Long time issue finding audio files from timeline on disk

[dgdsu]

Well, basically we talk about 2 issues here, one general and one in particular I really need to be solved:


1st) In general, that the functionality to find used audio files per click seemed to be broken nor really supported in Pro Tools PC since various versions, like many reported already coming from other DAWs where this is a mouse click to open the file in an external editor or find it on disk. To use "find in explorer" or "find in Workspace (soundbase)" yealds often to no results. Nor does it open any explorer window etc.

and 2nd.) becoming even more problematic when you get an import from film edit for sound mix & sound design, and you need to restorate some clips in the timeline, without being able to find them easely in Pro Tools. Even by trying manually. Since the names of the clips are often cryptic and relative to the imported cuts, their IDs and can not be found in the project nor in the AAF media from import by that names in the clip window. Even the mouse over names do not help because they only reflect the original name of the used file in film edit but not the "clip" we need to find.

How do you guys find a "5eg7h345hjk377asd54eeff095.wav.original-name.L.whatever" named clip on disk which is the REAL representation of what is USED in the timeline on an AAF import from an film edit session export which uses the cuts as individually seperated files with tails (not the original media)? I am able to manually distinguish and find the ORIGINAL media because of the client who gave us the original files for just in case. But this is NOT the cutted clip with its tails used in the imported session.

Since we know that Pro Tools claims to be somewhat the industry standard for that kind of jobs, I really wonder how frustrated studios must be in such a case. What are we overlooking or do we are missing here? Or is it simply a long-term bug never been fixed?

[dgdsu]

On some clips "Reveal in Explorer" is even greyed out by the way and the "Reveal in Workspace" just opens another Soundbase window. But it does not hint to the file and just shows a general overview of the Locations left with an empty list to the right.

[smurfyou]

That seems like one of Premiere's auto-generated names. With those AAFs you often need to tell PT to relink by Name Only. Deselect everything else. Then it should find them. This is upon importing the AAF correct?

As far as finding the files in Explorer that depends if you linked or copied on import.

[dgdsu]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

That seems like one of Premiere's auto-generated names. With those AAFs you often need to tell PT to relink by Name Only. Deselect everything else. Then it should find them. This is upon importing the AAF correct?

@smurfyou Thanks for helping here on this! Very very much appreciated. Will try your solution. So you think this is rather a rare case that the contextual options of "Reveal in ..." do not work here? From what I remember is that it even did not worked on simple record sessions even some weeks ago. But who knows if I mix things up here now. EDIT: and yes you are right, it's a Premiere import. The reason why I remember that so well is that I was like "Oh no... Premiere". Not a big fan of it TBH.

Originally Posted by smurfyou

As far as finding the files in Explorer that depends if you linked or copied on import.

Well, this session is a project reboot so it is more than half a year ago that we imported it, but I remember that one way was preferred over the other because of issues ... But since the files admit to be linked to the original import folder I assume they are just linked not copied. Otherwise they would be in the project folder I think. But even these links seem not to work for the Reveal function. Wierd ...

[nednednerb]

If a clip cannot be revealed in explorer, it might be a virtual clip referring to a part of another file with another name. As you mention finding "original", I can separate clips as I wish, have hundreds of clips, and only one file.


If you have a clip on the timeline, and you consolidate it, then you can double click it and rename "clip name and filename" (or whatever it says).

If you double click on a clip and it doesn't allow you to change the filename too, that's 100% explained just there regarding whole file vs edited non-consolidated clips. It doesn't let you if the clip is not consolidated as far as I have experienced.