Relinking Media

In Conform, you can easily relink an unlinked sequence that stores the path to the media (display the path by Alt-click the segment). Most AAF, FCP XML, and DLEDL as well as all native sequences do store these file paths.

To relink segments of a sequence to their media:

1. Display the sequence in the Conform tab.
2. Do one of the following:
   • Select Link to Media File from the Set Search Location drop-down menu.
   • Click Link to Media File if the button is already displayed.

Flame Premium relinks all unlinked segments to their media.

To relink a segment to its media:

1. In the Events list, select the unlinked segment that you need to relink.
2. Click one of File Location, File Name, or File Type to select it.
3. Press Enter.

   Flame Premium scans the File Location for files matching the File Name and File Type fields, and displays the result of the scan in the Conform folder.

4. Click Link to Media File to relink the segment to the file.

Available Options

Limit Handles

Enable Limit Handles when using Link to Media Files to limit the amount of relinked handles, performing a consolidate on relinking. And if you ever need to access more than the consolidated handles, unlink the segment, disable Limit Handles, and click Link to Media Files: the full media is now relinked to the segment.

Save Sources

Enable Save Sources to save a copy of the source in the Sources reel. The source saved is what is relinked to the segment and thus respects the Limit Handles setting.

Tip: When you import a sequence (AAF, FCP, XML), consolidate the handles on import, and enable Cache Source Media to improve performance. When you need the original full-resolution media, or the media with the discarded handles, unlink the sequence, and then relink using the previous procedure. Every segment is now restored to the full-resolution, not cached, original media.

Multi-Channels and Relinking

You can relink content to multi-channel clips (OpenEXR or Photoshop .psd) using Conform. The procedure below is useful if your sequence contains segments using for source a layer of a multi-channel clip. It is still applicable, but somewhat less useful, for alphas; in this case you should look into Conforming with Matte Containers.

Tip: Alt-click the clip or segment to display the path to its media.

If the media of the unlinked OpenEXR or .psd is at the location specified by the clip:

1. Open the clip as a sequence.
2. Click the Conform tab.
3. Select the segment to relink.
4. Click Link to Media File.

   The segment is now relinked to its media.

If the media of the unlinked OpenEXR or .psd is at a location differing from the one specified by the clip:

1. Open the clip as a sequence.
2. Click the Conform tab.
3. Set only File Name as Match Criteria.
4. Click Set Search Location to locate the media files.

   Make sure that the Clip Options is set to Include Alpha Clip so Conform also finds the different channels in the media files.

   Note: In previous releases, you had to use both Filename and Name to be able to find the media file: it is no longer the case. You can still use Name for advanced matching but it is no longer required for standard filenames Conform.
5. Once you have located the files, click Set.

   You can now proceed with matching sources and segments as usual.

Conforming With Matte Clips

You can promote a segment to an RGBA matte container when conforming. This allows you to keep comp information in your conformed sequence.

When importing a sequence—EDL, AAF and FCP XML— make sure to:

• Set, in the MediaHub, General > Clip Options > Alpha Channel Processing to Create Matte Container: every segment referencing an RGBA media file is promoted to matte container that contains one RGB track and one alpha track.
• Select only the File Name match criteria in the Conform tab, or Flame Premium cannot conform the RGBA content.

Note:

• When importing an FCP XML sequence, all content created from Photoshop .psd layers is conformed as a matte container.
• The contents in Final Cut Pro should have been imported and the segment needs to use the layer name for clip name. If the clip name is derived from the PSD media file, the match will be done using the flat PSD layer.

To relink a segment to RGBA material and promoting that segment to a matte container:

1. In the Conform tab, click Set Search Location.
2. In the Set Directory, set the Alpha Channel Processing box to one of the following:
   • Include Alpha Clip: This imports RGB and alpha channels as separate clips. This means that in the Conform list, paired clips (RGB clip + its alpha) are displayed as a Multiple, yellow, entry.
   • Create Matte Container: This creates a Matte Container for the clip. And segments referencing linked clips will be promoted to Matte Containers when matched.
   • Ignore Alpha Channel: Only the RGB part of the media are used to create the clip, and the conform sequence shows a regular (non-container) segment.
3. Once you have located the files, click Set.

   You can now proceed with matching sources and segments as usual.

Note: Note that if a segment is already an matte container, using the Create Matte Container will effectively create a matte container within that original matte container. Select the Include Alpha Clip and Flame Premium will automatically assign the correct channel to each of the matte container tracks.

Working with Path Translation

When you import an AAF or an FCP XML file with Link to Media Files enabled, Flame Premium tries to reconnect to the sources using the paths defined within. But if you are working in a collaborative environment where multiple OSes are used with varying volume mountpoints, or using a dead drop, you will run in cases where the path in the imported sequence cannot be resolved by Flame Premium. Most common case is with an AAF produced on a Mac OS X, where external volumes are mounted under /Volumes/, while on Linux, such volumes can be mounted on any point. This is where path translation comes in, allowing you to convert a path from one format into another. Once path translation is set up, linking and relinking to sources should be seamless.

Note: This mechanism is similar to Lustre's Path Translation functionality.

You set up the path translation in a configuration file, where you define pairs of paths.

To set a path translation pair:

1. Close Flame Premium.
2. Open a shell window.
3. As root, open the following file in a text editor:

   /usr/discreet/cfg/pathTranslation.cfg

4. Define a Source path and a Destination.

   For example, we need Flame to search media files that was seen from a an offlining Mac at /Volumes/SAN, but seen from the conforming Linux workstation at /ProductionSAN:

   • <PathTranslationTable>
   • <PathTranslation src="/Volumes/SAN" dst="/ProductionSAN" />
   • </PathTranslationTable>
5. Save and close the file.
6. Restart Wiretap Gateway using the ServiceMonitor.
   1. In the shell, type: ServiceMonitor
   2. In the ServiceMonitor window, click Restart next to Wiretap Gateway.

Flame Premium will now translate any source path found in pathTranslation.cfg into its paired destination path when you import a sequence or use Link To Media File in Conform.