Project Manager Consolidating- not so much

[Blaise Douros]

I think it’s likely that you are operating under incorrect assumptions of how the consolidation process works. It copies the relevant source media to a new folder, and if you’ve selected the Transcode option, transcodes those clips to the codec you’ve chosen. However, it takes the entire clip because Premiere needs the whole clip in order to keep your timeline correctly referenced.

Premiere is built to set an in-point and out-point based on the number of frames since the first frame of the clip–so if Premiere expects your clip to start on frame 37 of the source media, that’s what it does. If you do a Render and Replace in the timeline with no handles, you can get a file that starts the clip on frame 1 of the transcoded copy, and ends at the end of the clip.

If you want to transcode and package up ONLY the relevant sections of the clips, without the original source media, I’m pretty sure this procedure will do that:

1: Flatten your multicam timeline

2: Select all clips in that timeline, and do a Render and Replace, with appropriate settings for the clip handle length and your desired codec

3: Remove the original media from the project bins, so that only your new transcoded media remains in the project

4: Use the Project Manager to Consolidate the sequence (but no need to transcode)

I believe that should get you what you want.

Personally, this workflow terrifies me: are you planning to delete your original media (arrghhhhh nononononono) to make space on your main drives? Why not pick up two of the incredibly cheap 1 TB drives available out there today, and just archive the entire project on it (with a backup copy)? This would be a lot easier than going through this whole process, and would keep your original footage available. I am REALLY not a fan of destructively archiving the project this way, and I hesitate to even suggest the method, but hey, it’s your call 🙂

[Darren Peister]

Thank you for your response. I took my consolidating knowledge from Avid’s Media Composer as that application does indeed create new clips that are much more like Premiere’s “Render and Replace” feature.

I would delete the “original” ProRezLT media at some point because they were derived from the camera original files. Those camera originals are safely backed up in a couple of places and shall remain. This project is rather large with 6 shows totaling just about 9 hours of content. The source ProRezLT files are 5.5TB. Consolidating doesnt shrink the source files down much at all which is frustrating.

Thanks again for your explanation.

[Blaise Douros]

That makes sense; coming from a system that operates that way, I can see how this would be frustrating. I think it’s a lot more useful for projects that DON’T consist of long multicam clips–basically, it keeps only the “ins” and leaves the “outs.”

One possibility that you might consider–if the idea is to reduce your overall storage footprint, you might consider working with Premiere’s proxy workflow, which would allow you to edit with, and then REALLY easily delete, lighter-weight proxies in an edit-friendly codec. Premiere makes it incredibly easy to relink to camera originals for final project export, and automatically remove proxies. It wouldn’t necessarily solve your archiving problem, but if it came to that, you could use the method I outlined in my original post for archiving projects.