Relinking Audio Files

Ok,

I have an edit that references some .wav files with bad audio. I'm sending originals to a sound guy to fix in Pro Tools. When he sends me the fixed files back, FCPX says the won't relink...the only difference I can detect in the files, is that FCPX declares there to be a Media Start and Media End, timestamp, and Pro Tools does not see that, so the files I get back start at 00:00:00:00, and will not relink, because the original files had something like 03:53:50:00 as starting or ending timecode.

I've come across some reading that says FCPX creates these starting and ending timecodes based on the creation timestamp associated with the files...

Any thoughts?

Import the new fixed ones, do Replace Edits, delete the bad originals if you want to, or keyword them and the fixed new copies to keep them separated in the Libraries pane. But no, if there isn't the correct data FCPX relies on, Relink won't cut it.

What has me stumped, is where is FCPX getting this "media start" and "media end" stuff...are they the time of day the recordings were made? They always end in :00, so it is not a frame based thing...seems like timestamps, and the fact that this is what is breaking a relink is incredibly frustrating. Because they don't include frames, they don't match up to the Duration So if someone changes the starting timecode in ProTools, they are generally going to end up with an incorrect ending timecode, even though the duration is correct.

Incredibly stupid. This is the straw that may break FCPX's back for me. Just so needlessly dumb.

Um, how do you know it is media start and end data?

Is the file you got back the same codec/format and name as the one you sent the audio guy?

Media start and end will be In/Out points, which are the start and end of the whole clip by default. I've never had this to be the cause of a Relink to not work.

The reason a Relink won't work is format/codec/name issues.

I'm dealing specifically with some .wav files recorded on a Zoom for this. I know it's the problem by process of elimination. Made sure, file type, bit rate, audio channel arrangement, etc.. all matched. The only info I could find that was different was Media Start and Media End.

I asked my ProTools guy to force the starting timecode to match what FCP was telling me. He did, but then the issue was the ending timecode. The starting timecode + the duration, did not = the ending timecode. That's because there was no frame count at the end of FCP's "timecode", it just always rounds to :00 (like a clock). So, the end timecode of the file was one frame (:59) short of the "End Timecode" (:00) that FCP showed. We added one frame of tone to the end, and voila, it imported no problem.

FCP, for no discernible reason, is forcing the time of day to be used as a source for timecode, and this one element is what is breaking the ability to relink to a file, once it is cleaned by ProTools.

Because I was dealing with files that I had already edited into a piece as part of a multicam, I went in and added new angles to the multicams, and then had to select the new angle as the audio source for every edit in the sequence.

So very, very unnecessary.

I agree, relinking can be very strange in FCPX. There should be a way to override its very stringent specs. It should be able to relink a clip that originally had audio with a clip that doesn't. Any audio that was on the timeline should just show up as blank.

Yes. Forcing linking in FCP7 was great.

This particular issue with Audio timecode is just senseless. After carefully doing everything to make sure FCP didn't see a discrepancy between the files, it turns out FCP is making up timecode where there is no timecode, and because of that, it won't play nice.

Bah.