Occasionally I throw a feature request on this forum that I know would take a TON of time and effort on Avid's part to actually happen. And I'm not even sure if it's worth the effort. But here goes anyway, just in case many of you might agree. It would involve a major metadata change to Media Composer's interface window called "Source Settings".
I'd love if a user could:
1. RT-click on a clip in either a bin or the sequence.
2. Select Source Settings.
3. Find a tab in Source Settings called Associations. (An addition to the "SpeedFlex" tab I also hope for here.)
Under that Associations tab, the user would find:
- A list of every hard drive that the clip originated from and currently lives on, regardless if that drive is attached. (Similar to the Batch Import Set File Location screen.)
- A list of every video mixdown and/or audio mixdown created from that clip.
- A list of every sequence that clip exists in, AND how many times it is used in each sequence.
- A history of all transcodes and consolidations associated with that clip
- A list of projects the clip is found in
- A list of resolutions the clip exists in
- A list of scripts/ScriptSyncs associated with the clip
Now, here's what would make this feature totally rock 'n roll...
The Source Settings would allow you to interact with EVERY association of that clip. (Imagine for a moment the "Contacts" interface on your iPhone, and that a video clip is like a Contact. What happens when you call-up that contact? You see a list of phone numbers and email addresses associated with that contact. AND you can actually call or email FROM that Contact screen.
The same should apply to deciding which source clip you are using as "active" in the sequence. So click on a low-res (transcoded for offline) .new clip, then go to the Source Settings Associations tab, and change it to its AMA version for HD onlining. Or change an AMA clip in a sequence to its transcoded version. Or actually transcode one from that interface. Or simply use this as a means of jumping directly to the bin a clip's variation/association is residing in.
Note -- In order to achieve #1 above, precomputes would have to be allowed to load into the source monitor via a match frame.
Yes I know... the seasoned aces here are all thinking, "Dude, you can already do all of that using the Media Tool, the bin views, Dynamic Relink, Expert Decompose, Interplay Access..." But the point is to look the opposite way - a "metadata match frame" if you will. The ability to have one interface that finds all associations, rather than combing through many interfaces to find one association.
A pipe dream, I know. But worth the discussion?