FCP-Reveal in Finder Multiple Files v1 (great app name, huh) allows you to create a list of files from a user-generated FCP XML (project, bin or sequences-based).
It extracts the file paths from the XML, creates aliases in a user-specified folder and color-labels both the original files and the aliases.

You can then use Spotlight or a program such as Find Any File (if the volume is non-indexed) to find all the color-labeled files in a specific folder.

In many instances, applications can be duped into believing these aliases are the actual original files (see this post).

Additionally, you can use the app AliasHerder to convert aliases into the files they refer to.

Note: The application was created using Automator, applescript and Textwrangler. Feel free to open the app in Automator and customize the workflow to your liking. For instance, you might want to only color label for the media, or only create aliases.

In order for this app to work, you will need download the free app Textwrangler.

The flowchart offers solutions for SD and HD material. I haven’t indicated scenarios involving Internet video downloads or 720p, but the SD examples can be applied to these instances.

PDF downloadable here.

When you media manage a project for FCP 7, occasionally you will find yourself with quicktimes ending with -v. These files are video only (hence the -v) and are missing the “.mov” extension. Note that this is not a hidden extension, the extension is actually missing, and as a result Resolve won’t be able to see these in the media pool.

I’ve developed two small apps to remedy this problem that you can download here.

“Add MOV to files missing extensions”: Open the app and drag all the quicktimes into and click Continue. If any extension was missing (not hidden!) it will be added.

“SHOW EXTENSIONS TO ALL SELECTED FILES”: This can be useful… it will make sure that no extension is hidden.

Download here.

How-to guide included in zip file.

Required apps: MS Excel, EasyFind, Automator.

Download DisabledClipsRenamed here.

What does this tool do?
It takes an FCP7 timeline XML and prepends “DISABLED_” to all disabled clips which enables you to easily delete them.

How to use the tool:

1. Install the free, extremely powerful text editor TextWrangler
2. Export an XML 5 from an FCP7 timeline. Drop it onto DisabledClipsRenamed.
3. Import the modified XML back into FCP. Open the modified timeline → Find all: “disabled” → ⌘+C.
4. Open original timeline, place the cursor at the head of the first disabled clip → ⌘+V. → Delete.

One could simply delete the disabled clips in the reimported XML, but by overwriting and deleting the disabled clips in your original timeline, you can be sure that the enabled clips (what’s important in the timeline!) have not be corrupted or altered during the XML export/import).

Note 1: When pasting the disabled clips into your original timeline, you might get the following warning: “This edit cannot be done because a transition would be cut or an item to one side of a transition would become too short.”
If that’s the case, you need to look at the modified sequence and manually add to your selection any transitions that are connected to disabled clips (video AND audio) before you copy paste them into your original timeline.

Note 2: FCP might display a log of errors when importing the XML. This is normal.

In 1998 Matthias Bürcher released a macro to calculate timecodes within Excel. Sadly, Excel 2011 was not supported, and worse, (Mountain) Lion wasn’t either. He finally released a new version in October 2012 which can be downloaded here.
It seems the site hasn’t been translated. This is the link you want to click on to download the macro:

This blog contains good info on how to use it.

A few notes:

Thanks to Sequence Clip Reporter and some minor sequence prepping, we can efficiently create an intelligible music cue sheet.

(You will of course want to duplicate/backup your sequence before doing any of this)

Let’s say we have the following 2 music cues in our sequence:

If we were to generate a spreadsheet using Sequence Clip Reporter, we would get this:

What we want is for all stems and edits of track1 to be consolidated. This needs to be done manually in FCP.

One way of doing this:

1. Place your playhead on the OUT point of track01-split04.
2. Delete split04 and split06.
   
3. Extend track01-split02 to the playhead (you can select the tail end of the clip then press E to extend edit)
   

You now have an accurate representation of the length of the music cue sheet and you can use Sequence Clip Reporter to generate your cue sheet. The app is able to see sequences in the active FCP project, but for stability reasons I prefer to export an XML and drag that XML onto the Sequence Clip Reporter icon.

Note that you can either manually remove “split02″ from the clip name in FCP or decide to do that later in Excel.

At time, there isn’t enough content to extend the clip from to its in or out point. Because this is only a representation of what the music is, we can change the content to accomodate this situation. By pressing “S” 3 times, you enter the speed tool. Simply drag the tail (or head) of the clip to the in or out point. The content will be incorrect but the clip name, IN, OUT and duration will be correct.

This guide details every step of the way, from the offline phase to the online phase. It includes Compressor presets, Automator workflows, spreadsheet templates and formulas, folder structures and other tools.

The tutorials and tips & tricks sections of my blog compliment the guide.

To download click here.

I while back I needed to convert DPX renders from a Smoke machine to Prores 444 (to cut back into FCP7). I tried Compressor, the AJA tool, but nothing worked. Finally I strung out all the DPX files into a master timeline in Resolve Lite and rendered them all out. I then batch renamed all the render files using Automator to remove Resolve’s naming convention and I was all set.

1. Render the entire FCP timeline (red and green render bars be gone!)
2. File → Export (⌘ + E). Uncheck “Make movie self-contained”.
3. Start exporting!
4. Use Compressor to add watermark and or BITC. You need to make sure your quicktime export has a timecode track (ie, that it doesn’t start at 00:00:00:00 (unless that’s what you want)). If for whatever reason the timecode track is indeed missing, simply bring in the quicktime to FCP, give it a reel name and give it the appropriate starting timecode.

Note 1: In order to maximize the lifespan of your non self-contained quicktime, you can rename the project/sequence before rendering. Any subsequent sequence modifications should be done in another project/sequence. The render files should stay well connected.

Note 2: If you’re using a network cluster, it seems Compressor is unable to add BITC correctly (the BITC will appear and disappear every few frames). So if you do need BITC, make sure you’re using local clusters only.