tho, its really probably a good time to give Bouke Vahl’s FCPreconnect app another plug. If you’ve never looked at it then you really should. This excellent tool would open up another whole sphere of possibilities with regards to workflows for yo,u and might just be what you need to help you work the way you want to work, rather than the way FCP wants you to work. Check it out: https://www.videotoolshed.com/product/41/fcpreconnect
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[Andy Mees] “If you Media Manage a sequence … then the duplicate sequences are already linked to the newly managed media.”
That’s when you have the luxury of waiting to the end to MM the sequence… I can’t bear the grief that xdcam footage causes FCP, and want to move any shots I use off FW drives to RAID, so it’s easier to do it ad-hoc in the sequence.
It’s a FR really (which I have put in the Apple black hole) for the choice when MMing clips in a timeline to have them consolidate *and* reconnect…
[Andy Mees] “its really probably a good time to give Bouke Vahl’s FCPreconnect app another plug.”
Yes I’ve looked at that, and it is a very neat application, but I don’t feel it is particularly suited to this job. (Until I want to reconnect back to the original clips… which will be a severe test of its reconnect abilities 😉
I’m also very wary of having any reconnect issues before picture lock…
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Hi Trevor,
Did you ever find a way of doing this “ad-hoc” media managing. I’m managing a large project – 17 hours (or so it says…) to copy the media. So I am looking to pause the process, and then continue on later without restarting the whole thing. Thinking about the option to “only media manage clips that are not already on this drive.” Boy that would be great. Ah, Avid.
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