Media Manager-Copy Project

Need help with what should be a simple Media-Manager procedure on FCP 4.5 (running on a G5 Dual 2.0).

All I'm trying to do is create an identical copy of an entire project (clips/media, sequences, music) onto a new drive -- while leaving the original intact on the drive where it lives.

I select all in the browser window, open Media Manager. The first strange thing is that is says the amount of media at issue is around 50 gigs, when it's really 400 gigs. Regardless....

I set Media: to Copy

Uncheck: Include Master Clips Outside Selection (I also tried checking this item, and got the same results)

Uncheck: Delete Unused Media in Duplicated Items

Base Media Files on: Existing File Names

Project: Duplicate Selected Items and place into a new project.

Then set a destination and go. Progress bar says estimated time is one hour.

But here's what happens: After 90 minutes, the progress bar shows it's at 100% (and the estimated time field is now blank) but more media keeps on copying. And copying and copying. I'm on my 3rd try now. The first two tries, it kept going for 8 hours till I cancelled the process.

ANY ADVICE??????

man, that's really funky behaviour...

trash your preferences, and try again.
read this:
[www.lafcpug.org]

if that doesnt help, maybe there's issue with FCP seeing some of the drives?
but is all the media online???

---------------------

in the meantime you can also do it manually:
drag your Media folders across from one drive to the other.
take your project files, too.

what are your drives?
it's generaly 50-60gigs an hour across FW400
so 8hrs isnt impossibly slow.

--------

what happens when you cancel?

MM would have created some media.
is there any in the new drive?
how much?


nick

If you become too frustrated with Media Manager, here's a workaround you may want to try.

On the finder level, simply copy the folder where your media lives (Capture scratch) to your destination drive. Then copy your FCP project onto that destination drive and you're done.

When moving projects I do NOT transfer renders since they can easily be reconstructed.

The above method assumes that you've been careful about where you've placed your media throughout the course of your project.

Good luck.

Mark

Thanks. But simply dragging files manually will result in a million unlinked clips and sequences, and the reconnect function always seems to have problems of its own.

As to Nick's questions: I'm using F/W 800 drives, not 400. When I cancel, there is a ton of new media on the new drive (maybe 350 out of the 400G). But there is no new project file. If I open the original project file (with the drive that contains the original media offline), everything is unlinked.

So my main question remains, were the settings I described in my post the correct ones for making an idenditcal copy of an entire project on a new drive?

> But simply dragging files manually will result in a million unlinked
> clips and sequences, and the reconnect function always seems to have
> problems of its own.

Sequences don't become unlinked. Clips do. If reconnect doesn't work, nine times out of ten it's because the capturing and file management weren't done properly. Did you even try the Reconnect? Are you really missing files if you just copy from one drive to another? How many locations did you create for your original media?

Look at your Capture Scratch location(s) carefully. Do you see any files that look wrong?

If your file management is good, the direct copy method is actually faster and more reliable than Media Manager.

I'm in the middle of another long Media-Managed effort and don't want to cancel unless I'm told the settings I used are wrong. That's the question I'm hoping to get answered before abandoning this process and trying a manual approach.

Derek, I didn't capture the media, it was given to me on a drive, but it was captured/organized reasonably well. So no, I haven't tried reconnecting on this project as I've been/still am ensconsed in the M-M process. But every time in the past that I've tried to reconnect a sequence, it was difficult -- perhaps because some re-named clips in the browser had different names than the media clip names? If you had 50 folders with dozens of clips in each one, and a 90-minute master sequence with a ton of edits, how would you go about reconnecting?

But also, can anyone answer my question about the Media-Manager settings to do what I'm trying to do?

Thanks.

> Derek, I didn't capture the media, it was given to me on a drive, but it was
> captured/organized reasonably well. So no, I haven't tried reconnecting on
> this project as I've been/still am ensconsed in the M-M process.

That's my point -- you've spent two eight-hour sessions, at least, and counting, on Media Manager. 300GB of media should only take about two hours to copy, less if you're using FireWire 800, and the reconnection should only take 15-30 minutes. You've wasting time chasing a problem in Media Manager that may or may not be soluable.

> But every time in the past that I've tried to reconnect a sequence, it was
> difficult -- perhaps because some re-named clips in the browser had different
> names than the media clip names? If you had 50 folders with dozens of clips
> in each one, and a 90-minute master sequence with a ton of edits, how
> would you go about reconnecting?

Select all, File - Reconnect Media, and then point FCP to the file location you need. What's difficult about that? If the files are well organized, then you should have the clips in only one or two folders, and the option "Reconnect all files in relative path" should mean you only have to select one clip in each Finder location to nail all the media. Seriously, just try it. You've spent at least 12 hours too long on this process by my estimate.

As for Browser object names not matching media names, when using Reconnect Media, FCP doesn't give a crap about what you had renamed the clips in the Browser as. It searches for original media name. If you had a file called "Reel 001 Clip 01" and you had renamed it to "Jane walks to the front door" in the Browser, when reconnecting FCP will still ask you to reconnect "Reel 001 Clip 01", and you should be able to find it on your drive. Renaming objects in the Browser/timeline isn't something I recommend, but plenty of people do it, and as long as you know what you're doing, it shouldn't cause problems. The major advantage to not renaming things is that the file appears under its true file name in FCP, and that is a big bonus if files go offline, missing, corrupt, etc. and you need to recapture.

oh, yeah.

settings were all good.
probably should have left "include" whatever-it-is checked
but if the size didn't vary, what's the difference?
"Base media file names" on FILE NAMES is exactly right in this case

but what was the RESULT of the previous MM one wonders?
and the current one...
you CAN see these things in progress, too, just by looking in the location your sending the media.


"perhaps because some re-named clips in the browser had different names than the media clip names?"
yep, that'll do it.
but in general, reconnect should not forget the file names after one simple move.
they can be shaky, but not that shaky.
unless there has been a Media Manage done before this, it'd be pretty stable, i think

you only need to reconnect one file per folder.
the rest (for the most part) look after them selves.
depends on how ordered you've been as to how easy it'll be.
my video media reconnects are generally pretty simple affairs.
i know where the sound FX are,
and the stills
it;s the music that need lots of prompts: all those folders!

report back on what's happening at the other end. media wise

nick

> it's the music that need lots of prompts: all those folders!

That might be because you're letting iTunes name the folders. When I convert music, I always fill out all the metadata in iTunes, then name the AIFF after the song title (it's rare that more than two different versions of the same song gets used in a film). Then I strip away the annoying "Artist" and "Album Title" folders and put the music into an Audio subfolder. The only time I have multiple music folders is if I want to segregate vastly different kinds of music -- for example, classical in one, pop/rock/R&B/rap in another, film scores in another.

Nick,

The result of the Media Manage is that, at the time I cancelled, maybe 80% of the media has been copied to the new drive. Reason I cancelled was that it seemed there'd be no end, and also seemed to be repeatedly re-copying the same clips. But by cancelling, it never created a new project file. So I then copied my original project, then disconnected my original drive, and opened the project on the new drive, hoping it would connect to the copied media. Alas, everything in the sequence was off line beause it wanted to find the media on the original drive (now off line).

Jeff

" Alas, everything in the sequence was off line beause it wanted to find the media on the original drive (now off line)."

right.
so reconnect to the new media.
that's one of the options you get when the "offline" window opens.''

that might be harder than just ding a move and reconnect if you've got all those copies.
but that sounds screwy.

so how do the multiple copies manifest themselves?
are they given numbers?
are they in different folders?
are they really exact copies?
are files with then the same names identical, or are they different?

that would happen if you had asked MM to delete unused.
but you say you didnt.


nick

<<so how do the multiple copies manifest themselves
....that would happen if you had asked MM to delete unused.
but you say you didnt.>>

They don't manifest (on the drive). I just see (in the progress bar) the same clips coming up a 2nd, 3rd time. Delete Unused is not checked. What seems to be happening is first, MM copes all the clip media in the browser bins, then it attacks the master sequence (I only have one sequence in this project). What it seems to be doing is to go edit by edit in the sequence, and re-copy the clip (the entire clip not just the edited portion), effectively replacing the already-copied clip on the drive. If this is what's happening, it'll take days to finish.

I'm giving up on MM. The only reason I started down that path were the endless warnings about doing it manually. Amazing.

One final thing, I just tried an experiment. I MM'd a single folder of clips and that worked well. Then I selected my Sequence, opened MM, and the two green bars at the top of the window that show how much media is involved, were invisible. If you rollover your mouse, it will reveal the text info, but there are NO GREEN BARS anymore. I think I clearly have a corrupted MM tool.

Thanks for your help.

yeah,
that's what i said at the beginning!
trash your preferences...

if they NEVER manifest on the drive,
then that;s weird...
system weird, almost.
let's hope it's just FCP.


nick