"Send to FCP" Issue
by Michael Walz
on
Jan 30, 2008 at 6:56:17 pm
Hi everyone -
First, let me say that I love this forum. Every time I hit a brick-wall with a tech problem, I always find my solution on one of these threads. This is the first time I haven't found a solution on an existing thread, so here I am.
I am editing a rather long project in FCP6 (a 4 hour corporate video - not as bad as it seems, it averages only 3-4 cuts per minute). I broke the sequence into 20 minute Color-friendly segments. I sent the first segment to Color, graded it, and successfully sent it back to FCP (using "Send to > Final Cut Pro"). All was good.
Then I sent the second segment to Color, graded it, and tried sending it back to FCP, again using "Send to > FCP". FCP appeared, "Importing XML Data" appeared, but no new sequence (with "from Color" at the end of the filename) showed up in the browser. No error messages, no crashing, no nothing.
I tried it several times, then tried it with the third 20 minute segment, no luck. Then out of curiosity I deleted the first "from Color" segment - the one that worked - and tried resending it from Color. Guess what - it didn't work!
In all cases, the render files are in my render folder, as they should be.
Some things I've tried already:
(1) In the original edited sequences in FCP, I have several still images along with the footage. These show up in Color as nonsensical garbage, but I ignore them (no grading, no rendering). Color warns me, "not all of your clips are rendered, continue?" (meaning the stills, I assume). I say yes. It warns me again, ""the unrendered media will link to the original media in your final cut pro timeline". I say ok. In the first segment, after sending back to FCP, the stills showed up along with the color graded footage and everything was fine. I thought perhaps this was the problem in the other segments, so I duplicated the edited sequence in FCP, removing the stills, sent it to Color, imported the color corrections, and tried sending back to FCP. Same thing happened - it looked like FCP was importing the XML, but then no new sequence showed up in the Browser.
(2) I also tried exporting the XML in Color (File > Export > XML), then importing it into the FCP project. Same thing again - no new "from Color" sequence.
From what I've read, I could possibly just take the rendered color graded clips and reassemble in FCP, and that wouldn't be the end of the world since there are only 3-4 cuts per minute, but still.... the darn thing should work, y'know?
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by JP Owens on Jan 30, 2008 at 8:00:14 pm
When you say you broke the sequence up into "segments", what does that mean, exactly? Are they new sequences? I'm looking for reasons that the XML would fail, and there are some issues with the name/date/originality of XML export that might contribute to ambiguities that a "Return to FCP" would run afoul of. Having the first "segment" work, then corrupt as you sent the next ones through makes me suspect that there is too much in common between them in terms of primary name and genealogy to differentiate them.
I have not encountered anything like this, but my "acts" are composed of new sequences -- I dunno, building a new project for each 'segment" would be too extreme. But I think if you're trying to export only a portion of a sequence, then trying to establish a new COLOR project with a different part of the same sequence, that would yield some serious XML difficulties.
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by Michael Walz on Jan 30, 2008 at 8:49:19 pm
Hi JP -
[JP Owens]"When you say you broke the sequence up into "segments", what does that mean, exactly?"
My 'segments' are new sequences, all contained within the original project. For example, I originally had an FCP sequence that was about 60 minutes, then I literally copied and pasted the first 20min into a new sequence, then the second 20min into another new sequence, etc. So I have the original 60min sequence, plus 3 new 20min sequences.
[JP Owens]"Having the first "segment" work, then corrupt as you sent the next ones through makes me suspect that there is too much in common between them in terms of primary name and genealogy to differentiate them. "
This was a 2-cam shoot, which was captured in one big clip for each cam. So I edited this by placing, for instance, Cam1.mov and Cam2.mov on the timeline, synched along with a separate AIFF audio source. So the clips on the timeline are, basically, Cam1.mov followed by Cam2.mov, then Cam1.mov again, and so on. And this happens in each of the 20min sequences. So perhaps XML doesn't like that?
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by walter biscardi on Jan 30, 2008 at 8:38:09 pm
[Michael Walz]"I broke the sequence into 20 minute Color-friendly segments. I sent the first segment to Color, graded it, and successfully sent it back to FCP (using "Send to > Final Cut Pro"). All was good."
Do you mean you copied and pasted each segment into its own Sequence? This would be the preferred method for doing this.
Also, remove all the stills from your SEquences before they go to Color.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by walter biscardi on Jan 30, 2008 at 9:35:59 pm
[Michael Walz]"Yep, it is 1.0.2."
Well then the only other thing to ask is whether or not these are very long clips. Such as did you capture entire 30 or 60 minute tapes and then edit those into the timeline? Color really doesn't do well with long clips like that.
So even though you would have edited your timeline, Color is still going to access the original 30 or 60 minute clip as you grade and that causes all sorts of issues on the round trip.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by Michael Walz on Jan 30, 2008 at 9:56:39 pm
[walter biscardi]"Well then the only other thing to ask is whether or not these are very long clips. Such as did you capture entire 30 or 60 minute tapes and then edit those into the timeline? Color really doesn't do well with long clips like that. "
That pretty much was my process, yeah.
[walter biscardi]"So even though you would have edited your timeline, Color is still going to access the original 30 or 60 minute clip as you grade and that causes all sorts of issues on the round trip."
Sounds like this could be the culprit. For some reason I didn't realize that Color would be accessing the original big clips, or at least I didn't realize that it would have issues with them.
I have a feeling I'll just end up dropping the rendered color graded clips into the timeline. It won't be too painful... unless someone knows a reason why that wouldn't work?
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by walter biscardi on Jan 30, 2008 at 10:02:58 pm
[Michael Walz]"I have a feeling I'll just end up dropping the rendered color graded clips into the timeline. It won't be too painful... unless someone knows a reason why that wouldn't work?"
That will work perfectly fine. If you look at Color's timeline, you'll note that all of the shots are numbered 1 through whatever to the end of the timeline. When you open the Color Rendered folder, you'll find the same numbering system and you can pull all of the shots into your timeline.
This is annoying, but it can work.
Color was originally designed for feature films so you're expected to only be pulling in take by take, not entire reel by reel. So you need to keep your shots compact and tight, rather than long rolls of tape to work with this app.
You should look at Magic Bullet's Colorista for projects like this in the future. Works just like FCP's 3 Way CC only much cleaner and only $99.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by Michael Walz on Jan 30, 2008 at 10:23:13 pm
[walter biscardi]"That will work perfectly fine. If you look at Color's timeline, you'll note that all of the shots are numbered 1 through whatever to the end of the timeline. When you open the Color Rendered folder, you'll find the same numbering system and you can pull all of the shots into your timeline. "
Sounds good to me.
[walter biscardi]"You should look at Magic Bullet's Colorista for projects like this in the future. Works just like FCP's 3 Way CC only much cleaner and only $99."
I'll look into it, thanks. For all of Color's issues, all in all I am really satisfied with how powerful it is. I'm happier with Color's results more so than when I attempted color correcting using the 3-Way in FCP. I'll keep Colorista in mind though.
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by walter biscardi on Jan 30, 2008 at 10:37:37 pm
[Michael Walz]"For all of Color's issues, all in all I am really satisfied with how powerful it is. I'm happier with Color's results more so than when I attempted color correcting using the 3-Way in FCP."
No doubt, Color is just the best CC tool on the Mac platform and your results will be much better than anything in FCP. But for your workflow I just wanted to suggest Colorista as it does not have the issues with long clips.
[Michael Walz]"
Thanks Walter (and JP)!"
Our pleasure, have fun and be sure to come back with anything else we can help you with!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: "Send to FCP" Issue by JP Owens on Jan 30, 2008 at 11:09:36 pm
Sorry, had to go away and actually do some work for a change, and maybe I'm just getting "used to it" or something but it was an agency-attended session and everything went as advertised. COLOR/FCP played nice with each other and gold stars all around. Smooth as.... well,... something really smooth.
On these mega clips, if you've got the space, maybe a Media Manage... make independent clips.. would be helpful (of course BEFORE) the COLOR session. Most of the problems that people have with COLOR is the I/O. As Walter stated, the app was originally designed as a low-cost entree to the DI market and really wants a V1 .cin (.dpx)-sequential stream. That is its optimized envisioned target source media type. Big long quicktimes? Maybe a bit reluctant.
Often advised from the past (brute force reassembling raw from the render directories) was not that difficult because of the sequential numbering (again, see the preferred source type-- numbered sequential frames?) remembering of course that clips up on V2, etc., are re-numbered from the last one on V1, and so on.
