Reconnect media in FCP6 – What is going on?

[Tom Wolsky]

I’m afraid it’s just you. It seems to be working fine as far as I can tell.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Josh Wells]

No, it is not just you, I am having the same problem and I really need a fix. Has anybody figured out what is going on. I tried updating all the FCP6 programs, but the problem still exists. I have thousands of files that I need to relink and I need to know what is going on here.

[Josh Wells]

I think I just created a workaround, but I have not had a lot of time to test it, but it is working so far.

The problem for me seems to be with working off an old 5.1.4 timeline brought into FCP6. So I used media manager to create an ofline project of the original timeline. Then relinking the media on the new offline timeline seems to be working, or at least it is working better.

[Nancy Kiang]

Hi, Josh –
I’m doing something similar to you, so maybe you might have an answer from experience.

I edited a film (shot on film and transferred to standard def DV) on an old version of Final Cut (4.5) awhile back. Now I’ve had the footage transferred to HD (XDCAM EX). This latter codec is a great codec that preserves fine details yet with smaller files, but it can only be read by FCP 6.0.2 or later.

What I want to do is take the old FCP 4.5 timeline and link it to the HD transferred footage. The HD clips are the same as the DV clips, so all the time codes *should* be the same.

What I’ve tried so far is:

0. Have original FCP 4.5 off-line edit of DV footage.
0.1 Have footage now transferred from film to HD.
1. Open FCP 4.5 project in FCP 6.0.5.
2. From the FCP 4.5 project, use Media Manager in FC 6.0.5 to make an HD project and sequence:
Media: Recompress, select HD format.
Project: Select “Duplicate selected items and place into new project.” This makes the new project with new sequence in HD.
Media Destination: Browse-> specify destination for revised project

3. Open the HD sequence from the HD project in the Timeline.
Result: Sequence is in the HD format that was selected. Image is small, centered in wide black border to fill out rest of frame. At least, the image does not look distorted (if “Show As Sq. Pixels” is de-selected).

4. Right click on a clip in the HD sequence and select Reconnect Media. Connect the clip to the HD file.
Result:
Time codes are preserved, but: if “Show As Sq. Pixels” is selected, the image is stretched too wide. If “Show As Sq. Pixels” is de-selected, the image is squashed sideways or stretched too tall. The black border exists on top and bottom. (If I just look at directly at the HD format file on my disk by importing it into FCP 6.0.5, it fills the FULL 1280×1080 Viewer or Canvas, no black border).

So, either 1) the Media Manager recompress didn’t work, or 2) the Reconnect somehow is buggy and not letting the 1080i original clip fill the 1080i frame.

Is there some step of the way that I can fix? Also, is there any way to make this process more automatic for multiple clips?

Thanks for any tips.

[Josh Wells]

Had this problem many many times. When you use FCP Media Manager to go from SD to HD is bases the aspect ratio off the SD clips and ends up srewing it all up. Here is how I fix it:

Double click on the first incorrect clip on the timeline. In the preview window click on the motion tab. Check under “Basic Motion” – “Scale” should be 100 (if your timeline codec and video codec are the same) then “Distort” – “Aspect Ratio” should be 1. If these values are changed and the image still is not right, manually adjust till the image shows up correctly. Then, while the motion tab is still active, hit “Copy.” Now select all the other clips on the timeline (this may not work if you have selected transitions, test it and see, if not, deselect the transitions) then while the timeline is still active, hit “Paste” Now all clips should have the same aspect and scale as the first clips.

As a side not I should say that if you have mixed media with different codecs and aspect ratios on your timeline they may not all agree with the settings for the first clip. In which case you will have to reset each of them manually using the same method above.

Only select “Display Square Pixels” if your codec uses square pixels. If they use apsected pixels this will only confuse the images further.

[Alyssa Taylor]

God Bless You!
I thought I had to reconfigure the aspect ratio, but your response led me to exactly what I needed!
Although, mine worked better when I set the distortion to zero.