Offline Subclips

[Jerry Hofmann]

Try reconnecting the master clips in your browser to the ones that have been moved, might just reconnect the subclips made from them.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO, CD’s

[Sam Pope]

Tried that. Any other ideas?

[Andreas Kiel]

Hi,

Don’t know whether it helps or not. With some luck the original file paths are still in your project and you can export an XML and try to reconnect outside of Final Cut Pro.

The project I’m working is a collaborative one where several people do have the same files but on different drives or locations. We need that kind of “wild structure” to test some stuff.
To communicate we use XML files. That works fine – but the bad thing is that these files maybe offline because of the different file paths. To reconnect them in FCP may be not a real problem but a bit time consuming.

So I made a little tool which starts before the XML actual import. It will read an XML and all folder paths which occur within this XML. If a folder path does not exist on the current machine it will be listed in a table view. From there you can click these missing folder paths and the application will ask you for a new (and correct) one. You can either navigate to this folder or just drag it from the “Finder” into the “Choose New Path …” panel.
When you are done just save the XML and import it into Final Cut Pro.

It’s just an internal helper, no real error handling, not perfectly tested, no shiny interface, no icon!
But it saves a lot of time if you want to move projects from one machine to another (use the “Save with XML” feature of Final Cut Pro here before you do) or if you do work in a group like we do.

You can download it here [https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/xmlReconnect/xmlReconnect.zip]

Regards
Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Sam Pope]

Andreas,

Thanks for the tool. I tried using it and unfortunately it only found one folder that was previously trashed and was irrelevant to the project. The rest of the clips and folders are all in their original location. The media and the reel names have not changed, nor have any of the clips names, for both the master clips and the sub clips. I verified this by re-importing a couple of master clips and their reel names were the same.

So the main problem is when I try and reconnect the subclips to their master clip, the correct master clip is grayed out. I uncheck the match media/reel names box, and manually reconnect it, bypassing the warning that says the media start/end times do not match. So the sub clip references the correct master clip, but now the media start and end points are completely off and unchangeable (not to mention, if they were, it would be a pain to change thousands of media start/end times).

Trying to reconnect the master clip to itself first (and subclips after) doesn’t work, and I have the same problem with the fact that it is grayed out when I try and select it, so I have to uncheck the match media/reel names box again.

Thanks

[Andreas Kiel]

Hi Sam,

Sounds like a bigger problem. Subclips always had been a pain and shouldn’t be used. But that doesn’t help you now.
How are the subclips constructed? Are they just a part of a clip or do they come from a linked clip where video and audio comes from different sources. In latter case there is nearly no chance to get them back as Final Cut doesn’t like especially things like that. In case they are just parts of a master clip there are good chances to get them back via XML as clips with correct in/out.
You can send me the XML of the project and I’ll have a look at it.
kiel at spherico dot com

Regards
Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Sam Pope]

Andreas,
I sent you an XML file using yousendit – it was too big to attach to email.

Thanks for the help,

Sam

[Andreas Kiel]

Hi Sam,

Next time just “zip” the file – it will be very small as it’s just text.

Regards
Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Sam Pope]

Yup, that would’ve been the smart thing to do – didn’t think of it. Very sleep deprived right now.

[Andreas Kiel]

Hi Sam,

Just sent an email to the SendIt address. Get some sleep – I do need it as well.

Regards
Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools