[ This article was first published in "Larry's FCP
Newsletter." Click here to subscribe.
Updated May 2, 2004,
Feb. and April, 2005, and January, 2006,
with
reader comments at the end.]
Media Manager is a quagmire that can trap the unwary. It is way beyond
the scope of this short article to explain all the tricks of Media Manager.
However, if you want to take an existing project that
uses footage captured at low resolution to save disk space and up-res
it to improve video quality, here
are
some
tricks
that
will
make
it
a
whole
lot easier.
Update note: Always capture audio at the highest possible quality. In
comparison to video, audio files are small and there is no benefit to
capturing
a low-resolution version of your audio.
Also, when capturing audio, avoid using
these audio formats (since discontinued in FCP 5):
- Ch 1 (L)
- Ch 2 (R)
- Mono Mix
Final Cut HD always imports two, and only two,
audio channels. FCP 5 allows capturing up to 24 audio channels. Using
these three settings gives very weird results -- as I have discovered
to my dismay.
Use "Ch 1 + Ch 2" when bringing
in dual channel mono audio. For stereo files, use the "Stereo" option.
I have discovered that
Final Cut HD does not reliably create a perfect copy of sequences
when on-lining. It
is often off
by a frame either way. (Apple tells me this has been fixed in FCP 5.)
Most times, being off by a frame may not cause
you a problem. However, if you need to make sure
your on-line is frame-identical to your off-line, here is what you
need to do.
- Create a flash frame in your off-line sequence 2 seconds before
the start of program. One frame of bars works great for this.
- Export a low-res version of your timeline that
you can use for comparison. Go to File > Export > Quicktime
Movie.
- Uncheck "Make Movie Self-contained," because
you are the only person who will be using this movie.
- Follow all the steps below to create your on-line master. It
is critical that you provide at least 1:00 of
handles on recapture.
- When your on-line version is complete, import the off-line movie
you made in step 2 into the Browser. Do NOT add
it to the Timeline.
- Open the off-line movie in the Viewer.
- Position the Playhead in the Viewer on the flash frame you created
in step 1.
- Position the Playhead in the Timeline on the same flash frame
in the high-res version.
- With both Playheads positioned on the same frame
(one in the low resolution movie in the Viewer and the other
in the high resolution
movie in the Timeline), go to the middle pop-up menu in either
the Viewer or the Canvas and select, "Gang." (This menu changed in FCP 5, but you still select "Gang.")
- Click the Timeline to make it active.
- Now, using the up and down arrow keys, move from one edit point
to the next (actually, it's from In to In) and make sure your shots
match. As long as the gang is in effect, you'll be able to jump
anywhere in the Timeline and have the Viewer keep perfect sync.
I've used this technique to precisely compare shots in a number of
critical on-lines and it's worked perfectly every time.
Here are the steps to improve your on-lining success:
- First, if you have nested sequences, you will need
to unnest them; Final Cut does not reliably handle recapturing nested
sequences.
- If you are only going to capture
video (or audio) clips, but not both, select all clips in the timeline,
then go to
Modify->Link and UNLINK all the clips
in the sequence.
- Select the sequence you want to up-res in
the browser. If you have more than
one, work with only one at a time.
- In Final Cut Pro 4.0.x or 4.1.x, go to Modify and "Make
Sequence Clips Independent." In FCP 4.5 or FCP 5, you should UNcheck "Include
Master clips outside the selection" in the Media Manager dialog box.
This is THE most
critically important step.
- With the sequence still selected, open File -> Media Manager.
- Make the following settings:
• Select "Create Offline" (#1)
• Set Sequences to the codec you want to use for your final sequence. In
this example, we are using: "Uncompressed 8-bit NTSC 48K" (#2)
• CHECK "Delete unused media from duplicated sequence." (#3)
• Set handles to 2:00 (or greater) (#4)
• UN-CHECK "Include affiliate clips." (This is another important
setting)
(#5)
• Unless you've renamed clips in the Browser, leave the menu #6 ("Base
media file names...) set to "existing file names." If you've renamed clips in
the
Browser,
for example, because
you were
using
sub-clips, change this menu to "clip names."
- If you are using FCP 4.5 or 5, also UNcheck "Include
Master Clips outside selection."
- Click "OK" and give your new project a name (i.e. "Amtrak
up-res")
- When Media Manager is done, close all projects (not necessary, but helpful)
- Open your newly duplicated project
- Open the Master Clips folder in the browser
This is the SECOND most important step:
- Go thru each clip in the sequence you want to up-res and make
sure
all reel numbers are correct. Correct any that are wrong by double-clicking the
reel number and typing in the correct value (See "Fun
Facts About Reel Numbers.").
- Select all clips in the Media folder:
--
CONTROL-click on the In and set
all In's to Clear
-- CONTROL-click on the Out and set all Out's to Clear
- Sort your clips by reel number
- If you need to set up each tape (i.e. bars and tone), go to step [A], otherwise, skip to step [B]
- [A] Select all the clips on one reel
- Load the reel and set it up (i.e. bars and tone)
- Skip to step [C]
- [B] Select all your offline video clips
- [C]Select File -> Batch capture
- When the Log and Capture window opens, verify that all your capture settings,
scratch disks and clip settings are correct
- Capture your clips.
When you are done capturing the first tape, test the clips in your sequence to
make sure they are playing OK and that in's and out's seem correct. If everything
is working as you expect, capture the rest of your tapes for that sequence.
The reason for selecting "Make Sequence Clips Independent" is that
it prevents Media Manager from capturing material that is not in your sequence
(i.e. your original captures). This significantly reduces file size.
The reason for unlinking audio and video is that way, Final Cut won't be tempted
to capture material you don't need. (For a better explanation, see the update
below.)
The reason for setting all Ins and Out's to "not set," is that Batch Capture
will then just capture the length of the clip in the timeline, plus handles. This,
also, reduces the amount of excess, unneeded material that is captured.
Updates
After reading this article, Feb. 2005, Rick Lavon wrote:
I was mainly an Avid editor until a few months ago when I talked
my bosses into switching to a FCP station after getting frustrated with
Avid business & sales
practices. I had used FCP at home and for small projects. Now I am using
it on a daily basis for full-blown shows for broadcast and news features
and loving it.
My question is about using Media Manager (MM) as laid out in your article
on your website. I am trying to do a hi-rez version of an offline project.
I followed
your guidelines and still came up with issues. Mainly, I create a new
project in MM using your settings. I get a bin full of offline master
clips. I
try and capture them. I get a message saying there are duplicate files
with the
same name. I skip them, even though it seems like it is listing every
clip as having a duplicate. I even delete the offline sequence. Same
thing.
Anyway, I try and digitize from one tape, 5 clips. They all show up
with the same
duplicate file box message. I capture them anyway. Of the 5 clips,
all show up in my
sequence as captured. But in my bin on 2 of the 5 show up as redigitized.
Three still are "offline" even thought they are in the sequence.
Is this weird or what? Do you have any suggestions?...
As an alternative, could you use a trick I did from my Avid days, where
if you were clever and organized enough, all your off-line files
reside on one
drive, You then unmount it from the desktop, restart FCP, they show
up as offline, and then you recapture at a higher rez to another drive.
You then
trash the
files on the other drive when you remount it.
Larry replies: Rick, the reason you are having problems is due
to those "duplicate" files.
They aren't actually duplicates. When you unlink a sequence of
clips, you are disconnecting the audio from the video. This means that
both the audio and
video components of a clip will be captured separately. However,
both the audio and video clips have the same name.
When you capture, the name given to the media file stored on
your hard disk is the same as the clip name. However, since both
the
audio
and video clips have the same name, Final Cut puts up an alert
saying two clips have the same name and gives you the chance
to rename them. (Now, I grant you,
this dialog is very poorly worded, and it's taken me the better
part of a year to figure this out.)
If you DON'T rename these duplicates, then the second clip you
capture automatically erases the first because two files
in the same
folder
can't have the
same name.
It is not intuitive, but to solve this problem, what I do is
add the letter "a" to
the end of each duplicate file name. Everything captures fine
and all my clips appear, on-line, in the Timeline. (There's nothing
magic to the letter "a," it's just fast for me to type.)
As for unmounting a drive, this solution will work as long as
you have more than one drive to store media. For those who are
using
a RAID as their central
storage, this trick won't work. You are better off following
the tips in this article.
(April, 2005)
Rick Llewellyn writes:
I have a suggestion that seems to work
to avoid the duplicate file names. First, since I work with DV,
I use
the
FCP automatic
sub-clip generation. As such, I select the "Use clip name" option
in the MM. (Although I never renamed them, I guess it counts
as renaming if FCP generated sub-clips.)
After generating the full-res offline
project, I delete the entire master clips folder, leaving
only the sequence.
I then do a batch
capture on the sequence from the Browser and like magic, no
duplicate file name problems. I don't think this created
any problems.
If I need a copy of a clip, I just drag it out of the Timeline
back to the Browser. This is the only way I have found that
avoids the duplicate file name problem. I must say that
it is a little
frustrating that Apple has not fixed this problem in lots of
updates, and in my case all the file/clip names are Apple generated.
I have used this system through several
revisions and it seems to work.
Larry replies: This works, but I don't like discarding the original
capture clips. They are a very useful reference in the event
a clip gets lost during final recapture.
- - -
Copyright 2004, by Larry Jordan. All rights reserved.
- - -
Larry Jordan is an Apple-Certified Trainer for Final Cut Pro with over 25 years
experience as a producer, director and editor. Based in Los Angeles, he's a
member of both the Directors Guild and Producers Guild. You can reach him at: larry@larryjordan.biz.
