Michael Carter
Veteran
I'm not sure if you can save your shorted footage. If you haven't shot on the CF cards since you erased them, you may be able to recover some/all of your clips. Google "data recovery", etc - may be a shareware fix. A basic re-format doesn't erase things, it just "hides" them and says, basically, "this space is now available".
For the future, consider this workflow (this is what works for me and doesn't involve compressor):
Copy your cards to a project folder - store the clips in a folder called something like "raw footage" (I subdivide this folder into "card 1", "card 2", etc. Put the cards aside until you're certain your clips have copied properly.
If you shot anything at 60p (for slowmo), launch cinema tools and batch conform everything. Just takes seconds. Don't bother trying to sort everything out by frame rate. If your edit is at 29.97 and you have a handful of 60p clips, everything will end up at the right frame rate.
Launch MPEG Streamclip. Clip by clip, go ahead and do your most basic cleanup trims, delete anything you don't need - like when you shoot handheld and suddenly there's footage of your feet as you hunt for the LV button. (That's optional, but (a) it's a good first look at your footage and ensures every clip transferred OK, and (b) it can save a few gigs on a large project.) To trim in streamclip: "I" equals in, "O" equals out, and command-t trims. You can fly through this.
When you trim your first clip, open the batch window (command-B), slide it out of the way. Hit command-E for Quicktime export. Choose one of the ProRes flavors (My version doesn't note the difference, but HQ is the second ProRes in the list - I rarely use it). Decide if you want audio (I use uncompressed the rare times I need audio from a canon or D90). If you're downsizing to 720p, add that (with "better downscaling" and UNCHECK INTERLACED SCALING) (See note below). If not, CHOOSE UNSCALED.
You can choose to save (and name) those output settings for future use. If you don't, MP-SC will use those settings for every batched clip unless you change something. (And, if you have a few 720p slowmo clips in there, it will leave those as "unscaled", and revert back to full size for 1080 clips - it understands that "unscaled" doesn't mean you want all clips at 1080, it means "don't scale the clip").
Click "send to batch". Create a new folder, call it "Pro Res" or something. You can just use the same clip name (which helps if you need to go back to a raw clip), or use your scene numbers, whatever - if you leave the clip names the same, you don't have to type a name every time you send to batch - you just hit "OK". Batch all your clips, and click "run batch". Go have a smoke, a scotch, etc. I've yet to find a limit to how many clips you can do. Usually after 20 clips or so, I run the batch as I'm bored silly by then. On my quad core Mac Pro, it processes a little faster than real time (haven't timed it, feels that way though).
Drag your prores clips into your FCP timeline. When your edit is done and you're all happy, you could delete the "raw" folder to save disk space.
Better advice would be to spend like $40 on a Voyager box from macsales.com - you can stick any bare SATA internal drive mechanism in that thing, making it a removable drive. Get a couple cheap HD's in the low hundred gigs, fill 'em up with archived work, print a file list, and stick them back in their foil bags. (and if you get one, keep an eye out for clearance drives in the 200 GB range - big enough for a few projects).
***Note on MPEG Streamclip's downscaling: I do a lot of projects that are "web only" and downscale those at the start. MP SC does a great job, the footage looks less crawly/noisy, etc. Haven't really quantized anything to see if a 720 edit is saving me any time in FCP (well, in AE it sure does, but I tend to send 1080 to AE regardless of final output). I had a "web" commercial do well enough that the client decided to do a cable buy, and the 720 edit looked pretty fab on a big screen.
Hope that helps.
For the future, consider this workflow (this is what works for me and doesn't involve compressor):
Copy your cards to a project folder - store the clips in a folder called something like "raw footage" (I subdivide this folder into "card 1", "card 2", etc. Put the cards aside until you're certain your clips have copied properly.
If you shot anything at 60p (for slowmo), launch cinema tools and batch conform everything. Just takes seconds. Don't bother trying to sort everything out by frame rate. If your edit is at 29.97 and you have a handful of 60p clips, everything will end up at the right frame rate.
Launch MPEG Streamclip. Clip by clip, go ahead and do your most basic cleanup trims, delete anything you don't need - like when you shoot handheld and suddenly there's footage of your feet as you hunt for the LV button. (That's optional, but (a) it's a good first look at your footage and ensures every clip transferred OK, and (b) it can save a few gigs on a large project.) To trim in streamclip: "I" equals in, "O" equals out, and command-t trims. You can fly through this.
When you trim your first clip, open the batch window (command-B), slide it out of the way. Hit command-E for Quicktime export. Choose one of the ProRes flavors (My version doesn't note the difference, but HQ is the second ProRes in the list - I rarely use it). Decide if you want audio (I use uncompressed the rare times I need audio from a canon or D90). If you're downsizing to 720p, add that (with "better downscaling" and UNCHECK INTERLACED SCALING) (See note below). If not, CHOOSE UNSCALED.
You can choose to save (and name) those output settings for future use. If you don't, MP-SC will use those settings for every batched clip unless you change something. (And, if you have a few 720p slowmo clips in there, it will leave those as "unscaled", and revert back to full size for 1080 clips - it understands that "unscaled" doesn't mean you want all clips at 1080, it means "don't scale the clip").
Click "send to batch". Create a new folder, call it "Pro Res" or something. You can just use the same clip name (which helps if you need to go back to a raw clip), or use your scene numbers, whatever - if you leave the clip names the same, you don't have to type a name every time you send to batch - you just hit "OK". Batch all your clips, and click "run batch". Go have a smoke, a scotch, etc. I've yet to find a limit to how many clips you can do. Usually after 20 clips or so, I run the batch as I'm bored silly by then. On my quad core Mac Pro, it processes a little faster than real time (haven't timed it, feels that way though).
Drag your prores clips into your FCP timeline. When your edit is done and you're all happy, you could delete the "raw" folder to save disk space.
Better advice would be to spend like $40 on a Voyager box from macsales.com - you can stick any bare SATA internal drive mechanism in that thing, making it a removable drive. Get a couple cheap HD's in the low hundred gigs, fill 'em up with archived work, print a file list, and stick them back in their foil bags. (and if you get one, keep an eye out for clearance drives in the 200 GB range - big enough for a few projects).
***Note on MPEG Streamclip's downscaling: I do a lot of projects that are "web only" and downscale those at the start. MP SC does a great job, the footage looks less crawly/noisy, etc. Haven't really quantized anything to see if a 720 edit is saving me any time in FCP (well, in AE it sure does, but I tend to send 1080 to AE regardless of final output). I had a "web" commercial do well enough that the client decided to do a cable buy, and the 720 edit looked pretty fab on a big screen.
Hope that helps.
