Hey everybody,
I’m looking for the easiest way to collect all files, that are used in an aaf or xml. The goal is to quickly just transfer those files from A to B and not copy the entire rushes.
I can think of using After Effect’s collect function or writing some custom python stuff to do this, but I was wondering if there is some existing simple standalone solution for this.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance! 
Cheers,
Claus
When you sequence publish an edit you export the media as well as the AAF. Does that work for you or are you after more files that just the media?
Thanks a lot for the quick responses!
EDLSpy looks very promising, I’ll have a look at it.
@PlaceYourBetts I’m only after the media files, but I think publishing would not keep the original raw media, but would always do some conversion, right?. Also having some standalone solution outside of flame would be nice.
There is a linkMedia option that doesn’t make any new media if the resolution stays the same. Not sure how this copies since it is creating links to the original media. Might be worth a test.
Here is the link to link media
https://help.autodesk.com/view/FLAME/2021/ENU/?guid=GUID-1AF84830-4D38-46D9-A76B-B53325E5C619
Flames Link Media only works when the media is living on the same volume and if format/res is exactly the same.
Good for republishing DPX from grading but less for raw footage.
There’s a tool to collect all media in a resolve timeline:
https://www.niwa.nu/resolve-collect/
Nah ignore me. I just read my own link.
The source media would need to be on the same server. I think it is useful for space saving when it comes to shot publishing.
We tried it recently when we were loosing lens info metadata. This link media method maintained all of the original metadata and didn’t double up on the media.
The conform module in YoYotta is able to do this when using EDLs. It can also trim and rename RAW and DPX files. There is a full featured demo available from
https://yoyotta.com/help/demo.html
I work for them so if you have any questions just ask
Best
Adam
I have custom web app I wrote for myself that can take AAF/XML and spits out a shell script to copy all the source files referenced into a single new directory. It’s somewhat customized for my own particular setup, but if you want to give it a try let me know.
Thanks everybody for the valuable input!
@adamshell YoYotta looks like a very powerful toolset, but is probably a bit overkill for my current needs (also price-wise).
@ManChicken I would love to give it a spin and see if I can adapt it for my setup.
A colleague also showed my another tool, called conformist (available from the mac app store).
It’s very simple and has a nice drag-and-drop approach for the output, which is really handy (easily copy in finder, move to ftp or any webservice like wetransfer etc.), but lacks the ability to adjust anything.
I think most tools collect everything into one new folder, but I’d love to maintain the original file structure.
Have you tried Resolve’s Media Management? It has options to keep the directory structure.
Not yet. I’ll give it a try …
This is the way i do this. Would be lovely to have a tool like this in flame.
With all the feature requests re: collection based archiving vs archiving as uncompressed, I seriously hope that progress wasn’t left on the cutting room floor… 
I second EDL Spy - although I wish it had a way to trim media instead of copying the entire camera file. For short format work, it’s usually ok - but on a feature, I use Resolve for conform, grade, and output, and Flame for VFX - so I use Resolve’s Media Management tool to collect the camera originals from drives and move to my raid. It can trim media during that process, so it’s quite nice…
It’s trimming the original? So it keeps all the camera meta data?
Sorry, I always seem late to the discussion…
I publish on every job. It keeps everything tidy and not cached to invisible files. And one of my publishing uses is for exactly this. These days I get massive drives from set where it feels like the camera was left on for ten hours and everyone’s crossed their fingers something usable happened in front of the lens. It makes conforming fun. And pity the poor editors that have to dig through that. Though it does give me a new appreciation for verité filmmakers.
After conform I publish with the “Use Original Media” option in the Sequence Options tab and make much shorter sources at the same resolution. The only time I really feel like I lose something on publish is coming from RED - so I make sure that’s debayered to the sequence at the desired resolution first.
I think this is the part that might make or break it for you: the publish will make new files and you mush choose the type of file it becomes. If I get DPXs, and I publish DPXs, nothing changes. If I get QT4x4s and I publish the same - again nothing changes. But if I get RED files, then in the Video Options tab, I use either EXR or DPX (mostly EXR these days) to make new masters. If the source media has to change, I try to move to a format that is the more flexible than the original.
I know in my head it’s useful keep the original dir structure, but with tokens and presets, the publish can create a folder structure that’s consistent over many jobs. I like putting the source data into my job folder and keeping it in a familiar structure.
I’ve been dabbling in NIM lately and thanks to @PlaceYourBetts and @ChrisKasten , it’s been a pretty easy transition to the idiosyncrasies of publishing that way, but for the most part the process is the same. Just now the producers can track as well.
Sorry, got busy last week and wanted to write a little extra explanation on the web page before I posted the link.
https://burner.com/consolidator
Note that I made this for myself and my particular facility setup, and while it works for me, it may not do what other people want it to do. But I’m willing to tweak it to cover more specific scenarios if someone finds it useful and thinks it could be usable to them with a few changes.
I will second resolve , its media collection toolset is the best in the business, it can even do trimms of r3D , xocn and other raw formats, also with prores sources e.t.c , makes it incredibly easy to handover projects.
Great Work! Thanks for sharing.
