I was hoping for a little guidance here...

We're getting ready to finish a large project with about 120 individual sequences.  The media has all been captured across 3 Avid projects.

For finishing, all the sequences are in one project and one bin in that project.  This project has been going on for a while...

I'd like to know the "best" way to dump (delete) ALL rendered media from the three projects EXCEPT for what is actively used in that final bin of finished pieces.

How do I do this?

I have some understanding of the Media Tool, but my concern is that Avid calls all the rendered stuff "pre-computes" which also includes any graphics or video with alpha channels you imported.  There's tons of imported stuff that I don't want to lose... I only want to delete the stuff that that has been rendered, and then rendered again, and again... and so on.

What are the steps to take a bin of finished sequences and delete all rendered media NOT in those sequences (and NOT lose all your imported graphics in other bins)?

Thanks!

There are two functions: "show media relatives" and then "reverse selection" to indicate items NOT related to the sequence or sequences, but it's designed to work within the context of a single project. Since, if I understand it correctly, any of the sequences you have could have media strung out across three separate projects, there in lies the problem.

But, since you have created another (4th?) project and parked all the finished sequences there, you could consolidate those sequences inside the 4th project, so the .new media clips will be linked to the 4th project. Only the finished pre-compute files will be created when consolidating. Then you could safely use the media tool to delete projects 1 through 3, leaving ONLY the media associated with those finished sequences in project 4 remaining on the system. Obviously, I'm assuming you have enough drive capacity to take on the extra load of consolidated media until you are in a position to delete the three original projects.

But, I must ask: 

mjc:

There's tons of imported stuff that I don't want to lose...

What is this "tons of imported stuff"? Additional matte key elements not necessarily in any of those timelines? That becomes a problem...

First, moving forward, always import your graphics into a uniquely named project.  That way, when you launch Media Tool, and choose Current Project, those items will not even be displayed.

Second, the imported graphics are only at risk if they are not yet used in a Sequence.  If they are used, then they will be considered "Relative", and will not be at risk during the selection/reversal process.

You could start Media Tool, choosing "All Projects", and choose Precomputes.  Sort on Project, to locate your 3 projects.  Then, copy all the items for those 3 projects into a temp Bin.  You'll should "Set Bin Display", and check "Rendered Effects" first.  This will eliminate an error about them not being visable, and also allow you to see them.  Next, highlight each Sequence, and choose "Select Media Relatives".  You should see items highlighted in the temp Bin.  Do this for each Sequence, as the results will be additive.  When all Sequences have been done, you should see (highlighted) every Precompute connected to (Relative to) your Sequences.  Choose "Reverse Selection in the temp Bin to highlight those items not Relative.  You might want to copy just these into yet another temp Bin, for the next suggestion.

At this point, almost everything that was highlighted, and now copied into temp Bin #2, is not needed.  The only graphics at risk are those not included in "any" of your Sequences.  Since imported graphics usually have an identical Duration, e.g., 10 Seconds, you may be able to spot them by looking at their Durations.  You could sort on Duration, to see what you can identify.  Move any you find out, and what's left should be safe to delete.  Um, good luck.

(Insert disclaimer here)

Thanks guys... I'll be getting into this a little bit later this morning...


To answer the question about the method behind all this... It works like this:



This is an ongoing project that is continually updated.  There are two distinct ways we come by the media:

1.) Original Media we create including video and graphics

2.) Media provided to us by the studio (client)


Those are projects 1 & 2 related to this job.  We capture the media into either the "Client" Media Project or the "Original Media Project.  The 3rd project is the editorial project.  This is where we create all the sequences, work-cuts, pre-online/decompose, and final master sequences.



The video and graphics we import are part of the overall project.  There are lower 3rds for sequences yet to be cut.  There are graphic elements and assets that are part of the creative editing process (which not everyone has been used in a sequence to date), there are logos and graphics for current and future use.


I'll go through the steps you both outlined to see if I can figure out the best workflow.  It is a little frustrating that the Avid doesn't differentiate renders from imports though.  That would make it almost a no brainer... I'd just dump all renders and re-render everything again overnight or something.

I'll let you know how it goes... Thanks again!

"... It is a little frustrating that the Avid doesn't differentiate renders from imports though ..."

Exactly.

Randall L Rike:

"... It is a little frustrating that the Avid doesn't differentiate renders from imports (and title clips, too) though ..."

Exactly.

Agreed as well, including title clips. Perhaps a new features request?

Randall L Rike:

First, moving forward, always import your graphics into a uniquely named project.  That way, when you launch Media Tool, and choose Current Project, those items will not even be displayed.

Second, the imported graphics are only at risk if they are not yet used in a Sequence.  If they are used, then they will be considered "Relative", and will not be at risk during the selection/reversal process.

You could start Media Tool, choosing "All Projects", and choose Master Clips & Precomputes.  Sort on Project, to locate your 3 projects.  Then, copy all the items for those 3 projects into a temp Bin.  You'll should "Set Bin Display", and check "Rendered Effects" first.  This will eliminate an error about them not being visable, and also allow you to see them.  Next, highlight each Sequence, and choose "Select Media Relatives".  You should see items highlighted in the temp Bin.  Do this for each Sequence, as the results will be additive.  When all Sequences have been done, you should see (highlighted) every Master Clip and Precompute connected to (Relative to) your Sequences.  Choose "Reverse Selection in the temp Bin to highlight those items not Relative.  You might want to copy just these into yet another temp Bin, for the next suggestion.

At this point, almost everything that was highlighted, and now copied into temp Bin #2, is not needed.  The only graphics at risk are those not included in "any" of your Sequences.  Since imported graphics usually have an identical Duration, e.g., 10 Seconds, you may be able to spot them by looking at their Durations.  You could sort on Duration, to see what you can identify.  Move any you find out, and what's left should be safe to delete.  Um, good luck.

(Insert disclaimer here)

Thanks very much Randall... I have yet to pull the trigger on the delete...  I went step by step through your above process, with one exception.  Instead of selecting MASTER CLIPS and PRECOMPUTES I only selected precomputes to show in the Media Tool.

Since I only want to remove renders and no sources, I figured there was no reason to include Master Clips.  Am I thinking about this wrong?  Are renders also not differentiated in the media too from master clips?

I'm going to re-do now and add master clips from the start to see where that gets me... But I was just a little confused as to why I'd bother with "master" clips when I only want to delete renders.

Although, in the end, I did noticed that I had no Durations next to the precomputes(renders) so maybe having master clips from the start will change that?

...still figuring this out.  Thanks for any more tips!

Randall's offline at the moment, but you are absolutely right. You should only delete the rendered pre-computes, not the master clips. You would then wind up with orphaned media files.

Yes ... good catch.  I have edited my original post for clarity.

Yeah... I figured that... I looked at the stuff and while it wasn't used in the sequences, it was still needed for future use...

However... I'm still left with no discernible way to differentiate the rendered material from:

1.) imported images with alpha

2.) imported video with alpha

3.) possibly some other non-rendered media that Avid calls pre-computes...

I say this because I can't even use the method of viewing the stuff by duration... precomputes don't show you durations... You also cannot simply view them in the source monitor to see what they are... 

Also the duration trick wouldn't be that effective anyway since the imported video with alpha channels don't have standard durations.

So, the way I see it, I have to keep OLD renders on my system taking up space indefinitely unless I'm willing to have to constantly re-locate and re-batch import files.

I guess, in the future, I'll have an "import only" project... That will be a bit of a pain to switch projects everytime I want to import something.

There is one way to display rendered effects only. In the bin fast menu, go to "set bin display..." and then in the next pop-up, highlight ONLY "rendered effects". Try this with the bin you say has all the finished sequences in it.

"... You also cannot simply view them in the source monitor to see what they are ..."

From FEINCUT" ...

Open the console, under Tools.  Put "subsys monpane debug" into the console..hit enter. (After quitting the program, you need to to enter it again, if you need it.)  This command overrides the "precomputes can't be loaded into monitors" message you get when matchframing rendered effects from the timeline, or trying to load renders or sources from a bin.

Randall L Rike:

"... You also cannot simply view them in the source monitor to see what they are ..."

From FEINCUT" ...

Open the console, under Tools.  Put "subsys monpane debug" into the console..hit enter. (After quitting the program, you need to to enter it again, if you need it.)  This command overrides the "precomputes can't be loaded into monitors" message you get when matchframing rendered effects from the timeline, or trying to load renders or sources from a bin.

Neat little trick! 

I think I got it worked out... Visually I could be pretty certain about most everything... So I went ahead and deleted.  It isn't like I'd be screwed if an import gets lost... The original files can still be imported... but I found a bulk of them that I didn't want to delete and saved those. 

It just seems like such an obvious thing that you'd want to get rid superseded renders (precomputes) but NOT necesarily titles or alpha channel imports of images or video.

Going forward I'll either try importing everything into a project SOLEY for importing... or maybe just be really anal about what volumes I (and the other editors) render to.

Cool Console trick!  I can't wait to try that one.

I don't know if anyone suggested this already, but you can tell the difference between import pre-comps and render-precomps by looking directly in the mediafiles folder.

The render precomps will take on part of the name of the sequence, where the import and title media will take the name of the clips.

It would be nice to be able to make this distinction IN AVID.

Flicmaker