How do Change Codecs mid edit.

[Richard Herd]

Oh boy oh boy am I gonna hear it…but I’m gonna say it anyway. I would convert to FCPX. No foolin’! For $300 plus the new $10 7toX app.

On the other hand, you could have a lot of fun transcoding in Compressor and relinking.

[Michael Gissing]

Not such a silly idea Richard. However, setting up properly to install Lion, FCPX on a new drive or separate partition plus the learning curve might take longer. Also 7toX is day one of public release so I don’t know if it can translate a complex multi sequence project into FCPX

The problem for transcoding and relinking is timecode and reel numbers. A quick and dirty fix is to assign a reel number to everything and then Use Media Manager to copy and transcode the project to ProRes.

Every solution to this problem is time consuming and a compromise. In the old days we might have recaptured and changed resolution/ codecs, but with a file based workflow and Log & Transfer this can’t be done.

[Richard Herd]

What about using Color?

[Bouke Vahl]

I don’t see the problem.
FCP relinks based on filename first, then on timecode / reel IF THERE IS OVERLAP.

So if you did not assign timecode to the clips, this can be done painless if the filenames match.

If there is timecode, it should work if the timecode comes across (and i think even without a reelname, but have not tested recently)

So why would Media Manage not work for this?

Otherwise, it’s not hard for me to make something that will copy the existing timecode to new files. (And that will be lightning fast compared to the transcoding time.

So what am i missing?

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Michael Gissing]

My understanding is that Media Manager doesn’t work on video files that lack a reel number.

[Bouke Vahl]

ah, that might explain something.
But it isn’t hard to add one (in batch) using FCP, or QtChange, so my guess is this is still a viable option.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Michael Gissing]

If Mike wanted to go this way, my next suggestion was going to be QtChange. All in all easier than beta testing FCPX and 7toX but still time consuming transcoding. At least with Media Manager it is setup and hit go and walk away. Given reports that Compressor chokes on batches of more than 20 files at a time….

[Mike Paul]

Wow! Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Honestly had no idea what kind of options I had. Too deep to go FCPX, and really don’t trust that yet, was surprised to here about 7 to X. Had not heard about that. Will have to look into it much later when this project is done.

I am investigating the Media Manager route. And have discovered 2 things –

1. Wow, I need more harddrives. My 4TB obviously is not going to cut it.
2. Even drilling down and selecting my main edit only to convert to DVCPRO HD (just to try something – not enough HD space available tonight to try other options) Media Manager tells me it’s going to take 4 days. Does that sound reasonable?

Will have to experiment on some smaller sequences obviously before committing but what are any downsides I’d be facing?

Thanks again for all the suggestions!!

[Michael Gissing]

Ironically DVCPro might take longer than ProRes. You can reduce time if you select certain options like deleting unused Media and adding handles so that unused shots and bits of long clips are not transcoded. This will save a lot of space as well.

Also do you need to convert a whole lot of sub sequences or just the main one? Without knowing your edit methodology it is hard to say, but by all means experiement with small sequences and options in Media Manager to see what the effect is.

[Bret Williams]

If it’s 2 hours, then a media managed sequence could be what, a couple hudred gigs max? ProRes 422 runs about a gig a minute for 720p and a little more for 1080p. So straight up 2 hours, plus some handles, plus audio, overlay tracks, etc. would be around 200-250gigs I figure. If media manager will work, it’s your answer.