Media Manager - even better to MM in native format?

M

Marshallarts

Well-known member
Media Manager is a great way to take your completed project, toss out stuff you don't need, and have a final folder of your media neatly organized for archiving.

Peter Salvia has a great tutorial of this on Vimeo. I did raise a suggestion and after a month still no one has commented on it.

Usually because of one reason or another (removing pulldown from my HV20, getting out of H.264 on my 5Dmk2) I transcode my media to ProRes422. I think most would agree that has become a standard to edit with. But after you're finished what your left with are ProRes422 files. So when you Media Manage out for archive your media is ProRes422--not very lightweight (i.e. small in size) for archiving purposes, especially if you have larger projects.

Please correct me if I'm wrong... But wouldn't it be best to archive the original source media files? -- HVD, H.264, or whatever it was. How would one tell FCP to go back from the ProRes files and timeline to find the original source files?

But in the case of HDV when you need to remove pulldown would it be best to either
1.) point to original media and remove pulldown again if necessary
2.) convert to HDV natively 24p (but this would needlessly recompress vs option #1
3.) archive the ProRes 422.

I ask that because I've been holding onto a 75Gb ProRes project for awhile originally shot in HDV 24p@60i. Would it be better to keep that or could I transcode back to HDV or should I choose another formet? I've heard h.264 is *not* a good format to archive in and I want to keep the best copy possible until I finally get a bluray player to make a HD copy to distribute.
 
In your situation the ProRes files *are* your master files. I wouldn't even consider trying to go back to the source HDV tapes and h.264 files to rebuild the project. That would just be a royal PITA.


-A
 
transcoding to ProRes loses the TC info for the media... that's why you can't batch capture HDV that was captured as ProRes. It would be impossible for FCP to re-link to your original files.
 
adkimery said:
In your situation the ProRes files *are* your master files. I wouldn't even consider trying to go back to the source HDV tapes and h.264 files to rebuild the project. That would just be a royal PITA.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it would be a pain to figure out but potentially you would save a ton of drive space and all you'd have to do it rerender it back into the ProRes timeline with effects if you needed to work with it again.

bigbossbmb said:
transcoding to ProRes loses the TC info for the media... that's why you can't batch capture HDV that was captured as ProRes. It would be impossible for FCP to re-link to your original files.
Click to expand...

Really? I'm unfamiliar with how transcoding to ProRes effects timecode. What do you mean you can't batch capture HDV that was captured as ProRes -- you mean after the edit if I were to go back to the HDV tapes to capture again? Is this only if you imported your HDV as ProRes--what about those who transcode after they've imported the HDV?

If I held onto my original source HDV files I wouldn't have to batch capture, I can just relink to them. Would the timecode be effected them? If so probably only a few frames right?--I could add handles but do you think the difference would be significant enough to require hand re-editing?

I did a test before and I *think* it worked. Please tell me if there's something I'm missing here: On a small Canon 5Dmark2 project I captured h.264 then transcoded to ProRes, the edited, then exported, then deleted my ProRes files and linked the offline media back to the original h.264. It seemed to work! And was a lot smaller than keeping those ProRes files. Since it was source media there should be no loss in quality and all I'd have to do it rerender in the ProRes timeline with transitions and effects, right?

I'm not challenging you, I really don't know how this effects timecode. But it seems like it could be a huge space saver if it works correctly. I would love to discuss this further.
 
Marshallarts said:
I'm sure it would be a pain to figure out but potentially you would save a ton of drive space and all you'd have to do it rerender it back into the ProRes timeline with effects if you needed to work with it again.
Click to expand...
Drives are cheap and you time shouldn't be. If, say, 6 months from now you need to make a small change to the project would you rather mount the drives, open the project, make the change(s), export and be done w/it inside of an hour or spend a day or two trying to rebuild the project and hope that nothing goes wrong?

Like what computer geeks say, Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.


-A
 
For my "archiving" i usually keep all the media for 2 months after a project.
(all raw media)

After that i just keep 2 masters. (dual backup on seperate drives)
1. Master with all graphics/music etc.
2. a "Clean" Master which excludes music (some graphics)

I do the "Clean" Master in case i have to use it in a highlight reel or another project.

I've been doing this for about 2 years and have good luck with it. I've never have
a client come to me 6 months down the road with changes. (knock on wood!)

Would love to hear others "archiving" processes!

shawn
 
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