FCP Offline Reconnection Nightmare
 

How do I reconnect an offline clip in FCP when:

1) the original media has been moved from one hard drive to another?

AND

2) the name of the clip in the browser has been modified and no longer matches the original media file name?

The key is the "check box" in the Relink Offline Media dialog that says something like "Only Media Names that Match" (sorry, not in front of my edit machine right now...) and then you'll have to relink everything manually.

BTW, more recent versions of FCP have increasingly been problematic for me by not recognizing that the clip I'm trying to relink REALLY IS the same clip that it was BEFORE I moved and renamed it. FCP's media management is much lamented.

What Shaun said. Why don't you use Media Manager to create the offline version? It's one of my most useful discoveries of FCP.

Greg- can you talk a little more about this. Media manager is still a little confusing to me. Are you talking about using to move the clips from one location to another instead of moving them around manually?

If the original media capture files still have the same name - which they do - is there ANY way for FCP to find and reconnect them even if I don't recall the name of the original media capture file?

This project represents months of work and all I want is for my footage to get reconnected.

The "reconnect" feature should be able to find the media in the drive to which you direct the search.

Have you tried that and it didn't work?

When you rename a file in the bin, the original file name remains on the capture file. The file path remains the same in FCP. When you do a reconnect, you get a dialog box that among other things tells you the file path ending in the original file name. You can use that name and do a search for it. If that file is in the same folder as other missing files, FCP will connect those as well without ant effort on your part (unless the check box controlling that function is off).

I misread the OP: the name has been changed ONLY IN THE BROWSER. I read that the FILE name had been changed. William is correct.

Mike, I'm no expert on this but my experience has been good in using Media Manager to essentially amalgamate clips from multiple drive sources onto one drive or into one directory. I used this as a way to convert my original project from AIC-based clips to ProRes. As far as reconnecting clips, that function works fine; just click over the clip, press the locate button and uncheck "matched name and reel only". It may complain when reconnecting that the clip doesn't match but for me at least it always works fine

I've had the same experience. It's an anxious process that I try to avoid as much as possible because it often tells you it isn't the same file even if it is and can screw up your renders or worse replace the wrong clip and mess up all your edits. For the most part it works but its nerve racking. Also using media manager to remove footage you're not using in a project is even more dangerous.

Yeah, I've become a "buy more hard drive space" and "manage media manually" guy as a result of my experiences. My only problem now is that I have about ten external FW400 enclosures kicking around here chock full of media since I migrated to ProRes (at 1GB per minute...) from my many years of editing DVCam at 25mbps (my first externals were 80GB and I thought I'd NEVER need more in one enclosure...)

Lesson to be learned: Media Manager can be your friend IF it works. There are varying experiences with FCP's media management systems so ONLY use them on non-mission critical stuff.

I tend towards manual management as well, mostly to throw out client projects that will never come back. The few times I've used Media Manager it has worked but one very complex project that came back after a two year hiatus had a few clips (out of hundreds) that were strangely messed up. Fortunately I had the original tapes and a manual back up on an old computer. To make things simpler for back-up, I usually don't save the render files as these days it doesn't take long to re-render.