Media Management and Relinking STILL messed up in FCP6??

[Jeremy Garchow]

I have a couple of ideas, but first a statement then a question.

First, before upgrading any project ina new version of FCP, duplicate it, then open the duplicate in the new version.

Second, do you have FCP 5 and 6 on the same drive or are you moving your project to new computer?

[Bill Russell]

Hi there

“First, before upgrading any project ina new version of FCP, duplicate it, then open the duplicate in the new version.”

I have copies as well as archives of the original project file.

“Second, do you have FCP 5 and 6 on the same drive or are you moving your project to new computer? ”

Same machine. No changes, no migration, no relinking nothing. Open the project with 5, it’s fine. Open with 6, keyframed /speed clips messed up.

[Kevin Hamm]

Well, if both versions of Final Cut are on the same start-up disc, that could very well be the problem. I know that if you had 4 and 4.5 (n

[Jeremy Garchow]

That was my concern too.

It is super easy these days to get another boot drive, shove it in your mac, load up the OS and the latest verion of Final Cut. When transitioning from FCP 5 to 6, that’s exactly what I did. If i needed v6 I would simply restart to that boot drive. It’s really easy.

It is quite possible that your versions of FCP are conflicted. I, too, use the Media Manager through speed changes, still frames and keyframes. It works for me as well. The Media Manager has a horrible reputation, but it does work if used properly.

Jeremy

[Bill Russell]

Hmm, thank you, okay, two comments then. One is, in this case, I am not media managing the show. I am simply opening it up in 6. No relinking, no MMing, nothing. Instant open. It’s not the render file on the clip, its the hard editorial state of the clip itself in 6. It has a linear speed change of 8% on it, instead of 67%, and its in and out points are in a different place.

The second is — really? I agree with Shane’s comment that speed changes and media management are the “bane”. Is there a thread or the like perhaps that talks about how to use it properly? That would be helpful.

We (well, I’m freelance but I often work at CGPost) online clients’ shows, and that usually means MMing their projects. The projects are usually documentaries that have been a year or many more in the making — think dense and full of speed changes and motion tab keyframing. I always advise clients to reserve a week for prepping their shows and fixing FCP errors after MM. For every client, errors during MM happen pretty much guaranteed. If I do the prepping myself, likewise, I reserve a week before online to do all the sound and picture prepping including a day at least to fix errors. One project (just this year in fact) I worked on was so bad I literally spent weeks rebuilding the show “peeled” into three MM passes. It was so disheartening. That one, I admit, involved transposing the show to a 24p timeline. But man, give FCP a keyframe on that one and it went to town in a cruel way.

ANWAY, I’m telling stories now. Point is…. is this avoidable, short of having the ability to time-travel to the beginning of the each client’s process, and the force of authority to convince editors to do a speed change one way versus another? And hey, FCP always messes up simple LINEAR (apple-J) speed changes, so what am I missing? Insight craved.

BTW — thank you HUGELY for these replies, they’re great. I’m frustrated by FCP, but I’m grateful for this.

[Ben Scott]

got to say I cant agree more with this post

I have just spent around 6 or 7 hours trying to coax a project that was opened from fcp 5.14 to 6.02 into something that resembled the original. this is just opening the project into a new version not even media management

someone else had exactly the same problem with this project a few months ago

had loads of speed change problems

admittedly the guy who edited had a very strange way of doing variable speed changes and his project file was over 200mb (i just copied the sequence into a new project and then asking to make master clips from tools menu)

I have to say I love final cut whenever I have used other systems they seem slow and clunky in comparison and have a really bad logic behind their interfaces, however I think it is amazing that what is considered a professional product can be this bad at media managing speed changes. the people at apple are really out of order not fixing this by version 6 of the software and it is something I have to embarrassingly explain to people when I try to finish their edits for them.

lets hope apple is listening, is working hard on their final cut server and moves some of its magic over to a final cut pro 6 update in the new year to deal with this.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Have you guys tried exporting an XML of the whole FCP5 project (export the xml from FCP5s browser with nothing selected in the browser) and import that in to FCP6 and relinking?

[Bill Russell]

Okay, it took me a day to check this it, but I finally tried opening the project on someone else’s FCP 6.02. Indeed, the problem is there — opening an unadulterated copy of the 5.1.4 project is 6.0.2 = speed changes messed up. Any ideas?

Also, getting back to the media management issue (which is not the case here, but is a big problem usually for me too, and others it seems), you say, “The Media Manager has a horrible reputation, but it does work if used properly.” Could you share what needs to be done to have it work properly? I may be missing the key — It could change my life. Thank you!

[Jeremy Garchow]

Well, you aren’t using the Media Manager, you are simply updating the project.

Have you used the Media Manager before for an online?

I am trying to figure out what you have tried or not tried.

This article pretty much breaks it down and is a good jumping off point.

Jeremy

[Bill Russell]

Yes, I may be have confused folks a little because I’m talking about two separate problems. My immediate problem is that opening this FCP5 project in FCP6 causes the speed changes to go wacky.

That is of course, though, what also happens with the infamous media management. (I assume that the root cause is the same thing that manifests also in XML exports / re-imports, relinking and OMF creation). It is a huge problem for me to receive clients’ documentary projects and pretty much count on spending days fixing things after media management — or more often than not (when I’m lucky) I send clients a “tutorial” on how to media manage their shows, then create a reference and reserve days for fixing things themselves, so that we won’t take time in online. I have used FCP since version 1, believe it or not. I have been involved in the MM’ing of probably forty, fifty, sixty shows, who knows how many.

Anyway, I remember that Ken Stone article — that was all the way back maybe even to FCP3? Anyway, I’ll look through it again. I’ll try making sequence clips independent in the FCP5 project and import again to FCP 6, just to see if it makes any difference. I’ll report back.

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