Reconnecting media not working

Dear All,

Got a spot of bother here.

After a monumental struggle to repair my FCP system (6.0.6) after I mistakenly downloaded and installed a Pro Apps update which disagreed with my setup, I find that many shots have become disconnected.

I have since reinstalled the correct ProApps and basically done everything one normally does like trashing and restoring prefs, shutting down - waiting a minute - then re-booting. Now FCP 6.0.6 runs fine except for this disconnection thing.

So, being an inventive kind of guy, I highlight a shot in the Timeline and go to Reconnect Media" at which stage FCP amazingly actually finds the shot. There it is - Yippee.

Not so fast. The shot/s are definitely on the drive - so this is not a "phantom find" - however, when I actually try to reconnect, the shot does not go down into the lower window of the Reconnect Media window.

This is insane.

FCP knows it is there. FCP finds it. But FCP will not reconnect it. I think I have heard of this problem in the distant foggy past and am wondering if any of you guys can remember what one does to fix it.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

I am running OS 10.6.8 on a Mac 8 Core with 8 Gigs RAM and nothing weird installed.

Best wishes,

I live in hope ...

Harry.

PS. I apologize for referring to "clips" as "shots". I just hate the term "clip".

Do you have an autosave version of the project? Try opening that.

Alternatively, try copying just the sequence into a new project file and see if you can re-connect that. You can also try copying everything into a new project file and see if that gives you any love.

Which ProApps upgrade, btw? I've not heard of a ProApps update causing issue, but it's been a while since I touched FCP 6.



www.strypesinpost.com

As strypes suggested, go back up one level at a time. If a new Sequence doesn't work, try a new project file. If a new project file doesn't work, try reconnecting the master clips. If that doesn't work, export an XML and re-import it and see if it will behave differently. I don't know how much an Autosave version would help in this case, because it sounds like you're saying that it's happening across multiple stored project files, which means Autosave versions will probably behave in the same way.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks for much for the reply, Strypes.

After days of struggle, it turns out that it was indeed a ProApps upgrade which caused the problem, as you yourself suggest. Like an idiot I had forgotten to resist installing any upgrades and, emboldened by medicinal vodka, I had installed some Apple system upgrades.

I ended up reformatting the drive and reinstalling FCS from the ground up, then throwing out Quicktime 10, substituting QT 7.6.6, and using an old version of Pro Apps. Phew.

I realize my setup is now quaintly antique, however Premiere is lacking many FCP features that I feel I need, FCPX is out of the question and to go over to Avid is kinda scary to me as well as expensive.

Maybe Adobe will eventually improve Premiere, but until then I will trundle along with FCS - largely because I am so fluent in it and the thought of change is so daunting.

Many thanks for answering my post.

Harry.

Derek - thank you for your thoughtful reply which you posted while I was replying to Strypes. I had indeed done the XML thing, the autosave thing and tried weeping copiously. None of this worked. So I backed up, reformatted and reinstalled everything.

Despite the misery caused by my senseless blunder of installing some dopey Apple system update - and I should have known better - the reformatting and reinstallation cleared the cobwebs in my drive and, although I am perhaps imagining it, my system seems a little more responsive now.

Many thanks for your kind response, Derek.

Harry

What features do you need that you can't find, Harry? I'm finding PP CS6 to be very much like Legacy FCP.

Well, if you're running outdated apps, it's not wise to upgrade out of a stable system.

Avid isn't that expensive these days, especially when you can use 3rd party IO cards. There will be some getting used to, because the fundamental design is different. Avid is more modular, but it has more developed trim tools than FCP7. But FCP did grow more Avid-like over the years.

Yea, what kind of features are missing in PPro for you, Harry?



www.strypesinpost.com

Dear Jude and Strypes,

Thanks for asking what I would miss in FCP if I moved to Premiere.

Maybe you can set me straight because I haven't really done any heavy duty research. However, I do a lot of audio in FCP. When I need outside help I export and reimport in and out of this fancy software called iZotope RX2 Advanced and iZotope Ozone Advanced, both of which are frighteningly expensive.

However, I understand that, broadly speaking, the audio side of Premiere is not ready for prime time. Is this so?

I admit I have not used it myself, but have read that the audio side is not very flexible. Apparently, only from what I have read, even the latest version of CS6, or whatever the wretched thing is called, is said to make it difficult to move audio tracks up and down at will like FCP.

For instance, I can also group my audio tracks into Domestic version, M&E version and all that stuff. Sometimes there is music that is not cleared for Timbuktu, and I am easily able to move the tracks around in the Timeline with minimal fuss to create the Timbuktu version.

I also like to use the Voice-Over tool in FCP quite a bit. I have recorded foley and ADR for at least 3 small features and other voice-over stuff which has saved a lot of money.

It is my understanding that Premier is a bit of a Nazi about audio and makes you do as you are told. I don't respond well to dictatorship. I can't remember precisely where I read this, but it was a review and anaysis of the recent CS6. Apparently Premier doesn't allow you to move audio stuff around the tracks with the same degree of freedom as FCP.

And, to do Premiere properly, with the necessary upgrades of graphics/display superfast cards, it would cost another maybe $2,000 - and Premier itself I think is about $1,000. I am running an Intel 8 Core 3Ghz Tower which works just fine with FCP. The only total bummer is the hateful rendering time. It's my understanding that Premiere DOES have to render, but it is just a whole lot faster at the job if you give it fancy graphic processing card/s.

Maybe you guys can tell me if I am more-or-less right or more-or-less wrong?

On rendering time: - suppose I had a 5 minute chunk which needed rendering in FCP which currently takes, say, 8 minutes to cook on my machine, how long would that take to render on CS6 with all the fancy bells and whistles? Would it be significantly faster?

I'm assuming that CS6 does pretty much everything that FCP does with picture. I would hope that it doesn't do some trick like FCPX which grabs your footage and immediately turns it into ProRes.

Thanks - let me know your thoughts -

Harry.

There's no problem moving audio tracks around in CS6. It was awkward in earlier versions, apparently, but seems fine in the latest. Pretty much the same as FCP7.

Not sure about the voiceover tool. You could maybe record foley and ADR right into your camera if you were stuck? maybe someone else knows about this one.

Something that needs 8 minutes of render in FCP7 would most likely not need rendering at all (until output) in CS6. Although it might give you a red render bar to indicate that rendering will be required, it doesn't actually stop you working, and usually plays at full res and full speed.

Nothing will be changed into anything you don't want it to be changed into. In fact almost all workflows now don't need transcoding at all. You just copy media right from a camera card to your hard drive, import the native files and start working. You can work at native resolution (including H.264 and Mp4) and not have to transcode, or work on a timeline with the codec of your choice and have multiple codecs conform on the run. Whatever you prefer.

As for needing all the bells and whistles, I'm running it on a stock standard 2.7 Intel core i5 iMac with 4gb of ram and everything is peachy.

Ok. I don't use izotope, but you can export an OMF for that. Audio wise, Adobe has Audition. Think of that as a direct replacement for Soundtrack Pro, which hasn't received much upgrades over the years. I don't do much audio work in FCP, but I think PPro has better effects than in FCP (FCP reverb ends where the clip ends, which is a disaster).

Shifting clips around, that's the same as in FCP. In Premiere, just set audio clips to import as mono, and all will be the same. You can also choose to delete empty tracks just like in FCP.

Premiere... Yes, to do Premiere properly with CUDA acceleration, you will need an Nvidia graphics card, but without it, Premiere is still pretty fast. In fact, rendering in PPro is faster than in FCP because of the ability to use all the processors on your machine. So yes, even without Mercury hardware acceleration, it's much faster and more responsive than FCP. Renders much much faster too.

For many things, it can playback many things in real time even without CUDA acceleration. You will have to render on output if you have applied effects, but the concept is slightly different from FCP. Let's say you have a bunch of H.264 footage you shot with your 5D, a bunch of stuff you shot with your iPhone. You don't have to transcode anything to ProRes, but for your final output, you'll have to render to whatever you need, eg. ProRes for broadcast delivery. During editing however, there is quite a bit of effects that Premiere can take without needing to render for preview. Of course, this bit depends on what type of effects and what kind of graphics card you are using. In the worst case, it stutters during playback, but it beats FCP's spinning beachball.

And no, it doesn't turn anything to ProRes. However, if you are rendering RED 5K feature in your timeline and you have all sorts of fancy particle effects and green screen that you sent via dynamic link to After Effects, rendering will take a while.

Pricing wise, you can choose to get it off the Creative Cloud, which will contain the full Adobe set, kitchen sink and all. That costs $30 a month for existing CS users. Price wise, it doesn't cost much more than if you were buying yearly upgrades and you would anyway, since Adobe actively develops their software, and you'll want the new bells and shizzles.

My recommendation of course is to go on the cloud or get Production Premium, which comes with audition, After Effects (for fancy motion graphics and compositing), Photoshop Extended, Prelude (which lets you verify card transfers), Encore (DVD and BluRay authoring) and Illustrator (if clients pass you those AI or EPS files). That or you can go with just Premiere Pro, and still use DVD SP for your DVD needs.



www.strypesinpost.com

>I'm running it on a stock standard 2.7 Intel core i5 iMac with 4gb of ram and
>everything is peachy.

I tried putting some 5K RED epic footage on my laptop, and set the playback at 1/4 resolution on a 1080p timeline and I threw in a couple of dissolves. It's pretty breathtaking to watch it playback in real time without rendering on a laptop off a portable store bought USB drive. But yea, my laptop has a supported OpenCL graphics card, which took care of the dissolve, but the heavy lifting of decoding RED is still on the CPU.



www.strypesinpost.com

And yea, there's a 30 day trial, and you can download it to see if it works for you.



www.strypesinpost.com

Hail, Jude and Strypes,

Thank you both for your enormously informative postings about Premiere.

Obviously things have changed and I absolutely have to check this thing out. I will download the demo version and have a go with it.

Again, thank you both for going into such detail and taking the time.

Best wishes,

Harry.

You can also change the keyboard settings to emulate FCP7 if you like. I did try learning the PP keys, but I was working at a place at the time where almost all the workstations were set to FCP7 keys, so I got into the habit I've been counseling people not to do for years when transitioning to FCP. It does make transitioning easier though.

Wow ... That's major. Thanks for telling me. That saves a lot of trouble re-learning all the keyboard commands.

Best

Harry.

I stick as closely as I can to one set of keys because I work between NLEs all the time, so it's crazy to remember 3 sets of keys. Plus the jobs on Windows, which is a finger variation of the Mac keys. Mostly, PPro is like FCP7, with some subtle differences, so my PPro keys are somewhere in between my Avid and FCP7 keys.

But yea, Premiere has a lot of good tools that aren't mapped to anything, so spend a day digging through those shortcuts and map them.

I did a little write up yesterday illustrating the similarities between the different NLEs.

[strypesinpost.com]



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