Media Manager FAIL!

It's archive and cleanup day, and once again, Media Manager is driving me batty.

I'm getting the same old problem - it won't delete unused media. Usually the solution is to make sure that all non-timecoded source have a perfunctory reel number. I've done that, and still no dice. My 6 minute sequence is going to take 60 gigs of drive space.

Any other thoughts for troubleshooting this? Is there some other way to make FCP recognize the reel numbers, other than just typing "SHOW01" into the "reel" field?

Thanks!

Jeff

>Any other thoughts for troubleshooting this?

Not that I know of. Welcome to Media Manager hell. Much of its useful functionalities have been long broken.

The other day, I tried the "copy" function to get rendered clips from Color into one folder on a separate drive, and to have the clips given the same name as the original clips. No dice there either. I had lots of error messages, sometimes both the original clips and the graded clips were copied and the files had two particular naming patterns- one of the duplicates have either "-video" or "-2" behind the file name.



www.strypesinpost.com

Jeff,

If you are using the AJA Ki Pro it has some metadata bugs in it that keeps FCP from recognizing that there is a Reel number assigned to the clip (you also can't assign AUX TC).

Is all of your footage problematic or just certain shots?

Over the past couple of years we've MM'ed nearly 600 projects (short and long form) with minimal fuss and I've found the MM to be more reliable than it was in version 5 and older.


-Andrew

I'm pretty sure Media Manager can't remove unused media from long-GOP formats.

I should be so lucky to be using the Aja anything on this. My sources came to me as fully edited shows on a hard drive. I think they were originally produced for the internet, so it's possible that this stuff has never seen a tape since the original camera rolled.

I did the media manage anyway, just for kicks, and those are the space hogging clips. All 10 thirty minute shows come over intact.

Wish there was a better solution, but looks like I'm stuck with a 60 gigabyte folder to archive for a 6 minute project. At least drive space is cheap.

Jeff Harrell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm pretty sure Media Manager can't remove unused
> media from long-GOP formats.

We MM long-GOP formats on a regular basis w/o a problem.


Jeff Williams,
What format are the shows in? When you add a Reel # in FCP do you get a little warning pop-up that says "Changing timecode data will modify the file on disk. Do you wish to continue?"


-Andrew

Well, one thing I did remember, is that if a clip was used a few times, it may not trim properly. Making the clips in the sequence independent does not solve the problem either.



www.strypesinpost.com

"My sources came to me as fully edited shows on a hard drive. I think they were originally produced for the internet, so it's possible that this stuff has never seen a tape since the original camera rolled."

sounds very suspect to me.
can you give more details"
codec, etc.

basically i want to ask the same questions Andrew is.


strypes:
"and the files had two particular naming patterns- one of the duplicates have either "-video" or "-2" behind the file name."

did you perhaps request MM to delete unused?
that would cause that.


nick

>did you perhaps request MM to delete unused?

Lemme check... Nope. It was sequence sent to Color, and I wanted to use MM to consolidate the graded clips in one folder and keep the original file names.

Some clips had duplicates (both the original and graded clips were copied), which triggered off this numerical and alphabetical response from FCP. "Make clip independent" didn't solve this problem either. To be fair on MM, it did tell me that it encountered errors on some clips.

As for trimming, I once tried to trim the clips from a P2 source (ingested via L&T) and I realized that MM would trim the clips randomly- usually the clips that are used at different portions of the sequence will contain more footage from the source files. All the clips had reel names. The good thing I guess, is that MM trims some bits of the footage, so you still save some space.



www.strypesinpost.com

Nick -

The clips that are causing me 50 gig of trouble are 27 minute long quicktimes, with a DV/DVCPRO-NTSC codec. I got them on a hard drive, and they imported without any reel numbers attached to them.

Any thoughts?

Jeff

then you gave them reel#s?

as andrew asked:
when you add a Reel # in FCP do you get a little warning pop-up that says "Changing timecode data will modify the file on disk. Do you wish to continue?"


i was wondering if the new reel# was taking properly.
it would be very unusual if it didn't,
but maybe there is a permissions issue with the media or the folder it is in and the reel# didn't take?

one quick way to tell:
copy the sequence into a new project,
then go to Tools Menu and "Create Master Clips"

open the new bin that's created, and check the reel column.





strypes:
"Make clip independent" didn't solve this problem either"

maybe made it worse?
when you used the same clip more than once MM may have seen them as separate bits of media and made more than one copy.



nick

Hey Nick -

You might be right, and the reel numbers aren't being taken in properly. I did not get that message. I do get the message with changing other clips in the project, but not the 30 minute episode clips.

Possible to change/set those permissions somewhere?

Jeff

______________
Now twittering @jeffrey723

i'd start with the folder the clips are in.
maybe you copied that across from the drive you were given?

anyway, go there, and do a get info in the folder (apple i)
at the bottom of that window are the sharing & permissions settings.
there is a little gear-wheel drop-down menu at the bottom, in there you can "apply to enclosed items"

hope that helps,
nick

I'll see if adding reel name to the clips thing works for me too. Those clips in question were stock footage which I was trying to grade and move out.

A separate instance was when I had footage captured from a tapeless source. Those didn't trim properly. The sequence was fine, but it didn't trim something like 2 out of 5 clips.



www.strypesinpost.com

Nah. The reel name didn't work for me. I had 1 clip in the timeline today, and thought I could try it out. It still copied both the original and graded clip into the new folder.



www.strypesinpost.com

Nick -

Just tried your 'set permissions in the finder-level folder' trick, and still no dice. I'm ready to chalk this up to general FCP weirdness.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Jeff

______________
Now twittering @jeffrey723

>but not the 30 minute episode clips.

Drag one of those clips into a new project and see if it keeps the reel numbers. If it doesn't, it's related to a permissions issue.

Just curious Nick, did MM trim accurately for you? Coz the last time i tried it, the clips were trimmed, but there was also random extras. I know that MM has a strange caveat, where if you had two clips in the timeline linked off the same master clip, and the timecode was continuous between the two, it will only create one clip instead of two. It won't sting when you're trying to do a tape recapture, but it can if you're trying to sync up footage between different softwares.



www.strypesinpost.com

Jeff:
sorry to hear that didn't work.
i wish i was there to have a closer look


hey, Gerard.

the last time i used MM in a complex way it was to "Create Offline",
and yes it did accurately trim all our shots.

the last time i used MM to trim actual media it was a very simple scenario.
trimming whole-tape captures to segment "chunks"
and yes, that worked fine.

i've never done what you are doing:

Quote

The other day, I tried the "copy" function to get rendered clips from Color into one folder on a separate drive, and to have the clips given the same name as the original clips. No dice there either. I had lots of error messages, sometimes both the original clips and the graded clips were copied and the files had two particular naming patterns- one of the duplicates have either "-video" or "-2" behind the file name.

that's a rather particular problem i suspect,
as it's digging into the colour workflow as well.

but how about this:
once you have created the copy, you seem to have to much media. the COPY function has also copied clips you don't really want.

are those excess files reflected in the timeline? (i assuming you requested a new project)
maybe not.
SO...
you can select that timeline,
and do another MM operation to MOVE just those clips to a new location on the drive they are already on.

that should leave behind a folder on your drive of media you do not need.
you can most likely delete this,
but i'll tell you what i would do.

i'd take al those execs clips and drop them into R-Name, or a similar re-naming ap.
and add something to the head of all the names, like x_ or something

than, if FCP freaks out in a bad way you know those files are worth a second look before you trash them.

if necessary, you can always drop those files back in to R-Name and REMOVE the x_ or whatever, and re-link.

ok, so back to the files you MOVED.
if they have weird extensions, additions of suffixes,
you can probably sect all the clips in FCP,
and use the Modify > Rename function to name all the files after the clips.

it pays to have the source column open when doing these re-naming operations.



good luck,
nick

Thanks Nick, I'll try that out soon. I've tried to use MM in two different workflows to get it to sync up with other softwares, but it's never been able to work out the way i want it to.

Offline/online edits, no problem. Moving projects to another FCP workstation, no problem. Just that anything to do with Color or offline/online with different softwares... It just doesn't bite.



www.strypesinpost.com

Ah, was reading one of the posts recently, and I realized I should've gone with the Batch Export function instead.



www.strypesinpost.com