Clipfinder leaving me baffled

[Uli Kunkel]

I have been searching the forums and reading all about how everyone is using Clipfinder in their workflow and how it is a great way to reconnect your edit proxies with the raw r3d media. I understand how this process can be pretty seamless if you generated your proxies in Clipfinder or RedRushes, however, I'm not understanding how this is possible if you imported footage using the Log and Transfer window in Final Cut Pro.

I have a locked cut of a film and I would like to re-link my 2K proxies with the r3d media using the Clipfinder workflow. I exported an XML from my sequence and ran the "Conform" function in Clipfinder. However, it did not find any of the media that it was looking for. I specified all the correct directories and everything.

I suspect that file names could be an issue here. When the media was transcoded, scene, angle, and take information was entered in the log and transfer window, which changes the name of the resulting quicktime from the A000_ filename to the scene, angle, and take information that you specified. It looked like Clipfinder was looking for media in the RDM folders that had the modified names, not the original red media names. Could that be my problem?

Has anyone actually used Clipfinder to re-link to their r3d proxies from the FCP Log and Transfer ProRes proxies? How did you make this work?

Many thanks in advance for your responses.

 

[Hans-Georg Daun]

Hi,

I tried to respond to your PM, but could not, because you have disabled receiving private messages.
Create an XML export file in FCP and mail it to me at the address given in Clipfinder's help pages (CMD-?).
I'll have a look at it to see if and how we can extract the original file names from the XML.

Cheers,
Hans

 

[Uli Plank]

I hope Hans-Georg can help you.

But for the record I' d like to add that it's not such a good idea (and even unnecssary) to rename the original files or folders. You can rename inside FCP and it will keep track of the originals. Plus, there's a very helpful custom fields scheme in Clipfinder that you can translate into FCP fields. Works very well for me.

 

[Uli Kunkel]

Obviously you should not mess with the file names or file structure of the RDM directories. But if the filenames of the quicktimes is such an issue, then why does the Log and Transfer window change the names of them when you choose to enter metadata at the time of transcoding. It seems completely illogical. Now, in Clipfinder, if the custom fields scheme allows the metadata to carry over to FCP (Description/angle/scene/take) without changing the actual file name of the quicktime, then it would appear that that is the way to go.

Someone needs to write a clipfinder white paper like the RED FCS white paper or the Avid Red white paper that clearly outlines the steps in the workflow.

Right now, the option that I most likely will be going with to conform back to r3d for grading will be the Cinema Tools database workflow that uses an EDL to relink back to the r3d via Cinemat Tools.

 

[Uli Kunkel]

For anyone who has Final Cut Pro 7 and is interested in this workflow, it is outlined in the latest Red FCS while paper. I have been using this workflow on a shot-by-shot basis for giving DPX sequences rendered out of Color to compositors.

As of right now, this is also the most viable way for us to online and grade our film with Color linking back to r3ds.