How to make “real” subclips out of the timeline?

[David Bogie]

You must select the clip only to obtain a subclip. I’m not watching over your shoulder but it sounds like the sequence is selected in the browser so that’s what gets subclipped.
The only reasonable way to get useful subs is to export them as new media and reimport them, which, in any decent NLE, would be a one-button operation, if it was necessary at all, which it shouldn’t be.

There’s a somewhat dated article on kenstone.net about the family of FCP clip types.

The main issue is your (and my) definition of subclips differs wildly from Apple’s and we’re all stuck with the official version. We must conform.

My definition of sublclip goes back to Media 100 which was intuitive, flexible, and functional. I see none of those attributes in FCP’s weird subclip routine.

bogiesan

[David Mcgiffert]

Boogie,

You are so right. There are many things I miss about
my Media 100 system and that is definately one of them.
(another is reading your posts on the M100 board,
some of those were historic)

It astounds me that a program with as much depth as
FCS can have such startling lapses.
I love the program but why not make changes that
improve the basics?

It’s easy to criticize of course, but improvements like
this should not have to fall on deaf ears.

All the best

David

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David McGiffert] “It’s easy to criticize of course, but improvements like
this should not have to fall on deaf ears. “

and it doesn’t. Unfortunately, FCP cannot make subclips from multiple clips, ti can only make it from a single clip so you are forced to export any clips as new hard media and be sure to leave yourself handles in case you need them. I encourage everyone to request this feature from apple’s feedback page as this would help a whole host of workflows:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html

M100 ALWAYS had superior media management. It was built right in to the system. Unfortunately, it is not in FCP but hopefully that will change someday.

Jeremy

[Lars Fuchs]

Once you’ve got all your subclips (even though they are still sequences) in a bin, select and batch export them all using File->Batch Export commmand. Export them as qt files but don’t make them self-contained, make them reference files. They will export much quicker this way. Then simply drag all the completed files you’ve just exported back into FCP. They wont relink to your original media, so you should be sure to include handles in the export. But it shouldn’t take very long, and wont really take up any significant disk space.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Lars Fuchs] “Export them as qt files but don’t make them self-contained, make them reference files. They will export much quicker this way.”

Ah, but see in this case, it’s best to export as hard media to take to Color and any other application. I normally export ref movies, but this is a case where self contained can really save your butt. If any of the render files or other media go away, you will be left with no reference movie and you will have to recreate them. In my opinion not that it matters much, but if you are going to reimport media back in to FCP to edit with, it’s best to export self-contained.

Jeremy

[Lars Fuchs]

[Jeremy Garchow] “If any of the render files or other media go away, you will be left with no reference movie and you will have to recreate them.”

That’s a good point about the render files. I hadn’t thought about that. In this case Jan mentioned trying to create clips from dual system shoots, so I don’t think rendering is an issue. This is the source media for the edit, so its likely to stay online for the edit. However, if he media manages the new clips, FCP will create self-contained files.

It also occurred to me that Jan could try to create a group of multiclips from the separate picture and sound using the ‘make multi-clip sequence’ command (and uncheck the “automatically edit multiclips into new sequence” box). The resulting multiclips should be subclippable in the way Jan is looking for. It might be necessary to set the aux-tc on the various elements first, though.

I’ll be able to do a test of that on Monday and I’ll let you know.

[Alex Gollner]

If a long interview has been digitized as a single clip I sometimes slice it up on the timeline and use the media manager to make a new project with that sequence using Copy for the media but without ‘Include Master Clips Outside Selection,’ I usually add a few frames for handles.

I didn’t use a Media 100. How would you like subclips to work?

alex4d

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Alex Gollner] “How would you like subclips to work? “

So you could add multiple clips to make one sub clip. With Media100 you don’t have to export and reimport, you simply told it what clips to make a sub clip and it did it. It would also keep track of the individual time code for all clips contained within. It was very simple and smart.

Jeremy

[Carsten Orlt]

As all the other have stated: can’t be done without export – reimport.

! Only thing to be aware of is that you’ll loose the TC reference to the original clips !

Allow me a tip for a workaround (well not really but kind of) I’m using sequences a lot to make myself select reels from which I cut my final version.

Copy – Paste is really quite fast way of working between seq. And you can select anything between the in and out point in a sequence regardless of number of clips and where they are positioned on the timeline (only limit is the track selection) by pressing OPT-A. then copy, switch to your master seq and paste. All original clip tc and reel data maintained!

Also remember that you can link any clips on the timeline by selecting them and press COMMAND-L.

Hope this helps. (if you didn’t know them already)

Carsten

[Wendy Conquest]

I finally found the answer to my problem. Thank you!