Modifying clip settings causes Double Digitizing

Hello,
Yesterday I was redigitizing clips as part of an online and I noticed that I was capturing everything twice. When I opened the 'capture scratch' folder I noticed that there indeed were two QuickTime files for each clip (ex. Bobby, and Bobby-2). I determined that the two files were identical and in fact I could force FCP to only reference one of the two digitized files with no adverse effects.
Fast-forward to today.
Before resuming work this morning I spent some time retracing my steps and I discovered the cause of the problem. The double capture is a direct result of modifying clip properties. At the beginning of the job I took the client's offline sequence and used the media manager to create an online sequence at the correct resolution. Then, because I'm only dealing with video, I took all of the consolidated clips in the browser and modified them to only contain video. I did this by highlighting the clips, then choosing "Clip Settings" from the "Modify" menu and un-checking the audio check box. The unexpected result of this action is that FCP for some reason starts looking for two media sources for the single clip. If you try to reconnect a single clip you'll see it's looking for 2 files; or if you try to digitize a single clip you'll see it captures the footage twice.
Now I know what's happening, I'm wondering if anyone knows why or how to work around it.
Thanks,
Roman

> I determined that the two files were identical and in fact I could force FCP to only reference one
> of the two digitized files with no adverse effects.

Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. The "-2", "-3" issue usually means you're capturing to a drive that's improperly formatted -- a PC format such as FAT32, or Mac OS Standard, which would have a maximum file size of 2GB or 4GB, and any clip you attempt to capture which exceeds that limit would be split into two. Those files are not identical; you need all of them present for the clip to even play properly.

If this is the case, you'd have to backup the files on that drive first, then reformat the drive for Mac OS Extended.

It's also possible that you have your System Settings set to capture audio and video separately, or you have "Limit File Segment Size" turned on. Both are no-nos in FCP.

I really doubt that Modify Clip Settings caused the issue.

Running Media Manager on a sequence with its original media missing can also cause it to misfire.


www.derekmok.com

Derek,
Thank you for responding but I assure you what you've suggested isn't the case. My drives are formatted correctly (Xserve RAID formatted as Mac OS Extended), my system settings are not set to digitize audio and video separately, and I don't have a file size limit on my captures.
I know what you're talking about, when a capture is split-up amongst a few files, for instance when a break in timecode is encountered. But this is something entirely different.
Each of the two files is complete in itself and when played side-by-side, in any software, they match up frame-by-frame. Also, I've been able to trash one of the two files and reconnect the associated clip to only the remaining QuickTime and the clip plays perfectly fine.
To prove the point further, I created a new media managed sequence just like before. Without doing any clip modifications I chose a clip to batch capture. When the capture window popped up it accurately reflected the clip's duration and the process captured only one media file. Then, I chose a clip, modified it's clip settings and then tried batch capturing. In this case, the popup window showed the clip's duration to be DOUBLE what it should be, and as expected it captured two individual and identical QuickTimes.
This is consistent on my system, I'm not saying it's normal, I'm just stressing that it's definitely not an overlooked setting.
Roman

Are you sure it's not just a spanned clip- i.e. a very long capture. Say if you capture an entire tape at once, FCP will automatically split into -2 and -3. When you double click on either in FCP it will automatically load up the start of the original clip- which can make you think they are the same clip. In fact, if you delete either of the second or third clips you will be deleting media. In short, don't mess with the files FCP uses to capture. They are there for a reason.

Noah

Final Cut Studio Training, featuring the HVX200, EX1, EX3, DVX100, DVDSP and Color at [www.callboxlive.com]!
Author, RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera available now at: [www.amazon.com].
Editors Store- Gifts and Gear for Editors: [www.editorsstore.com]

Roman,

Have you tried to modify the clips (removing the audio) and then export as XML. XML because the audio references won't be in there, an FCP project will keep them in cache.
You should use XML version 1 to keep stuff as straight as possible. I don't know up from what version of XML FCP does write the file metadata into the XML.
Open the XML in a new project. During import uncheck the 'Reconnect Media' button.
The use the offline files for digitizing - don't forget to uncheck Audio capture.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Hi Roman.

i can confirm that this has happened to me, too.
well, not directly to me,
but on a film i was cutting.
the lab was capturing our rushes one night, and i rang up to ask "what's taking so long"?
and it turned out every clip was being captured twice.

now i wasnt threre, of course, but it could be that they tried to modify the clip settings.
in those days we were having issues with clips being logged as dual mono when i wanted them captured as stereo.

although Andreas's suggestion could work,
rather than working around it, id say just capture the audio anyway.
it's not such a big deal.


nick

Well if anyone is interested I worked out a way to capture without audio that doesn't mess anything up. It's really simple really, and most importantly I will NEVER modify clip settings before capturing.
Before recapturing, go to your capture settings in the "Audio/Video Settings" tool and modify your capture preset not to include audio. Then when you batch capture make sure to deselect the check box that says "Use logged clip settings," and voila, when the capture finishes the clip in the browser will be updated to show that it does not include audio (and no wacky linking issues yet!)
Roman

To be honest, trying to get rid of the audio in the online really didn't save you much storage, and cost you a lot more time. In terms of file sizes, audio is peanuts compared with video, and to recapture the video you needed to run the tapes in real time anyway. And if you recaptured without audio, if you ever found that you needed some sync sound back (eg. a piece of sound goes missing in the final sound mix), you'd have to recapture.

So in the future, I'd just leave it alone.


www.derekmok.com