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FCP 6, Media Manager, DualEyes Problem?
I’ve locked picture on a 90 minute feature and I’m trying to export the sequence to an external drive so our colorist can do the grading.
The camera original footage came from various Canon DSLRs. Some of the footage was transcoded (Pro Res 422 HQ) off site and delivered to me. But most of the footage, I transcoded myself, using log and transfer.
I highlight the sequence I want to export in the FCP browser, then right click, but when I click “Media Manager”, nothing happens. The little icon spins for a split second, then nothing.
The same thing happens if I try to open Media Manager from the top menu. Nothing. Won’t open.
Everything in the timeline plays just fine. Exporting the timeline as a self-contained or reference file works without any problem.
It seems Media Manager doesn’t like certain clips in the timeline.
I went through the timeline one clip at a time and started to compare the clips MM had a problem with versus those it didn’t have a problem with.
It seems the offending clips are all clips that were created in DualEyes, off site, to sync second system audio.
Clips that I synched here, on site, using PluralEyes, do not offend Media Manager.
I don’t know that this matters, but…
The offending DualEyes-created files that were created off site include a single, merged file – a video track and three audio tracks (a pair of tracks from the second system audio, and a single track from the camera mic that was used for reference).
One last thing I tried to confirm it was the created-off-site DualEyes files that were keeping MM from working…
I imported two files, residing in the same folder on the HD.
File A had been synched using DualEyes. It has a video track and three audio tracks (one from camera mic, two from second system audio).
File B had not been synched (an MOS take). It has a video track and two audio tracks (camera mic).
I laid both clips in the timeline, next to each other.
If I right click on File A and then click Media Manager, I get an “Error 34” message.
If I right click on File B and then click Media Manager, Media Manager opens normally.
Any idea what’s going on here? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I’m running…
Final Cut Pro 6.0.6
2.4GHz 8-Core MacPro
6 GB RAM
OSX 10.6.8
8TB G-Tech esPRO RAID 5 (4.8 TBs used)Cheers,
Jeffrey
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6 Replies
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Firstly I would make sure all the clips have reel numbers. Media Manager needs them. Secondly I would unlink and delete all sound in a copy of your final sequence as the Colorist doesn’t need all that audio media anyway.
If they want a guide audio track then make an aif mixdown and drop that in instead.You can do that to the media managed sequence.
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Thanks, Michael. Yes, after reading lots of “Error 34” threads on this and other sites, I checked to make sure all the clips had reel names. They do.
And yes, I understand the colorist doesn’t really need the audio, but that doesn’t seem to be related to the problem. Selecting a single, video-only clip – one of the offending DualEyes clips – by itself, right clicking, and clicking “Media Manager” produces the same “Error 34” message.
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What happens if you take on of these files and make a copy (In/Out Export>QT Movie >current settings) and drop that back in the timeline. The other long shot is that these files might be reference files not self contained.
It would help if error messages meant something.
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Michael: I exported one of the offending clips from the timeline as you said, then re-imported that clip and set it on the timeline. When I right click on that file, Media Manager appears to work fine.
Of course, the problem is that I have 1044 cuts on this timeline (I exported an EDL to see the exact count), and doing this same fix for roughly half of those clips would take more time than I’d like to spend on it.
Another work around we considered was exporting the entire timeline, re-importing it to a new timeline, then getting the cut tool out and chopping that 90 minute file into 1044 new clips. That would seem like a lot of work, too.
Plus, I just don’t like knowing how or why this is happening, and would like to prevent it from happening again.
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It might be worth contacting the guys behind Dual Eyes. Going through and manually fixing each file is a pain. You should be able to use an EDL in the grading software to split shots from one file.
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Yes, the EDL should work. The problem there is that the grading work is being done off site, and I’d hoped to export just the footage he’d need via MM to a small portable drive. The footage and other media for this project totals just over 5TBs and lives on a fairly non-portable drive right now (G SPEED esPRO with its mini-SAS RAID controller card).
I’ve got word out to Singular Software (DualEyes/PluralEyes), and a few other places. Fingers crossed. Thanks.
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