Restoring Legacy Archives

In earlier versions of Flame and Smoke, archives did not include all the metadata that the current version needs to restore archives with the correct scan mode and aspect ratio. The Default Resolutions menu makes it possible to assign the scan mode and aspect ratio preferences to older archives. The information you need to assign depends on the software version in which the archive was created. Assign the information using the Default Resolutions menu. Use the following table to determine which information you need to assign to your old archive.

Archived clips prior to: Information you must assign:
Smoke 6.0, Fire® 6.0, Inferno 5.5, Flame 8.5, Flint 8.5, and Backdraft 5.5 Scan mode
Smoke 5.2, Fire 5.2, Inferno 5.0, Flame 8.0, Flint 8.0, and Backdraft 5.0 Scan mode and aspect ratio

The parameters listed in the Default Resolutions menu act as default values for all listed resolutions. For example, if you want to change the default values for PAL clips, you must change the values for the PAL entry, which is the entry that has a width value of 720 and a height value of 576. If you are working with a PAL archive created in an earlier version, the aspect ratio would have automatically been set to 1.3333, but you may want to restore all your PAL archives with 16:9 aspect ratio. You can change this setting by changing the aspect ratio to 16:9 for the PAL entry.

Note: You should only restore an old clip at its original resolution. If you restore versions of the same clip at different resolutions, you may encounter problems with the clip.

To add a default resolution:

  1. In the MediaHub, browse for Archives and click Default Resolutions.

    The Default Resolutions list and menu are displayed.

    (a) Add Resolution box  (b) Apply Changes button  (c) Width and Height fields  

    (d) Aspect Ratio field  (e) Aspect Ratio box  (f) Scan Mode box  (g) Frame rate box  

  2. Add new preferences to correspond to a specific clip resolution contained in the archive that you plan to open.
  3. Click Add Resolution.
  4. Click Apply Changes.

    The new archive preference is added to the list. The next time you restore an archive missing either Scan mode or aspect ratio, Flame Premium knows how to process that material.

Tip: When you decide to open a VTR legacy archive, set the Open Mode box to Open Read Only to keep you from mixing new content with the old.

Pre-2013 Extension 1 Flame Projects

On Flame Reactor configurations, using Project Restore restores every project as a Flame Reactor-enabled project, even if that project did not use Flame Reactor originally (as is that case with every pre-2013 extension 1 projects). Due to differences in rendering engines, you might want to the restored project to use the Classic Engine instead of the newer Flame Reactor.

To switch back to the old Classic Engine:

  1. Quit Flame and restart.
  2. From the Project box, select the restored project.
  3. Click the Edit Project button.
  4. From the Rendering box, select Classic Engine, and then click Done.
  5. Click Start.