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Log & Transfer/Proxy file problems….
I’m consolidating a large amount of AVCHD footage from various cameras (HMC40, 7D, 60D, T2I, T3I and maybe a few more…) for behind the scenes footage for a film we did at school. I have about 50 cards worth of footage but some of the students didn’t properly backup the entire contents of the card and instead just copied all the .MOV files. So, log and transfer will not function for these cards any longer.
Normally this wouldn’t be an issue and I’d just manually transcode the footage. However, I don’t have the space to keep everything in ProRes422 and I need to use ProRes422 proxy instead. However, I need an easy method to swap back to the original (or ProRes422) when we picture lock to do a final render/grade. Is there a way I can trick FCP into letting me use log and transfer again so I can simply disconnect/delete proxy and reconnect and transcode via log and transfer when I’m done editing? Or if there is some other simple way to just generate a proxy file for ANY clip?
Again, I want to stress I’m looking for a simple solution because this project/footage will probably be revisited in a year or two and chances are future students won’t know how to handle this situation effectively. Log and Transfer method is very easy and is ideal.
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2 Replies
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If you cannot Log and Transfer, then the offline/online process gets difficult. There is no way to make Proxy files outside of FCP and then be able to media manage only what is in the cut, and convert only that footage to high res. That process can only happen inside FCP. Instead, what you’ll have to do is use something like ClipWrap (divergentmedia.com) for the HMC40 footage, and then MPEG STREAMCLIP or MAGIC BULLET GRINDER (or Compressor) to convert all the DSLR footage to ProRes 422…full res…and then media manage that inside FCP to ProRes Proxy, or lower res.
BUT KEEP THE FULL RES ONLINE! That is the only way you can relink to it. And yes, you can only relink to the full res clips. You might have to even stripe timecode to some of these clips after you convert them to ProRes 422, and before you media manage them, as a lot of cameras don’t add timecode, making the relink very painful. You’d do that with QT Change:
https://www.videotoolshed.com/product/42/qtchange
SIMPLE solution? Convert the footage to full res ProRes 422 and work from that (stripe the timecode…it helps). Don’t attempt the offline/online workflow. Get large hard drives…duplicate the media so that you have two exact copies of it…in case one of the drives fails (which they do).
In the future…before you do any shooting…go over the proper procedures of backing up your tapeless media. that simple step is VERY important, and can’t be stressed enough. That’s the weak link in the post chain.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “In the future…before you do any shooting…go over the proper procedures of backing up your tapeless media. that simple step is VERY important, and can’t be stressed enough. That’s the weak link in the post chain.”
I did with the cameras I specifically brought to the shoot… Unfortunately many people just brought their own personal cameras to the shoot and were capturing footage we didn’t anticipate. When they submitted it weeks/months later it was too late to fix.
I 3TB drives I’m working with and one is dedicated as a clone so I really just have 3TB of space. There are about 50 cards worth of footage which normally wouldn’t be an issue but there is about 1.5TB of RED footage from the actual shoot on the drive as well. So I just can’t make everything ProRes long term.
Since it’s behind the scenes footage and nothing super high quality I split the difference and am transcoding everything to ProRes Lt. It should be good enough for their purposes and if anybody really wants to improve the quality and notices they probably will be smart enough to figure out how to transcode it manually.
Also, are you the same Shane who produced this tutoral? If so it’s funny you responded as I just watched it before making my original post. 🙂
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