XML funkiness to FCP7

[Bryson Jones]

Rolf, so let me check this. If you have Tape Based proxies, do they show up in the “proxy path” field? If not, I see why you have to create a path for the original and then map to the proxy.

If there was a path there, you could move the proxy with the Worker and create a path based link that way but I’m guessing since it’s tape name and TC that there’s no path in the proxy path field.

bryson

bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com

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[Rolf Howarth]

If there is a single tape-based proxy file that exactly matches the clip it will show up in the Proxy File field, but that might not always be the case. Plus the clip doesn’t have an original media path, so there’s nothing to link the clip to the weird tape-based proxy file name thing (eg. 2997,25,436,64x.mov).

[Robb Harriss]

Well I’m making significant progress here, converting entire projects to path-based and it works. As I’m currently using footage it doesn’t matter that the “original” footage is a copy of the proxy. But the process does create a new file, a copy, but with a valid path and correct file name, which is linked back to a proxy.
What I’m doing is setting up a directory just as if it was one of my footage archive drives. I’m making the new files and sending them there, just as I would the original grabs off of tape. I’m doing an entire “bin” at a time. So once I’m done I’m going to my CatDV Previews drive and making a new Volume with a name at a path matching the new Archive folder for the new “originals.” I copy the new originals over to this new folder In CatDV Previews. I delete the old tape-based previews and make sure the originals link over to the newly relocated proxies. Doing this and ALL projects and file directories will conform. I can blow off the “originals,” or hand onto them. But it all works and doesn’t take that long. It’s faster, even, than mounting one of the Archive drives in the eSata dock and going back in to make new proxies when I have the originals. But I’m dealing with much older footage from a few years ago where we just deleted the originals and worked only with the proxies. The idea to reload only selects once the cut was finalized. I was even able to get all the sub clips to work, linking to the new “original.” Slick.
Thanks

Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.

[Robb Harriss]

So what does one do when a proxy shows up as a “composite” in the proxy field of the Other tab?
I found a couple of these. It’s odd because they’re subclips, not full sections.
I’m guessing that I can either link to the parent file if I have it, or make a new proxy if I have the full file or some part of it.
All these goes back to a CatDV sequence that when reopened in CatDV had a “zero length” error message and showed as blank, even though I could click on each individual clip and get it to open in the trim panel and play correctly. Quite odd, actually.

Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.

[Rolf Howarth]

If it says Composite then it means there isn’t a single proxy file for that clip but it’s a composite of parts of several files. That’s fine within CatDV, it will automatically assemble and play the proxy correctly. It’s only a problem if you want a single proxy file for that clip for some reason, in which case you can do so by converting the tape-based to path-based proxies using the recipe I posted previously.

[Robb Harriss]

It’s odd, because it’s a short 2-3 clip, a single piece. Hard to see how it can be a composite of anything since it’s a continuous shot. But I’m making them go away by making them into path-based.
Thanks

Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.

[Rolf Howarth]

I’m not saying this is what you did but lets say you have a 10-second clip, which I’ll show as “0123456789”, and have a 3-second subclip in the middle, say “567”. The order in which you build your tape-based proxies is important.

Let’s say you build a proxy movie for that 3-second subclip first, and subsequently build a proxy for the original 10-second clip. To save on the amount of rendering that’s needed you’d end up with 3 files “01234”, “567” and “89” which get stitched together on the fly to form the 10-second cip.

All very clever no doubt but it can get a little confusing, so sticking to path-based proxies is a lot simpler on the whole!