Bill Russell
Forum Replies Created
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And all that for a movie edited on FCP2! (…which consolodated without errors, oh so long ago…)
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I think you’ve missed the key ingredient here. It’s when the media is already gone, deleted, trashed, offline. That is when this problem occurs, the problem where MM’s “make offline” and “delete unused media” whilst making sure not to “include master clips outside of selection” does not work.
Well, actually, that’s not true. Before you first posted about the problem, I posted about the same problem earlier in the day. I did not delete any media — I was trying to shrink a 16GB project down to size to fit on a DVD-R. FCP4.5 did it in May but with a TON of errors — mangled speed changes, motion — couldn’t do reverses to save its life; plus some normal clips got botched too, who knows why. FCP5 however did it this week nearly error-free, but barely shrunk it at all (down to 14.5GB from 16GB) even though I had everything checked as you describe above. So it is a problem with MM in general. A thread based on my experience ensued, and here is that prior discussion.
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=857511
Also of note — I have left a show MM’ing tonight in FCP5, a feature documentary. It should be about 15-20 GB (a little over an hour) but it is projected to be about 35GB. Bigger than it should be, but not enormously out of bounds — are speed changes are a contributer to the problem as Tom has stated regarding Apple’s kludge? Well I only have a few speed changes this time, maybe indicative, I dunno.
Anyway, again, on this documentary I’m copying a huge project from several drives down to one drive for transport to online, not deleting any media. There is no offline media. I was impressed at how fast the FCP5 MM was going — projected 20 Min. I’ll know tomorrow if it is at all error free.
Cheers!
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Doh! Well, thanks hugely for checking all that. Okay, in the next few days I’ll see if I can find any common variables in my project, which media is too big and what of it is used, etc….
You’ve touched on nature of source material maybe being part of issue? In may case 1. My FCP5 project came from a FCP 4.5 (where I couldn’t do MM because it mangled a result beyond usability); 2. News clips were capture-now material from VHS work tapes. 3. Another news clip came from a DV digital file handed to me from someone who acquired it in Vegas Video…..
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Not true. Not in my current experience. 🙁 Read here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=857727
and
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=857721
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Sean, question — do you have a lot of speed changes? If so, then word I heard is the bird. As I just learned (and as I predicted earlier in this thread), the “[let’s not] delete unused media” bug seems to be the result of a temporary fix on the part of Apple to lesson media management woes. FCP cannot correctly translate a speed change IF the extent of its media file is changed by MM (at least from in-point on to the end, depending?). Therefore, the MM plays it safe by keeping ALL of the media of speed changed clips. In my case, where I used just a few seconds of video (in slow motion), the MM then kept pretty much the entire media file of many GB’s size. Hence, I got MM reduction for the entire show from 16 GB down to 14 GB instead of down to 3 or 4 GB. At least I got a lot fewer errors (only one, down from untold many in FCP4.5… and yes, the one error was still a speed change) — so we know that Apple’s kludge is good for something!
THE WORK AROUND (not pretty if you’ve got a big show with lots of speed changes): Identify, export and re-import all of your speed changed clips as new media, and edit those in. Then do MM. Good luck!
PLEASE LET ME / THIS FORUM KNOW IF THIS WORK AROUND SEEMS TO BE THE FULL ANSWER. DOES IT SOLVE THE “[LET’S NOT] DELETE UNUSED” PROBLEM IN EVERY CASE OF YOUR EXPERIENCE? I’ll be testing it too. Thank you!!!
From the other post on this topic:
“Time remapping requires you to capture all the material for that piece of media. The way time remapping works is you select a frame number and position it at different frame number in the clip. Because this is based on the whole piece of media you can’t change the number of frames in the media or the time remap will kludge. That’s why you’re getting so little file size reduction when you MM. This was changed in v5 because speed was such a mess in media manager in earlier versions. It’s not a great solution, but it’s the only one they’ve come up with.”
Discussed in full here:
Cheers!!!
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Hi, thanks for your reply/ies!!! So this is true even for simple speed changes (not ramped changes)?
So I guess I was right about the kludge, huh. Yes, speed changes have been a big problem in MM. I don’t know if motion keyframes have been fixed too — have they? I learned in 4 to make sure to have an extra keyframe exactly at the in and out points of its clip in order to lessen mangling. So I didn’t have that to test. There were definately the odd errors, like at least two edits in the 4.5 MM where the wrong portion of NORMAL SPEED / NOT KEYFRAMED picture was chosen. Those sections were managed correctly in 5. Has relinking of non-MM’d projects been fixed? As I described in my original post, FCP has had the same problems there too.
Just so I understand you — for instance: One of media files I have in our demo is a seventeen MINUTE TV news story. I use probably about fifteen seconds of it, the face of our subject in slow motion. I use probably another twenty second clip of the anchorman talking later on in the show. So that’s two clips, a total of 32 seconds used.
Because I use slow motion on twelve SECONDS of it, MM keeps the nearly the ENTIRE seventeen MINUTES? If that’s what it is supposed to do, indeed, that is what it has done. Is that correct as things stand? Then that’s good to know!
The answer for people on the forum is this: Need to observe a work around for the time-being. Identify and export and reimport all of your speed changes as new media.
Sounds like you’ve got the inside scoop. Thanks Tom!!!! At least it (mostly) worked now in five. There was still one error, and it was a speed change — seems to have chosen the wrong part of the clip. (When the lid is off, I’d love to show somebody at Apple this demo as it came out the other side of 4.5’s MM!)
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Seems others are having this problem too, so at least I’m not (as) crazy:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=857593&forumid=8&postid=857593&pview=tI wonder if it is with v5 altogether, or just since friday’s update? In terms of how I captured footage, I do have a lot of pass-through capture now material. And a DV media clip digitized by someone else in another program (Vegas). But, well, that wouldn’t explain all of the instances. Oh but hey, one common variable: Do you use a lot of speed changes? I have a lot of speed changes in my demo, and all of the material (that used to get mangled in 4.5), that now remains as nearly the entire media files after 5’s MM, includes sections of those huge “[not]deleted” media files that are used with speed changes at various edits.
Anyway, as I speculated in the other thread, this smells like a kludge on Apple’s part to finally fix linking problems in FCP. But in some or even many conditions it has the unfortunate side-effect of erroring WAY on the side of retaining extra extents in clip info. That’s my bet. (Dear Apple, hire a crack firm to fix MM — no errors, not one or two — and FINALLY blow Avid away!)
Cheers
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Actually, I had the opposite experience in terms of errors:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=857511Media management of the demo went from many errors in 4.5 to only one in 5. (If it were up to Avid, it would go from one error to none 🙂 But…. in FCP5 I got to “enjoy” that new “[don’t] delete unused media” benefit. Actually, it did delete some, just a little bit. Unchecked — I had a total of 16GB. Checked I get 14GB. However, FCP4.5 checked gave me only 4GB (albiet, of garbage), which would be about the correct size. In the FCP5 MM, looking at the media on disk, indeed, tiny bits of some had been slightly shaved.
I’m guessing this is all related to some last minute kludge on Apple’s part to finally fix linking problems in FCP…. but…. in some or even many conditions it has the unfortunate side-effect of erroring WAY on the side of retaining extra extents on clips. That’s my bet.
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Yup yup, did all that, all my steps fevorishly spelled out in my post. Thanks!
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“The delete unused media may be a feature you like. And if you do, that cool. But it has nothing to do with uprez: You have an offline show at DV. You want a 10 bit uncompressed show. You use the instructions in the link I posted.”
Actually, it’s #3 on the ken stone instructions you posted 🙂 You have to choose it if you don’t want the full extents of the clips, but only the portions that are used in your edit.
Anyway, I’m finding scattered complaints around now that, for some reason, delete unused media indeed is not working right in 5.02. If in addition to consolodation you are wanting to uprez your show (like the user in this thread), that could mean many, many GB of extra unnecessary 10 bit SDI media.
But Aye me, we’re all in the same boat anyway, right? You and I and everybody will be a LOT happier when Apple finally takes this database/linking/MM problem seriously. MM is the ONE feature that is consistenly cited as the reason to use AVID. (And honestly, though I hugely prefer FCP for EVERYTHING, when I am in control of a complex offline to be onlined by somebody else, $$ and all quickly, I suck up and use my Avid. Fast flow and no surprises that I can’t afford. A DNA helps with realtime stuff too.)
Cheers!
“THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA”