reconnecting media

Hello, and thanks for visiting my posting. I'm using a G-4, which we all love to have crash during entensive rendering. Usually, when this happens, I delete all of my render files, and start the rendering over again, after rebooting everything. After my latest crash of a few minutes ago, I went to delete my render files, and I saw that there were lots of render files that are probably just fine... so why would I start all over again?!?! Re-opening FCP, I selected the clips, and tried to reconnect them by clicking File/reconnect media. After processing for 15 seconds, I got a message that not all render files were reconnected. It turns out that none were. Any suggestions so that I can use the render files that were created before the crash? Thanks so much! Scott

Render files can't always be reconnected because the project file doesn't necessarily know that they were created for the sequence. Get into this habit: If you have a render that takes more than five minutes, hit Cancel every five minutes or so, then save your project file. This updates the project so that it remembers the render files created up to the point when you cancelled. Whereas if you render for 16 hours and then it crashes at Hour 15, you lose everything because the project doesn't know the render files from Adam and Eve.

I have a similar problem: I captured media on a Gigabit networked G4-733 (RAID Zero Array) and use G5s for the editing and rendering of the projects. Kind of a poor man's SAN!! :-)

Anyway, I did about 5 hr rendering of effects, etc, and yesterday saved the project and quit FCP. All rendered files are saved to the local drive of the G5 working on the project. I then turned off all the comps for the night.

When I started things up today, I forgot to turn on the RAID Zero storage and remount the drives.

As a result, when I started up the project I was working on yesterday, the media files were off-line. Which is fine, as I simple remount the RAID Zero drive and reconnected the media.

However, all of the local rendered media were also knocked off-line as well! When I go to render manager, all the files are listed with the appropriate sequence, so I know FCP knows about the files, but I can not seem to find a way to reconnect the render media to the appropriate sequence.

Can someone tell me if there is a way to reconnect the render files?? I've checked the manual and can only find references to off-line capture media but no reference to rendered media (other than on startup if FCP recognized that the files are off-line, which it did not in this case)

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, even if I can not reconnect the render files.



Thanks
Gary Sumlak
thumbprints Multimedia Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
[www.thumbprints.ca]

*** Superior Film Transfers at a Reasonable Price ***

Gary, next time when you open a project file and this happens, don't reconnect media. That should only be done if the media truly changed locations. Close the project file without saving, turn on the RAID, and re-open the project file. The render files should be fine then. As it is, by reconnecting the clips, you were asking the project file to flush out all references to the render files and start from scratch. It's for many intents and purposes a new timeline and it will refuse to recognize the old render files.