search question

i have long interviews broken down via named markers. i've been marking
particularly useful bits with a *** at the start of the marker name, figuring
i could search out all of these starred markers later in my browser for assembly.
when i call up the search window with cmd - f and enter *** into the search field,
nothing turns up when i try to search all: 'no matching items.'

when i simply use the 'find next' option, however, it does find the next
instance of these starred markers. if i repeat the operation, it does move to the
next one.

the parameters i have in the search window are:

search: project name
for: all media
results: add to find results
name starts with ***

i've also tried 'name contains ***'.

am i missing something? how do i search/sort to find all of my starred markers?

mac pro, 10.5.7, fcp 6.0.5

thanks,
BabaG

I don't think it can find all markers. How would it do that? What would the application display?

a list? a bin? a tab? the same thing it displays for media searches?

if i search by the names of media files i get a new window for find results showing
the media files with the searched names. shouldn't i be able to get a find results
window that just displays the searched marker names?

I don't use the search enough to know if this is the case here, but I wonder if you have used an unfortunate character to search for. "*" is typically used as a wild card character in a search string, and if so I would expect searching for "***" to confuse it. Try changing a few to "+++" and see if it works better. That might also be seen as a special character, so try several alternatives.

Scott

thanks scott.

just tried +++, &&&, ZZZ.

all produced 'no matching items'.

BabaG

The problem is they're markers. The search bin gives you the clips that you search for, the actual clips, not a list. It can't give you the markers as a group. They only exist as attachments to a clip. It could give you a clip. It can take you to a single marker, but how would it take you to a bunch of markers? There is no list of markers within the application. The find function does not deliver lists, only objects.

> It can take you to a single marker, but how would it take you
> to a bunch of markers?

shouldn't it be able to open a window displaying a list, just as it does with find all
for media?

> There is no list of markers within the application. The find function does not
> deliver lists, only objects.

then it seems pretty useless.

how does anyone break down hour long interviews wherein many interviewees
reference the same subjects and need to be grouped together? do people do this
one at a time, by hand? subclips? aren't they viewed similarly to markers in this
context?

how do i find a bunch of similarly named things, at a lower level than master
media clips, and drag them together to a timeline? what i think i should be able
to do is search for a group of clips (or subclips, or markers) with a name like,
say, 'discuss politics', have them all show up in a window together from which i
can drag them all to a sequence to start editing. how do others organize their
media, assuming it comes in as large files, like hour long interviews, such that
they can perform a search/sort as i've described above? or, does fcp make it
necessary to go through all the clips, subclips, and markers one by one, dragging
each individually to their sequences?

thanks,
BabaG

You could convert the markers into subclips. They'll then be separate clips and will be searchable as clips. The *** will appear in the clip name.

got a quick way to batch convert dozens or hundreds of markers?

edit:
ok. found that. screws up the browser organization bogtime but, ok.

another question, though. is there a way to make the default behaviour of
subclips such that the restrictions on the clip are removed? the reason i've
chosen markers as the organizational methodology is that they don't have
the editorial restrictions that subclips have. havong to manually go to the
menuto remove those restrictions is a big time waster.

thanks,
BabaG

Quote

how does anyone break down hour long interviews wherein many interviewees
reference the same subjects and need to be grouped together?

Speaking purely for myself, I'd sooner eat glass than deal with hour-long clips in my bins. I start to get a migraine when my takes exceed a few minutes.

> Speaking purely for myself, I'd sooner eat glass
> than deal with hour-long clips in my bins. I start
> to get a migraine when my takes exceed a few
> minutes.


yeah. i hear that. but that's how they gave it to me. and speaking purely for
MYself, may i say:

mmmmmmm glass.


BabaG

Quote

but that's how they gave it to me.

Wrong answer. If it was shot on tape, get the tapes and re-didge, because they did it wrong. If it was tapeless, get the original P2 or Red or whatever data files and re-transfer, because they did it wrong.

The fact that it was somebody else who did it wrong doesn't mean anything. It was done wrong, and needs to be fixed before you can do your job.

Quote

another question, though. is there a way to make the default behaviour of
subclips such that the restrictions on the clip are removed?

not default behavior,
but there is the Modify Menu > Remove Subclip Limits command.
i haven't tried it on a selected group of subclips, but give it a go.

Quote

having to manually go to the menu to remove those restrictions is a big time waster.

then make a keyboard command for the menu item.
Option Apple U (for the "reverse" of "make subclip" is what i use.


re-doing all the existing work is not realistic.
it would take far longer than the simple task of assembling the interview grabs.


nick

check out this app:

[www.digital-heaven.co.uk]

It will output a file with marker text and thumbnails. I think you can sort the columns, grouping your "***'s" together. I think you could then reimport this xml and have your marked clips sorted in order -- maybe. I'm not in front of my system.

It probably won't do exactly what you want, but it might help.

Michael