16 bit 4 ch mono changed to 32 bit float 4ch mono...

I often cut projects and move on… occasionally, clients come back, want some changes and wish to re-purpose their material. Such is the case with three separate projects for us, right now.

The MXF files in these projects are showing up “offline” in my Premiere projects (CS3 3.2 update, Matrox Axio LE 3.6, Win XP SP3 Dual core). These are XDCAM HD clips copied to the system as files. The audio is still there, meaning AFTER conforming, it will play in the time line, but there is no video, only the red “offline” screen (in terms of picture/video). I'm getting the "Media Offline" icon in the source and program viewers and the timeline icon.

All of the clips say "Offline - Media Type Mismatch" in the Project window Status column. This has suddenly appeared on clips in multiple projects. After some investigation on my part… I do understand the media type mismatch! The ORIGINAL clips were imported at 16 bit, 4 channel mono audio. In fact, the clips are STILL on my RAID, and if I “import’ a clip as a second instance of itself, that’s how it shows up in the project window. The clips are allowed to be placed into the timeline and playback fine. THE OFFLINE CLIPS: are appearing as “32 bit float, 4 channel mono” clips. That’s the problem. The crazy thing is that the audio will play on the timeline, even though there’s no video…. So I imagine Premiere is confused as to where the conformed audio files have gone, or whether they should exist at all. Is there any easy way to undo this (if in fact this is my problem)?

The project window shows the double arrow "offline" icons for the MXF files. The clips will not relink (You can select a source during the relink process, but nothing happens). "Interpret Footage" is greyed out.

The original clip(s) can be reimported into the project and will play fine, but of course they are not placed correctly on the timeline. (they do play if I add them into an "open" spot in the timeline...) I’ve also tried “replace clip with time code” with another instance of the same clip and that doesn’t seem to “match” in terms of time code….

How can I tell Premiere that the clips are actually 16-bit? I KNOW that when I used to cut AVID, the NLE would allow the editor to change clip attributes at any time… (This is one thing I’ve always HATED about Premiere! Say for example you only capture V1, A1… you meant to grab both channels… if you unlink the media and rebatch digitize, there is no way, that I know of to change that clips attributes to now include ch 2 when it captures the media for that clip…) Is the info Premiere uses to retain clip properties contained in the MXF file metadata, in the Premiere MCDB file in the media cache database, or in the project file?

Very weird how this happened all of the sudden to all my projects. I've tried everything I can think of - opening up auto-save projects, importing into a new project, etc. Nothing works. HELP!!!

I know I'm not alone, as I checked the Adobe Forums and found the same problems for others there... no solutions...

Thanks for any assistance you might be willing to give.



Regards,