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Media Management:Locating Original Files
In my effort to be organized I started renaming my original files from their original “numbered” names to clip “Content” names (i.e., people, actions etc.). This morning I woke in panic, ‘did I unlink all of my files!’?
I think I have done just that. However a number of curious things has happened as well:
1. When I opened one of several effected Projects I was prompted: ‘where is so-and-so file’. I wasn’t sure although the clips are now numbered, and identified by clip content I wasn’t sure if they were listed in the original order.
so I linked the files in the current Project with clip-files that I renamed last night. This resulted in some of the imported files now being in the wrong folders. E.g., Betty is now is Bob’s folder and Bob’s clip 2 is where it should be but also partially in Julie’s folder.
The Sequences are displaying oddly as well: the sequences segments may or may not be linked to the right clips. Some clips in the segment (say a 1/25 minute clip) are displaying normally and half-way through the clip the zebra stripes indicate that half of the clip is unlinked from source video.
Any SUGGESTions to revert my changes to the “original” files back to the original. The changes were all done outside of Premiere Pro obviously.
Still plugging.
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5 Replies
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You did WHAT?!!?!?! You renamed all of the source files on the desktop level…files the editing application is currently using? Why on Earth….? Well…now you know why you don’t do that!
Sorry, no way to “undo” this name change. You’ll have to either try to relink and hope you get it right, or simply reimport the files again, organize them again. I hope you aren’t in the middle of cutting. You haven’t already started cutting, have you? Please say “no…” please say “no…”
This is something you do BEFORE you import. Or something you don’t do AT ALL…not on the desktop level. This is something I NEVER do on the desktop level. I add comments, or add descriptors to other fields INSIDE THE EDITING APP…and always keep the original name. Because if the media goes bye-bye..drive failure or revisiting an old project…I am sure to reimport the correct camera masters.
Keep plugging. And don’t do this again. Hard lesson to learn.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Oh Prelude…how do we tell the world of your power?
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I made a very simple test project file to simulate your problem, and trying to come up with solution.
STEP 1:
- Basically all i did was import two video files into premiere (Clip 01.mov & Clip 02.mov)
- Put both the files on timeline
- Make random overlap edit
- Save project
- Exit Premiere
STEP 2:
- Rename above files in step 1 respectively to Clip AA.mov & Clip BB.mov
- Make new project in premiere (but didn’t put the files into sequence or made any sequence)
- Save project
- Exit Premiere
Simply put, what i did in step 2 was ONLY put the files into project windows, WITHOUT making any sequence, then save premiere project.
Therefore i have two project files to compare to see what info in Step 2 project that were still retain the same info from the original project in step 1.
Since i use CC 2014, we can’t open both project directly in Text Editor since it was still in compressed format.
STEP 3:
- I use winrar to open the project
- Extract the content a.k.a the uncompressed project files (do note, you will have a premiere project file without extension)
STEP 4 (This step might be unnecessary, you can skip to step 5):
- Open the uncompressed project files in Notepad++
- Save as XML files.
STEP 5
Compare the files using your preferred file comparison program, i use Beyond Compare :
https://www.scootersoftware.com/index.phpInfo :
- Left column is the original project files, the right column is the project i made in STEP 2
- The red text is where the difference occur, the black text is where the info is the same on both column.
(click the image will take you to imgur website, then click again to enlarge to full size):
As you can see from the box green i made, you can recognize the original filenames based on “AlternateStart” and/or “ContentAndMetadataState”.
Also even if you rename the files, they still use the original conformed peak audio files (see the bottom green box)
With this info, you can track down what the original filename was.Furthermore, you can also track down based on MediaIn/Out info (assuming there are NO IDENTICAL RUNTIME ON DIFFERENT CLIP:
I’m really sorry if this turns out a very wrong info, this is just a very simple test files with two clips, random edit with no effect etc at all.Oh, one more thing..BACKUP your files before you open them in your compression program, during one of my earlier test, the project were corrupted somehow.
So there, i put disclaimer. I’m not responsible for any damage.——————————————
Sorry for the english, not native speaker. -
I can’t believe I did this. I was anx’ing about the fact that I will be on travel for the next 3 1/2 weeks and won’t be able to work on project till I return. I thought I’d have everything totally organized so I can jump in with both feet running.
Hard lesson indeed. Fortunately I had it all organized and was able to fix everything once I figured out what happened exactly to my project.
Still plugging.
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Thanks for your reply. I fixed my problem but it took about 3 hours. And more important I learned a hell of a good lesson.
Still plugging.
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