TOPIC:

Hello everyone,
I find myself in quite a pickle with a large-scale documentary project I'm currently editing. The project involves numerous events associated with various locations, and I'm having a bit of trouble due to the cameras resetting their counter to zero with every new recording or memory card, leading to many instances of duplicated clip names.
Despite having already invested a significant amount of work into the project, I'm repeatedly encountering issues while syncing with my colleague via Postlab, mainly because media files are getting wrongly linked due to these identical filenames.
I've been trying to find a solution that won't disrupt the whole system. At first, I attempted to rename the files in Finder while the library was open. This was successful in some instances but not in others. Re-importing the media afterwards also had varying degrees of success. However, when I chose to merge media, the files were duplicated and restored with their original names, leading to absolute chaos. After quite a struggle, I managed to restore the project to its original state, but this solution isn't satisfying, to say the least.
Starting over with previously renamed files isn't feasible due to the time constraints, especially considering all the favorites, markers, composite clips, and initial edits that are already in place.
I guess my question to you all is, what do you recommend? Should I just accept that there will occasionally be mislinks due to the duplicate filenames, or is there a better solution out there? Maybe a plugin or some kind of workaround that could help with this issue?
Thank you in advance for any advice you might have to offer.
Best, Grischa

Grischa, here are some thoughts (I hope at least one of them is helpful)...

I'd make sure the camera operators configure the cameras, so that any newly captured content use unique filenames. Checking and setting the cameras' date and time is also a good practice before any shooting session. Or, it would be good to review the contents of any camera cards and fix filenames before any media is used in a project. It's a good practice to create a filenaming convention to use for all media at the start of a project, so that non-unique filenames can be avoided.

I'd suggest you contact Hedge and let them know about your issues with PostLab. They may be able to provide a fix for you, or offer some useful advice.

In terms of just moving forward, a less elegant workaround may be to use "transfer Libraries" to share Projects/timelines.

Time spent at the beginning of a project organizing and prepping media, as well as testing post workflows, is never a waste of time...

Dear Dave, thanks for your quick reply. I wouldn't want to blame, PostLab, they're doing a fantastic job. And if only one main library is used, where the media is connected on both machines, very few are the cases that it mismatches. Only when duplicating the library for parallel work, where media has to be connected again, these problems occur. We'll figure it out, thank you!

Yeah, duplicate filenames can bite you when you exchange XML files (and maybe some other situations), so it's not limited to PostLab. "No duplicate filenames" should be the 1st Commandment of NLE Use.

grischa.d wrote:

...I'm having a bit of trouble due to the cameras resetting their counter to zero with every new recording or memory card, leading to many instances of duplicated clip names...

Besides what Dave said, see this thread where this dilemma was discussed at length:

fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/3812...-file-name-solutions

It is absolutely vital to never import media that has duplicate filenames, for the reasons you are experiencing. You actually need filenames that are "globally unique" -- IOW unique within the project, the library, and over all time across all libraries and projects. Unfortunately, this point is not mentioned in the official Apple documentation and is not emphasized in most tutorials I've seen.

It is actually straightforward to avoid the problem by adding an incrementing numeric suffix to each filename as part of file offloading. I believe Hedge will do that automatically if configured for this. The key is it must be done before import to FCP. Regardless of FCP behavior, it should also be done for post-production efficiency and archival management.

Even though duplicate filenames should be stringently avoided, they will not cause problems unless you do certain things. That includes reorganizing physical media to different folders, loading XMLs or copying projects and clips between libraries unless those are contained within a transfer event.

The big problem is once you ingest media with duplicate filenames, it is very difficult and laborious to fix. There is no utility or plugin I know of that does that.

Dear joema, right after Dave's last post, I stumbled upon the thread you mentioned. I should really read this forum more often, even when I don't have a specific problem 🙄

FYI, this post of yours had a significant influence on our workflow: fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/3371...w-suggestions#108930