Optimizing an entire project (aka sequence)

[Bret Williams]

The best I can see is to highlight the project in the project library and select “duplicate the project + used clips only” after pressing cmd+D to duplicate the project.

You’ll now have an event with just the clips from the project. Highlight them all and choose file>transcode media.

Maybe there’s a “find used” type command like in FCP legacy where you can highlight all the media that was used in the sequence. That’d be the other way. In any case, you have to invoke the command to transcode from the event library.

[Bret Williams]

Ok, another idea. Go through the timeline and highlight everything you want to transcode. Assign a new video role of USED CLIP. Then find or start a smart collection which only includes clips with the role USED. Now you have your used media in a bin and can highlight it all and transcode it.

I feel like there should be some obvious way like “find used” in legacy but I can’t find it.

Bill? 🙂

[Brooks Tomlinson]

Thanks Bret, but the roles thing didn’t really work. In order to mass change clips with role, you can have any transition or black slug or title selected. If i had favored the clips as I went along, that would have helped. So I ended up going one clip at a time. Since I have limited space, it was my best option.

But boy would I like the work flow of cutting to your timeline in h.264, then just changing that timeline to prores and sending that out to smoke or davinici.

Brooks
“I dream in 32bit float”

Brooks Tomlinson

[Bret Williams]

Yeah. Avid does that. Ask Walter Biscardi how well it works. 🙂

Why not the duplicate project method then? Duplicating the used h264 clips wouldn’t take up much space. You could promptly delete them and relink them to the previous event. But what it would give you is the bin of used clips. Highlight, and transcode.

Sad that with all this wonderful databasing and and metadata that i can’t create a smart collection of “used media.” A basic FCP legacy (and nle function).

[Bill Davis]

This is where Apple’s choice to change all the terminology makes HUGE sense.

Just call up the Project Liberay and create a new Project.

Specificy the raster and the encoding (render format) you want in the initial panel rather than “Set based on first video clip.”

Copy your original timeline and paste it into the new Project.

That’s pretty much it.

You’ll have the same content in a new container with the new specs you want. Let your machine render it overnight (with or without Proxys) if you don’t want your collaborator to have to do that – but that’s about all there is to creating a duplicate with a different set of project properties.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bret Williams]

That doesn’t do it. To send it out to Resolve, all the footage in the timeline needs to be ProRes, not h264. In your example, the only thing that is going to be ProRes is stuff that requires rendering. The specific media in the timeline needs to be transcoded to ProRes. We’re looking for a way to say “transcode just the shots I used in this project (or a duplicate of it, whatever) to ProRes.

Best I could find was to duplicate the project and create new event of just the used footage. Then transcode the media in the bin to ProRes. Rendering is not actually required to go to Resolve I don’t think. It’s just going to send back an xml with links to the new media it rendered with color correction, but leave all the filters in the project in the returning XML. At least that’s how it worked with FCP 7. Much slicker than any Color roundtripping (if you could call it that.)

[Bill Davis]

Ah, now I get it.

Sounds like a job for Proxy Mill – and just transcode everything before import.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Brooks Tomlinson]

Yes that’s all good and dandy, to transcode as you import, if you have the space. I do not, I’m limited on space. I was trying out a workflow, which would have gone like this,

Import all AVCcam footage.
Edit in realtime, and edit quickly.
Then Optimize only what I put in my timeline to ProRes.
Export timeline to color grading program of choice via XML
Import timeline and color graded shots to program of choice to finish.

I was trying to avoid the old standard of pay me now or pay me later. Where you can put the time in on the front end to optimize all your clips (avid was king of this) and it becomes a quicker output process. But you have a lot of clips that take up space.

Or, the import and quick edit, but you get killed on the back end, and during editing. (but with my new mac, it edited the h.264 footage quickly)

So i was trying to beat the system, but got stumped when I had my sequence but couldn’t convert. I also didn’t want to “duplicate” the project because it is still a work in progress and didn’t have the space.

Oh well, it was a nice try

Brooks Tomlinson

[Andreas Kiel]

Reading the thread I don’t understand what’s the problem with the duplicate project option.
Use the “Duplicate Project + Used Clips Only” option.
This creates a new event which only contains the used clips. Then select all clips in the event and transcode.

-Andreas

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

[Bill Davis]

[Andreas Kiel] “This creates a new event which only contains the used clips. Then select all clips in the event and transcode.

-Andreas”

As I understand the problem, the OP is extremely tight on HD space (Why he can’t afford an inexpensive simple FW800 external drive to hold the project is his business) Anyway, no matter how you slice it, if you’re running tight on storage space, any process that involves creating duplicates of your original footage – will be a space waster.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor