Media Manager with Quicktime (non-tape) media

[Debe]

I never found a solution to this. I just had a similar experience. I had a client who was too lazy to hunt up the master tapes that the DVD was created from. (I KNOW they exist, I edited several of the pieces a couple years ago).

Anyway, a 30 GB file created from the ripped DVD wouldn’t trim under any circumstances.

Please post back if you do find a better solution. Mine was for a one-off event, so archiving would have been nice, but not completely expected. I made a master for my library, and if they need something else in the future, I’ll capture my master and do it the old-fashioned way.

debe

[Craig Seeman]

Have you tried applying a Reel Name to the clip (and changing it’s status to captured if need be)?

[Matthew Keane]

> Have you tried applying a Reel Name to the clip (and changing it’s status to captured if need be)?

I did try applying a reel name – at which point FCP bombed, and I went for lunch. Will try again in a minute…

Matthew

[Mark Maness]

Matthew…

I have had a similar situation and there is no easy way of doing this BUT this is the only solution that I had. Dump you converted footage to tape and then digitize that footage using your tape so that you have an archive and something that Media Manager will recognize. I agree with you… There are times when you only have a Quicktime file and being able to keep track of it thru Media Manager would be nice. Anyway… My solution is not the best by any means but its the only option for your situation.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[Matthew Keane]

Hi Wayne,

Yeah, I was kind of coming to that conclusion too – that dumping the footage to tape, then capturing from there was probably the easiest, if not the quickest, way.

Matthew

[Matthew Keane]

Hurrah! OK, I’ve now got this working. However, as I’ve been fiddling around all afternoon on-and-off, I’m not entirely sure what was key to getting it working, but I’ll have another source file like this to deal with tomorrow, so I’ll check then. Anyway…

1. Converted DVD footage is placed on the timeline as Quicktime DV file.
2. Unwanted sections are cut.
3. Set reel name for the quicktime file (without FCP crashing this time, thanks).
4. Set the capture property to ‘OK’ instead of ‘waiting’ (working with French FCP, so not sure of exact term there).
5. I select all the clips on the timeline and do ‘Modify – Make Independent’.
6. I select the sequence in the bin and right-click to ‘Make sequence clips independent’ (Probably redundant, considering step 5, but hey, can’t hurt, right?)
7. I select all the clips in the sequence and drag them to a bin to make master clips.
8. I rename the clips (in the bin, or on the timeline, doesn’t seem to matter) with sequential clip numbers to avoid confusion.
9. I select the clips in the bin and right-click to launch the Media Manager and… hey presto, it offers to reduce my 11G original file down to 4. Cool!

In the Media Manager, I selected ‘base filenames on clip names’, so that I have some coherent file names, and chose to duplicate the sequence into a new project – and it’s all linked up to the new source files. It’s also working if I select only the sequence and launch the Media Manager.

I think the only steps I missed this morning were steps 3 and 4, but given the Media Manager voodoo I’ve been trying all day, I won’t be sure until I start afresh tomorrow. In the mean time I have a much folder of source files to archive and the original TC seems to have been preserved.

Next step – to try dropping an unconverted m2v video file onto the time line and doing a consolidate and convert in one go. But that can wait till tomorrow.

Anyway, hope that helps somebody. I’ll just drop in a couple of tems like ‘consolidating’ and ‘decomposing’ in case I send up googling for this in a few months time!

Matthew

[Matthew Keane]

Ok, just in case anybody is interested and I’m not just talking to myself…

I tried importing and editing a 50 minute m2v file from the DVD. FCP got horribly slow and eventually bombed (on a dual 2.7 with 2.5G RAM), so I guess I’ll stick with converting to DV first.

The new Reduced Instruction Set Consolidate is:

1. Import Converted DVD footage as Quicktime DV file and place on the timeline.
2. Edit clip properties to set reel name for the master quicktime file.
3. Set the capture property to ‘OK’.
4. Right-click the sequence icon to ‘Make sequence clips independent’.
5. Select all the clips in the sequence and drag them to a bin to make new clips and rename them for exports with coherent names.

That’s it! All working happily. And It might even turn out that step 3 is unnecessary. In the meantime, that’s 20G of space recovered – and that’s just today.

Matthew

[Debe]

Thanks, Matt!!

I’ve copied this into my “How does that work again?” file for future reference!

debe