[Nick Meyers]

how are you making the file?

i think that somewhere along the way, your stereo tracks are being converted to mono.

of course you cant guarantee that anyone who listens to the file will be set up to monitor in stereo,
so you need to fix the problem in FCP.

in FCP can start by panning your clips to the centre.
select all your dialogue clips and Control . (full stop)
leave your music alone

according to my theory you should now hear the tunnel effect,
so you need to mute one or other track of your dialogue clips.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

a point of note about the MEDIA MANAGER

using MM, you don’t have lose any work you have already done.
simply select ALL Lin your browser before you media manger,
and you will get all your work back in a new project, with all sequences set to your new format.

re the clips being broken up

it might be worth having a look at FCPX
it can deal with that situation, FCP legacy cant (not easily)

i suspect FCPX might have ways of easily creating and working with low-res proxies, but i could be wrong.

as spencer points out, your original idea is not completely unworkable.
you 1st export your Prores timelines as new MASTERS.
THEN convert to to ProresProxy
i would use Media Manager for this, not compressor
do your edit, and when done use Media Manger to create an offline version set to your Prores master settings
and reconnect

BUT what Shane says is absolutely correct, there is a certain risk involved,
so you should keep your original HDV sequences archived.
lock all the tracks, and put them away safely in a bin.

Shane’s point is that you wont be able to trace your finished edit back to your camera originals if needed.
however, there maybe a risk of that already as i believe you loose the original TC when you capture HDV as ProRes.
again, i could be wrong

THUNDERBOLT DRIVE
it *might* help, but it probably wont.
the drive itself will be the bottleneck, not the connection
a thunderbolt RAID would do the trick.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

that’s really weird!
never heard of anything like that before.

definitely trash your preferences.

but FCP acting on it’s own?
so strange… there might be other things going on.

maybe ask around at the production office

nick

[Nick Meyers]

Dave:
“it’s rendering the altered FCP sequence, which means your footage and your FCP sequence settings don’t match”

or you have motion effects or filters on your clips, or titles above them.
all very common.

Ted:
“I’ve let it finish a few times and the clips aren’t complete, some are 20 seconds from the timeline, some have no sound and other strange variations. I have dubbed them “Ghost Exports””

are you saying you are getting actual EXPORTED FILES?
or are you describing renders in the timeline?

“What I meant to ask was if DSLR footage that has been transcoded will cause this problem?”

any footage, even in codecs FCP likes, will need rendering if:
it is in a mis-matched sequence
and/or it has effects on it

if it needs rendering, and you have auto render turned on (in user prefs)
then it will be rendered automatically after a certain interval (defined in user prefs)

what gets rendered and what doesn’t is, i think, affected by what you have checked as renderable in sequence menu > render selection
my memory is a bit hazy on this, i could be wrong.

if it is just auto-render based on you having effects on your clips,
then is it a problem?
it can be a good thing.

sometimes i have hours of rushes in two camera format that i am displaying in two boxes in a rushes timeline
i would NOT want these to be rendered!

Dave:
“Check your sequence’s RT settings in the upper left.”

RT settings are not really relevant to the auto render issue,
but it is preferable, i think, to have them set to “unlimited”
then you don’t have to render just to preview your work

either way, effects will need rendering eventually,
RT menu simply affects playback

nick

[Nick Meyers]

so what happens when you go to reconnect?

do your clips have reel#s?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

this seems to come up a lot,
check your sequence pre-set in FCP a/v settings.

it needs to be the same frame rate as your working sequence and PT bounce.
if it isn’t, you can get drift on imported audio.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

thinking more about it over the weekend.

while i argued that as you will most likely have to blow the piece up anyway, so you might as well do that in FCP,
there is a good argument against this,
2 in fact.

1. FCP’s scaling is not the best.
2. it ads a later of complexity

so i i now think the best way forward is to duplicate your sequence,
place a 16/9 mask over it’s entirely,
and re-frame / re-work you shots underneath that mask

export this to give you a letterboxes version.
you then have two options:
crop your export down. ok if you are delivering a small frame-size for the web.
blow it up in After Effects, or some app that does a better job of scaling than FCP

nick

[Nick Meyers]

i see,

well the solution is possibly to not MERGE.
i tend to sync audio in the timeline, then LINK the clips in the timeline.

if you do that, then you can edit out your blank tracks before you link.
i would try that.

i guess you are merging based on TC
so, how to sync?

you can try a thing called Sequence Liner from Spherico Film tools.
it;s free.

a very god tool is Sync n Link, but it’s a little expensive.
it works via XML

finally if you could cobble something together with a macro app such as QuickKeys.
to tell the truth, i would not attempt assisting in FCP without it.

i do have macros for it that help me with syncing rushes in the old fashioned way,
by finding claps in vision and sound.
if you are interested i can give them to you

but first see if deleting tracks BEFORE you link in timeline will work of you.

OR
try removing the logged audio tracks first, (into timeline, remove audio, Video-only back to new bin)
before you merge.

OR can you use QT change on COPIES of the audio files.

can i ask what your sound post path will be?
do you need to get all 10 tracks to sound post?
if so what is the plan?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

sorry, i’m pretty sure you can not use spotlight to search within FCP projects.
(i wonder if this has changed with FCPX?)

you solution sounds like quite a good one.
any other solution i can think of has the same issues: you cant a search inside the FCP project doc, so you need to create a different format which would require up-dating when the project changes.

the other solution i can think of is exporting batch lists from your browser.
they would have a lot less junk info than a project file or XML doc.

maybe you have to re-think what you do within FCP.
how about you go back to keeping a master project but one that contains only clips, no sequences
(i assume you are searching for clips, but could be wrong)
as new material comes in you add to the master project, as well as your smaller ones.

final cut server was supposed to be a large searchable database for all your FCP assets.
i think it is dead now
or look into other logging solutions such as CatDV

nick

[Nick Meyers]

it mgt be worth talking to the sound recordist.

some record blank audio tracks as they believe the editors want that,
so if you have a chat with them, they will change their methodology.

drag to timeline, delete tracks, drag to bin is the only way to do it WITHIN FCP,
i haven’t don it too much myself, so i am a little bit surprised about the track re-ordering.

ok here is another approach.
drag to timeline, delete tracks
DOULE CLICK INTO VIEWER, Make Subclip.

might give you different results.
but there could be a problem.
i used to use double click into viewer, make subclip to prepare rushes in FCP (it trims any audio overhang)
but it has gotten weird and flakey in FCP7, and we found we had to re-start FCP quite often.

our solution was to first copy the clip to the browser, and open it from there,
and that puts you right back where you are.

are your 10 tracks for audio embedded in your QT files?
maybe you will have to make COPIES of all your files and use QT Change.

nick