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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

FCP: How do you ensure the integrity of your edit?

J

James Press

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We've just completed a 7 hour series and in doing so we discovered a major concern in relation to how we should ensure the integrity of our edits from one version to the next.

We can't keep all the source footage (>1TB) online so we've been using our LTO4 archive/backup to pull files on and off. We hit a problem in one section of our series where reconnecting some media was a nightmare--FCP would say media was offline when it wasn't; it wouldn't connect to the correct media; it would apparently allow us to connect the correct media but on hitting 'connect' nothing would happen. Most alarmingly, it changed some clips completely (what should have been shots from one camera were changed to outtakes from another camera). Anyway, we've 'resolved' the issue by duplicating an earlier version of the sequence and manually reconnecting (in some cases pasting in 'afresh') the correct footage.

But my question is this: How can we ensure that going forward, when we make revisions to the cut, the only changes that occur are the ones we want to make? The fundamental basis of an NLE is to allow a constant connection with ALL the source media, BUT this necessarily means there is a constant risk that the operator and/or FCP itself can (inadvertently) reconnect to the wrong media. Whether or not it's the best, most experienced editor in the world, if FCP allows a connection to exist between a sequence and source material, then even Walter Murch can't be 100% positive that an inadvertent change might not have occurred. Is there some kind of "diff" application that can be run on an EDL, for example, that will identify the changes made between one version of a sequence and the next? Surely Wetter etc have encountered this issue and have systems in place to protect previously edited material from changing?

We would be extremely grateful to hear any suggestions. Surely this is a significant issue??
 
Use Avid?

(Sorry, had to be said.) And I'm a huge fan of Final Cut Pro - but it's media management is light years behind Avids and Apple have had many years to focus on tackling this, and never have.

Very good procedures at your end can help out these situations, but when deciding to edit a series on Final Cut over Avid, you throw yourself in harms way on this front.

Wish I had a better solution to offer - I am hopeful someone may offer something.

Possibly regularly exporting dated XML's rather than relying on Autosaves and backup projects, because XML's can't be re-opened in a writable form by Final Cut and thus can't be as easily corrupted.

There may be some third party software that will do an analysis of xml's looking for changes, or it's possibly something that could be written.
 
Thanks Craig for the constructive input. I'll follow up the XML suggestion. Notwithstanding your (probably completely accurate) thoughts re Avid, FCP exists and people use it, so these issues must have been addressed somehow. Are the Coen brothers out there??
 
Cat DV is a media management tool that many people use in conjunction with Final Cut.

If you are ingesting/logging through Cat DV, and using that to manage your media, and then sending those XML's through to Final Cut, then I'd say you'd have a much more robust system.

However, I am not sure how capable it is with R3D files yet, but I am sure you could run your rushes through it and then into final cut.

Should have mentioned it in the first message - I don't use it myself because until recently most of our series work was done on Avid, but I am definitely considering getting it.
 
something else must be going on - fcp can ofcourse "spot" changes you make from version to version. - could your problems be incorrect logging? - reel name... TC... etc...


EDIT: could also be corrupted project file. A lifesaver that can sometime work is to copy your "sequence" into a new project. If you are running huge project files....
 
Thanks Sid,

Yes have created a new project and was essentially able to solve the micro issue of the confused reconnecting media.

I'm still trying to think of a better way to ensure there are no unwanted changes than viewing the old (previous) version of a cut and the new, revised version side-by-side to manually spot changes...
 
normally when I online - i do the following.

(I always export the sequence as a file for later reference).

The file I then bring back into the project.
Open the sequence I want to check.
Scale the file to fit in the corner.
and press play.

your eyes can then very easily spot changes between the two.
 
Your Mac has the Unix utility diff built in; if you've got some Unix gurus in-house they could probably build you a script using diff to compare XMLs. Thinking about it now, diff is probably not the right answer. Exporting XMLs regularly, and then building an XML parser that simply outputs clip name, file name, Reel no., and TC IN and OUT in two columns would be helpful.

Exporting proxy-quality references as sequences are locked may be a good practice, in conjunction with Sidney's suggestion. This is probably the most re-assuring check and balance to ensure things are doing what they should.

I think the short and general answer is something along the lines of: be diligent with checking things, and have an assistant editor responsible for checking these things do that regularly.

PS. I just noticed that in your post you said that you had more than 1TB of footage, and couldn't keep it all online at one time. I'm going to assume that was a typo - a 1TB hard drive is only about $100, and there are 4TB RAID solutions in the low thousands.
 
Thanks Charles-- some excellent suggestions there.

I am a little surprised though, that there aren't more foolproof systems employed. For example, when the final edit was made to Avatar, did someone have to sit back and compare XMLs (which they could have stuffed up, because nobody's perfect) as well as re watch side-by-side the previous version and the final version (again, which they could stuff up)?

Re the 1TB: we have 2TB of internal RAID5 on our MacPro, and are installing a SAN imminently, so unfortunately it wasn't a typo...
 
James Press said:
For example, when the final edit was made to Avatar, did someone have to sit back and compare XMLs (which they could have stuffed up, because nobody's perfect) as well as re watch side-by-side the previous version and the final version (again, which they could stuff up)?
Click to expand...

Did you notice in the credits they have a complete IT department? They could write such a script during their coffee-break…
 
That's what I mean Uli. Where's the script?:confused1:
 
Versioning is different than change management. Be sure it does what you are looking for.

Michael
 
When this kind of things happen, I recomform using XML with Clipfinder.
 
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