Un-Nesting sequence clips

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Level 1

8 points

Un-Nesting sequence clips

First of all, I know there is no "un-nest" command already. Though god knows why the developers haven't put one in yet because I've seen questions about this EXACT problem going back over 7 years on forums. Basically, I made a sequence a while back cutting sequence-to-sequence before I knew abotu the "Overwrite/Insert Sequence Content" command. So I have a 60-second cut with 30 or so nested clips. I need to "un-nest" those clips so I can make an EDL. I have found tutorials that suggest:

1) Option-Double-Click the nested sequence to open the nested clip into the viewer and then Overwrite Sequence Content from there. Problem here is, the sequence opened in the viewer doesn't seem to be the actual nested clip (no audio tracks) and when I try to Overwrite Sequence Content it just uses the exact same nested clip again.

2) Create a new sequence, Command-drag (holding Command AFTER starting to drag) the original sequence into the new one. Same problem - this just drags the same nested clips into the new sequence. No help.

I'm going a little crazy at this point. There doesn't even seem to be a good way to match back to the nested sequence with the same In-Out points used in the cut to copy and paste or even build a new sequence. I'm one step away from just eye matching the whole thing or punching in TC clip by clip, but even for a :60 cut that woudl be a pain. Not to mention that there absolutely HAS to be a solution for this because there's no way Apple would be this ridiculously tone-deaf to the way professional editors work for this long. Any ideas?

- eric wais.

Final Cut Pro 7, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 1, 2012 2:18 PM

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Answer 1

Nick Holmes

Level 7

30,018 points

Apr 1, 2012 3:34 PM in response to betaclone

The EDL format doesn't support multiple video layers - you can have V1 and a superimposed track with two audio channels at most. Once you have broken out the nests, you will have to make a further EDL for each extra track.

Some light reading... http://www.edlmax.com/EdlMaxHelp/Edl/maxguide.html

What system are you transferring to?

If it supports XML, FCP can export that too and your nests can stay as they are.

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Answer 2

betaclone Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 1, 2012 3:38 PM in response to Nick Holmes

Oh I am very very familiar with EDL's. This is for a telecine so it needs to be as basic as possible. But I've found that even exporting an XML from FCP into Color doesn't support the nested sequences. Whole thing goes haywire.

For what it's worth, I did find one "solution" that saves you from havign to eye match. Once you Option-Double click the nested sequence into the viewer, you can make a subckip, then load THAT subclip into the viewer, then edit the sequence content back into the cut. A stupid amount of steps to do what shoudl take one keystroke, but it is what it is. Took me about 5 minutes to do it to a :60 sequence. Bottom line is I'll never ever ever ever cut like this again (or, god willing, have to use FCP).

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