A special render colour to show missing footage

A special render colour to show missing footage: if you see any black areas in the top of your timeline, you have some missing footage.

This is useful if you have moved a project to a new computer and need to find things you need to fix in the timeline - usually where you've nested some nests of nests...

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Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

> A special render colour to show missing footage: if you see any black areas in the top of your
> timeline, you have some missing footage.

Doesn't the big white clip and the "Media Offline" message already tell you that? Or do you mean something else I'm missing?

Also, if you have an unknown number of media files offline and you don't know all the specific locations, just select the whole timeline, go to Reconnect Media, and choose only "Offline".


www.derekmok.com

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Doesn't the big white clip and the "Media Offline" message already tell you that? Or do you mean something else I'm missing?

No, that's what I meant. Unfortunately I was recently caught out when I was trapped in a "you have 90 seconds before you start the export, you can spend no more time in the timeline"

As I had many purposely offline clips in my bin (after merging an online project with the previous offline), I couldn't use that status to help me.

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Also, if you have an unknown number of media files offline and you don't know all the specific locations, just select the whole timeline, go to Reconnect Media, and choose only "Offline".

Thanks for that, I've only used Reconnect in bins up until now.

I'll amend this feature request to ask that if you reconnect a video clip, all the stills based on that clip get reconnected as well...

> As I had many purposely offline clips in my bin (after merging an online project with the previous
> offline), I couldn't use that status to help me.

Ah, that's the issue. I think then you should reconnect from the timeline -- that way you only reconnect the clips (including master clips in the bins, unless you destroyed the master-affiliate relationships) you used in the edit. But if you have some clips you want and some not, in a bin, and not all the ones you want are in the timeline, then there's no way around it.

In those cases I would try to implement a human-controlled system: Use the "Good" checkmark or a customized Comment column to denote the clips you want to remain online in the bins, and then use the columns' sort function to find the clips you want to reconnect down the line.

> all the stills based on that clip get reconnected as well...

That's been a pain in the tuchus as long as I remember. Rather than wrestle with the reconnection, I usually use one of two workarounds:

a) When making the still in the first place, actually export a still image file (TGA or TIFF) rather than using the Make Freeze Frame (SHIFT-N) function. That way the file is independent of the clip it comes from. Gets messy if you change your mind a lot about which frame to freeze, though. Or,

b) Just use the timecode inherent in the Freeze Frame's clip name to relocate the desired frame, and redo the Freeze Frame. Use Copy/Paste Attributes to move any effects and Motion parameters from the old, offline Freeze Frame to the new one.


www.derekmok.com