Uncompressed RGB 10 Bit in FCP

[Shane Ross]

Do the clips have the exact same duration as the ProRes ones used in your cut? In order to reconnect, the duration, in and out points, and timecode must match exactly. If the uncompressed masters you are trying to connect to our smaller than the ones used in the cut, then they won’t reconnect.

Shane
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[Anna Heuss]

So is this specifically a problem because of the uncompressed format, or a general one? Because I’ve reconnected stuff previously in other projects where in and out points were not matching, but it was never a problem.

Even for this project – I originally used proxys to edit, then reconnected HD footage (but not graded) – no problem at all.

[Shane Ross]

No doubt the Proxies were low res copies of full clips, that’s how it works. FCP can relink to other clips, in other formats, as long as they are all the same length, and have the same timecode, and start and end times. But, say you were editing with large, 1 hour clips in FCP…then sent those to be graded, and the grade came back with a bunch of clips that were basically chunks of those larger clips. Because you didn’t use all of the footage in the large clips, you rendered out ONLY what was used in the cut, perhaps with handles.

So, from a 1 hour clip, perhaps you use threee shots from it…so now you have 3 clips that are 2-5 seconds each. FCP cannot simply reconnect to those shots. Because they don’t match the parameters FCP associated with the big clip. I cannot reconnect to those clips, even though they are a part of the large clip. Not without third party help.

BUT…if you media managed and made tons of small clips, then graded those, and rendered them out in a different codec, FCP should reconnect fine.

It sounds like you converted the original master to ProRes HQ, edited that, then in grading software, relinked to the camera masters, rendered out only the sections of the footage used in the show, perhaps with handles, and are now trying to relink in FCP. Sorry, FCP doesn’t do that. Avid does. FCP needs help. Third party software like FCP RECONNECT will do it.

Shane
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[Anna Heuss]

Actually I gave the grader an XML to work with in da vinci and what he gave back to me was a collection of clips all the exact same length as edited footage. But perhaps since the clips I originally used to work with are longer than the final graded clips…hm…or is it because we shot ProRes444 and used a PC version of Da vinci which can only output uncompressed, did the TC somehow get lost? Its just a mystery to me.

Anyway I discovered I could drag and drop the graded clips into FCP and they show up fine, which means reconnecting did not work due to timecode issues. So now I can just manually drag and drop each clip to its desired destination. Luckily it’s a short film.

Thanks for your feedback Shane, and the FCP Reconnect tip, I will def check it out!

Anna

[Anna Heuss]

Although now reading through your post again, the workflow you described (1 hour clips, chunks of clips, etc) sounds about right, so FCP isnt able to do that kinda stuff. Will note it for the future!

[Shane Ross]

You found a good solution…and the term for it is “over cutting” because you are manually cutting the footage in over the original.

And yes, FCP 7 is very limited in that way, in terms of reconnecting. Avid does this well…not sure how FCX or PPro handle this.

Shane
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[Rainer Wirth]

The uncompressed 444 files are tricky for FCP7. We handle this with avid.

cheers

Rainer

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