Conforming

[hef]

Been working on a lot of spots lately and am wondering if there is a better way to conform the various cutdowns from the main spot. Basically, once i mix a :30 spot - the :15, :10, :05 versions all are cut downs of the :30. I believe there are plugins out there that will speed up this process so i don't have to copy and paste plugin and volume automation from individual regions from the :30 into the cutdowns. Are you people doing it the way I'm doing it (copy and paste) or are you using software that looks at the EDLs and conforms? If so, what is the best software and how well does this work?

[Frank Kruse]

http://www.maggot.co.nz/software/conformalizer.shtml

Works very well.

Traces VFX, load QTs and verify and more...

[hef]

Thanks. In researching, I saw this VirtualKaty. Know anything about that? looks more expensive.

http://www.virtualkaty.com/index.php...d=7&Itemid=154

[minister]

Conformalizer works very well indeed.

However, it needs a copy of the "old" EDL and a copy of the "new" and conforms your session to the changes.

If I understand you correctly, you have 30 spots and you want to do cut-downs of those and not updated versions with a new picture cut. Unless somneone understands something I don't -- which wouldnt be the first time -- Conformalizer will not help you....UNLESS the picture editor gave you a 30 sec spot with an EDL then recut that to 15 and gave you a new EDL. Then it would work. If they simply gave you a 30, 15, 10, 05 etc.... you would have no way to conform the short versions from the 30.

[hef]

Conformalizer works very well indeed.

However, it needs a copy of the "old" EDL and a copy of the "new" and conforms your session to the changes.

If I understand you correctly, you have 30 spots and you want to do cut-downs of those and not updated versions with a new picture cut. Unless somneone understands something I don't -- which wouldnt be the first time -- Conformalizer will not help you....UNLESS the picture editor gave you a 30 sec spot with an EDL then recut that to 15 and gave you a new EDL. Then it would work. If they simply gave you a 30, 15, 10, 05 etc.... you would have no way to conform the short versions from the 30.

yes, you do understand me correctly. However, if i get the EDL from the original 30 along with EDLs from the cutdowns will Conformalizer work?? Also, usually most of the shots in the cutdowns are from the :30 but sometimes there may be one or two shots that are new in the cutdowns. Will this mess it up. Or will it conform the shots that are the same?? I realize a lot of people use this for picture changes in long format and film but I would think this would work in this way as well, no??

[Noiz2]

yes, you do understand me correctly. However, if i get the EDL from the original 30 along with EDLs from the cutdowns will Conformalizer work?? Also, usually most of the shots in the cutdowns are from the :30 but sometimes there may be one or two shots that are new in the cutdowns. Will this mess it up. Or will it conform the shots that are the same?? I realize a lot of people use this for picture changes in long format and film but I would think this would work in this way as well, no??

Yes/ probably. If the editor actually cut the 15 etc with the same clips in the 30 it should work very well. If they have subed out some shots it will leave holes in the conformed session. But you have a lot of interaction if you want and can adjust the ins and outs to fill holes. Also I usually use it in copy mode so the original isn't touched so you can always grab stuff. And I make all the regions in the original either one big region group or a bunch of region groups (DX, MX etc). That way after the conform is done you can pull out the new sliced version to fill holes.

On the other hand if the editor made the "cut down" from different clips, of course it really isn't a cut down anymore but I have seen that happen more than once, then no conforming application will do you much good.

BTW for FCP projects I use the XML rather than the EDL, though either should work.

[Frank Kruse]

Thanks. In researching, I saw this VirtualKaty. Know anything about that? looks more expensive.

http://www.virtualkaty.com/index.php...d=7&Itemid=154

I´ve tried them both.
Things that VK doesn´t allow:

-Doesn´t trace VFX
-You can neither edit the change-EDL or the source EDLs (I hate software that doesn´t let me manually deal with problems but only give me a love-it-or-leave-it-option)
-You can not offset source AND destination TCs in the lists
-You can´t export change-EDLs
-You can´t edit/modify events running your picture along.
-You can´t load old and new QT to verify the changelist before you recut.
-You can not manipulate the lists as flexible as with conformalizer to deal with messed up EDLs from the cutting room.
-You can not load XML-lists from FCP wich saves you a lot of hassle with Editor who have no ideas how to output EDLs in the first place (I guess you might know why this is very handy when dealing with FCP-editors ;-)) )

Best thing: conformalizer also conforms databases like cue-sheets, spotting lists as long as they are in some kind of machine readble format.

Anyway, You might want to demo the two to find out for yourself.

VK-users: I haven´t used Vk for quite a while so please correct me if I´m wrong.

[minister]

If they introduce a new shot, then you get a hole on your PT timeline. No biggie. Get the OMF from the spot with the new shot and put in just that audio.

I would e-mail Justin and ask him, or he may post here any second. He would know.

I have not used VK, so I no advice about that.

[Rick Sanchez]

Hef, interesting idea. I tried conformalizer with a couple of clients. Unfortunately, there were so many picture editors involved with a couple doing the 30 and a couple of others doing the cutdowns that it did not work out very well. Most of the spot editors I've worked with don't know the EDL procedures and are quicktime OMF/AAF uses.

I don't see why it would not work, though with 30 second spot cutdowns, I'm not sure it would save a lot of time.

[The Cargo Cult]

yes,
what they said.

there's normally a conversation when you first work with a particular editor.
explaining the concept is usually the only hurdle. this helps:
http://www.maggot.co.nz/software/letterToEd.shtml

if they can simply export an EDL (or better XML) every time they export the pic file, you'll have the option to conform from any version to any other.
I can see how it really could speed things up even with simple cut downs.
trying to spot all the changes by eye can be time consuming and leaves room for human error.

can't comment on VK.
been a while since I had a look ;-)