Footage copy on import

[Marc Wielage]

Yes, it can be done. Read the section in the 12.5 manual from page 485-493 on Media Management.

My advice: only use COPY mode (not move), use a different drive if possible, make sure you have enough space, and be sure to click on “Relink to New Files.”

You may also want to use a duplicate of your current session so that if anything fails, you can always go back to the original and diagnose what the problem is. Note that if Resolve encounters a missing file, it will cause the Media Management process to abort, even if it’s a minor file like a 2-second audio file. (I would rather they just pop up an error message at the end of the process, but that’s me.)

[Robert Spieler]

Thanks very much for your reply!

“Relink to new files” has now solved one of the problems. I’ve overlooked this option. However, the overall process seems still a bit cumbersome. This seems to be a one-off feature when you start your project. It works perfectly fine when you bring ALL your footage in and trigger the media management “copy entire project” function to bring all the clips to my target folder/drive.
As I’m usually go back and forth in my editing process which means at some point I’ll find out that I need another piece of footage, like a light leak or stock footage this doesn’t help much. When you try to start copying all clips of the entire project again it fails because it can’t skip files that are already there.

My workaround for the moment is to make a smart bin which refers to all footage that does not match my target folder. In doing it this way I’m able to automatically add up clips in that bin and then after a while I can manually select them all and do the copy clip function in media management. This is far from ideal…a macro which does this for me would be much better but I can live with it.

[Marc Wielage]

One thing to make this process more streamlined is sort the clips by USAGE in the Media Page (you’ll have to turn that on to see it), update the Usage function by selecting all clicks and right-clicking, then deleting the unused clips that are not in any Timelines — assuming you know you’re not going to need them. Now, if you ever Media Manage, everything can be located quickly and easily.

When new files come in, I have the source folders broken down logically, so that Audio, Camera Files, Graphics, Transcodes, VFX, and so on are all separate and can be located and taken care of as needed. I also keep copies of EDLs & XMLs just in case, and I save off DRPs to an external drive for backup.

[Robert Spieler]

That’s a good idea. I could even add the sort by USAGE function as a second condition to my smart bin which already sorts for ≠ target folder.

I really have to look more into all the smart bin functions in resolve. There is so much to learn!

Thanks again