New Color 'loop bug' work-around

[Nick Shaw]

I have found a new workaround for the send to Color 'looping' bug, which I think is an improvement on the EDL approach, although it requires a bit of manual input. Maybe it could be automated in Clipfinder (Hans?)

The method is:

1. Offline using your preferred method - proxies, ProRes from REDrushes, Avid, whatever…

2. When the cut is locked, use Clipfinder (in combination with Automatic Duck if you offlined on Avid) to create an FCP time-line using the _H proxies, and then 'send to Color'.

3. In Color make a list of the shot numbers of the clips with the looping problem (the ones that don't have the issue can be left alone.) This is the manual pencil and paper bit!

4. Close Color and go to the Color project file in the Finder, and 'show package contents'.

5. In the 'Shots' folder in the package open the folders for all the clips in your bug list and open the .si files in a text editor. These files are xml files, so all you need to do is make the following changes:

- Replace "_H" with "_001.R3D" in both "<name>" lines - correction, actually only the first one is necessary

- Change "<ext>.mov</ext>" to "<ext></ext>"

- Change the format line to read "<format>R3D</format>"

6. Grade as normal, then 'send to FCP'.

I personally do the grade at 2k, then use Shake to scale the finished edit to the deliverable size, as I do not find the scaling in Color's geometry room to be of satisfactory quality, but whatever works for you…

I have not tested yet what happens if you re-conform a changed edit in Color, so use at your own risk!

I have just successfully graded a pop promo, which was cut on Avid, using this approach and had no problems. If anybody is interested, you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB_XxaZ_1I0

[Nick Shaw]

I agree it's far from ideal to have to do this kind of thing, but bear in mind you only need to do it for clips which actually cross the span during the shot used in the edit. In the pop promo I mentioned I only had to do it for 6 events in the edit, and virtually all takes spanned multiple R3Ds.

Hopfully Apple will fix the issue some time soon. But given that sending proxies to Color is not an officially aproved method, and Apple have been very slow to fix known bugs in Color before, I'm not holding my breath. Hence the work around for now.

[Birns and Sawyer]

5. In the 'Shots' folder in the package open the folders for all the clips in your bug list and open the .si files in a text editor. These files are xml files, so all you need to do is make the following changes:

- Replace "_H.mov" with "_001.R3D" in both "<name>" lines

- Change "<ext>.mov</ext>" to "<ext></ext>"

- Change the format line to read "<format>R3D</format>"

I'm pretty sure you can use automator or applescript to make a program to do this. Instead of doing that to only the shots with problems, if you're automating the process you can do it to all the shots. I'll give it a shot as this would be a huge help in making the proxy workflow to color doable.

[Charles Angus]

Sounds like an easy applescript.

[Hans-Georg Daun]

I have added a function in Clipfinder for doing this.
It still needs testing, though.
Should be ready in a few days.

Cheers,
Hans

[Nick Shaw]

NOTE: I have made a minor correction in step 5 of my workflow (italicised)

[Nick Shaw]

I already edit with H proxies so the Clipfinder feature that replaces with H proxies is unnecessary for me.

So how will the new version of Clipfinder help exactly?

You will be able to 'send to Color', then run Clipfinder which will 'fix' the Color project so you can grade without getting the looping bug. I am testing an alpha version of Clipfinder which has this feature enabled, and so far it looks good.

[Birns and Sawyer]

Hans,
Thanks for keeping me from having to learn applescript/automator to make this work.

Love your software, it's that perfect helper app. that makes everything else run smoothly.

[Tim Sutherland]

Instead of doing steps 4-5 manually, I was able to use a free program called "TextWrangler" to do a search and replace across multiple files. The trick is to create an alias of the shots file and place it on your desktop so TextWrangler can search through the package contents.

Worked perfectly until the new version of ClipFinder is out.

[digital-omni]

Your the man!