Field Recorder Matching - Entire Track?

[YMAaron]

Hey Guys,

I've only ever been able to get field recorder guide track matching clip by clip which is very time consuming!

Reading the PT Reference Guide it appears that Clip by Clip is the way to go:

In the Timeline, make a selection that includes or overlaps the clip or portion of the clip you want to replace.
To replace a clip with a matching field recorder channel:
3 From the Matching Field Recorder Channels pop-up menu, select the name of the matching clip that you want to use to replace the original clip.
You can hold Command-option (Mac) or Control-alt (Windows) and use the up and down arrow keys to step through the list of available matches for the selection.
The first time you open the Matching Field Recorder Channels menu for a certain clip, Pro Tools must search for matching chan- nels, and displays “Searching for metadata in the background.” Close and open the menu again once the search is complete to see the found matches.
If the production sound mixer entered the channel name (or some other descriptive reference) during shooting, the Matching Field Recorder Channels pop-up menu dis- plays this information.
4 Repeat this procedure for every clip you want to replace on each track.


Yet in this video at 4minutes in he does EXACTLY what I want to do. . .expand the entire dialogue track down so that I can quickly go through every clip and keep what I need.

Does anyone know if this was cancelled - or I'm just not getting the right files from the video editor?

Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz9e9LuIdXU

[Serge Perron]

Originally Posted by YMAaron

Hey Guys,

I've only ever been able to get field recorder guide track matching clip by clip which is very time consuming!

Reading the PT Reference Guide it appears that Clip by Clip is the way to go:

In the Timeline, make a selection that includes or overlaps the clip or portion of the clip you want to replace.
To replace a clip with a matching field recorder channel:
3 From the Matching Field Recorder Channels pop-up menu, select the name of the matching clip that you want to use to replace the original clip.
You can hold Command-option (Mac) or Control-alt (Windows) and use the up and down arrow keys to step through the list of available matches for the selection.
The first time you open the Matching Field Recorder Channels menu for a certain clip, Pro Tools must search for matching chan- nels, and displays “Searching for metadata in the background.” Close and open the menu again once the search is complete to see the found matches.
If the production sound mixer entered the channel name (or some other descriptive reference) during shooting, the Matching Field Recorder Channels pop-up menu dis- plays this information.
4 Repeat this procedure for every clip you want to replace on each track.


Yet in this video at 4minutes in he does EXACTLY what I want to do. . .expand the entire dialogue track down so that I can quickly go through every clip and keep what I need.

Does anyone know if this was cancelled - or I'm just not getting the right files from the video editor?

Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz9e9LuIdXU

YMAaron,

That YouTube video is from 2011. I don't know about PT 8 or 9HD, but the procedures shown in the video differ from those for PT10HD and higher.

The significant initial step not shown in the video is to designate the guide track(s) from the video editor as Field Recorder Guide Track by right-clicking on the track name and selecting the option from the menu. Also, you do not have to import the field recorder polywave files in the region bin, they can remain in a Production Sound Rolls folder. Once the track is designated as Field Recorder Guide Track you will be able to select the areas to search by right-clicking the track name a second time.

You should be able to verify if the files you received from the editor have the metadata if you display that information for each clip, as explained in the video (View Menu/Clip Submenu). You should set up to display channel name, scene and take and original time stamp. In order for the matching to work, at least the Original Time Stamp on the guide track clips should be present. The matching will much better if more metadata was preserved, such as the Sound Roll number or Scene and Take.

Be aware that, even if you are able to use this technique, the process will give you some false positive matches in addition to positive matches because Pro Tools will search in the session folder and duplicate clips from the field recorder guides on new tracks simply because they match the search criteria by definition.

[YMAaron]

Originally Posted by Serge Perron

YMAaron,

That YouTube video is from 2011. I don't know about PT 8 or 9HD, but the procedures shown in the video differ from those for PT10HD and higher.

The significant initial step not shown in the video is to designate the guide track(s) from the video editor as Field Recorder Guide Track by right-clicking on the track name and selecting the option from the menu. Also, you do not have to import the field recorder polywave files in the region bin, they can remain in a Production Sound Rolls folder. Once the track is designated as Field Recorder Guide Track you will be able to select the areas to search by right-clicking the track name a second time.

You should be able to verify if the files you received from the editor have the metadata if you display that information for each clip, as explained in the video (View Menu/Clip Submenu). You should set up to display channel name, scene and take and original time stamp. In order for the matching to work, at least the Original Time Stamp on the guide track clips should be present. The matching will much better if more metadata was preserved, such as the Sound Roll number or Scene and Take.

Be aware that, even if you are able to use this technique, the process will give you some false positive matches in addition to positive matches because Pro Tools will search in the session folder and duplicate clips from the field recorder guides on new tracks simply because they match the search criteria by definition.

Thanks for your answer, Serge. As It stands I have to do it clip by clip for some reason . . .so I've to click through every region (or clip as they're called now) and get the matched polywav files. I can't just highlight a whole track of dialogue (100's of clips) and have it drop the polywav files below as shown in the video. I'll follow your exact instructions and see if it's different from what I'm currently doing.

Thanks again.

[Serge Perron]

Originally Posted by YMAaron

Thanks for your answer, Serge. As It stands I have to do it clip by clip for some reason . . .so I've to click through every region (or clip as they're called now) and get the matched polywav files. I can't just highlight a whole track of dialogue (100's of clips) and have it drop the polywav files below as shown in the video.

I'm not sure what sources you were given, but you really should not have to do it clip by clip, no matter which version of Pro Tools HD you have. The youtube video is obsolete, but even in the video, he does not highlight the whole track to import the matching polywaves. He right-clicks on the field recorder guide track name and selects "match by search criteria" in the contextual menu. No clips are highlighted in the track. Also, in 10HD you don't have to first import the polywaves to the clip bin and split into mono before matching. The polywavs will be imported during the matching process and do not have to be split.

I'll follow your exact instructions and see if it's different from what I'm currently doing.

My instructions weren't exactly thorough. Follow the PT Reference Guide steps and it should work. Good Luck!

[Frank Kruse]

Are you talking about the "expand to track" feature? Has been in PT for many years. That will match an entire track or all selected tracks to new tracks.

frank.