Replace multiple footage Items with Placeholder Script

[Scott Mcgee]

This works on any selected items. So you’ll need to update for just footageItems, but hopefully this steers you in the right direction.

If you can play around with it, I’d update to include undo group like you’ve got in yours, just because you have hit ctrl/cmd + z for every item it’s replaced otherwise, but this will do what you want if you’re just selecting footage layers anyways.

for (var i = 1; i <= app.project.numItems; i++){
if (app.project.item(i).selected){
var name = app.project.item(i).name;
var width = 1920;
var height = 1080;
var framerate = 25;
var duration = app.project.item(i).duration;

app.project.item(i).replaceWithPlaceholder(name,width,height,frameRate,duration);
}
}

[Thiery Roussel]

Hey Scott, Thank you. This is working on his own. I can see where I had it wrong. I had try to swap the MainSource to setProxyWithSequence in the same script, but couldn’t get anything out of the mainSource.file. Any ideas?


/// Input values
var width = parseFloat(prompt("Placeholder WIDTH ?"));
var height = parseFloat(prompt("Placeholder HEIGHT ?"));
var frameRate = parseFloat(prompt("Placeholder FRAME RATE ?"));

// Replace function
app.beginUndoGroup("replace with place holder");

for (var i = 1; i <= app.project.numItems; i++){
if (app.project.item(i).selected){

var name = app.project.item(i).name;
var duration = app.project.item(i).duration;
var mainSource = app.project.item(i).mainSource.file;

app.project.item(i).setProxyWithSequence(mainSource,true);
app.project.item(i).replaceWithPlaceholder(name,width,height,frameRate,duration);

}

app.endUndoGroup();
}

alert("Successfully replace");


[Thiery Roussel]

Ok, small mistake on my side with the mainSource.file vs .file . I am getting error when the filename is beyond 31 characters? Which is really common with 3D passes. Depending on the footage, I would also like it to work with setProxy and setProxyWithSequence. My quest goes on. Thanks for any help.


/// Input values
var width = parseFloat(prompt("Placeholder WIDTH ?"));
var height = parseFloat(prompt("Placeholder HEIGHT ?"));
var frameRate = parseFloat(prompt("Placeholder FRAME RATE ?"));

// Replace with a placeholder and swap to proxy function

app.beginUndoGroup("replace with a placeholder and swap to proxy");

for (var i = 1; i <= app.project.numItems; i++){
if (app.project.item(i).selected){

var name = app.project.item(i).name;
var duration = app.project.item(i).duration;
var file = app.project.item(i).file;

app.project.item(i).setProxyWithSequence(file,true);
app.project.item(i).replaceWithPlaceholder(name,width,height,frameRate,duration);

}

app.endUndoGroup();
}

alert("Successfully replace");


[Scott Mcgee]

Hey Thiery

I’m a little confused. Why do you want to turn your video/footage item into a placeholder, then turn it into a proxy sequence?

Am I missing something?

A proxy has to be replaced with a file that you want to use as a proxy. Otherwise it’s a placeholder. There for, if you’re wanting to replace with a proxy file. Then you need to point it to a file that it replaces itself with.

So when I’m working with 4k. I’ll have my lowRes proxies that I’ll mirror and use that folder until I export and replace them all back with the 4k HiRes versions. If that’s the case. Skip out the middle man of the placeholder and tell it to turn all your video files based on location and to match name for name and replace all as proxy if that makes sense.