How to locate a clip or piece of sound

singerg wrote on 3/26/2009, 9:07 PM

When I bring up the project, it tells me something is missing. I may have renamed it or delete it. But I would like to know WHERE the reference to the clip (or piece of audio) is called from, so I know where is missing from. How to do that?

Comments

jetdv wrote on 3/27/2009, 8:24 AM

It's probably on the Project Media tab.

singerg wrote on 3/27/2009, 10:17 AM

I looked there. If the piece is there (and it applies to anything that is present), there NO reference to where it is used.
Since Video Movie Studio alerts me that a piece is missing when it is loading, looking for it will be useless. But trying to locate any present clip and find where it is used was also impossible. So my planned technique would not work.

I would appreciate anyone's suggestions.

Thanks

jetdv wrote on 3/27/2009, 10:33 AM

If it's in the project media - whether or not it is used - it will give you that message.

MSmart wrote on 3/27/2009, 5:30 PM

Do the clips show up in the timeline and project media? Should say something like "offline" in the timeline.

Scrolling to the right in the Project Media tab should show you the file path. You should be able to right click on the clip and choose Open Containing Folder.

singerg wrote on 3/29/2009, 5:26 PM

No, the clip does NOT show up in the timeline. The reason is probably because I either rename it or deleted it. What I am looking for is a guide to find its reference.
In other video editors the '.vf" file (or its equivalent) is in text form. Then I could scan it looking for the clip filename, and find there the timeline point where the clip was called for. The Sony .vf file is a binary file and I cannot read the timeline references where each clip is called from.

MarkWWWW wrote on 3/30/2009, 4:53 AM

Even though the .vf is not a pure plain text file the filenames, etc, are stored unchanged. If you look at the .vf with a program designed to locate text strings in binary files you will be able to see which files it is attempting to load. I use Bintext when I need a program to do this sort of thing.

Mark

mickbadal wrote on 4/2/2009, 6:53 PM

<< No, the clip does NOT show up in the timeline. >>

If the clip causing the error is not on the timeline, then perhaps you can try using the lightning bolt icon when in the media view. This removes all clips from the media pool that are not currently being used in the timeline. Besides being a real nice cleanup feature, using that lightning bolt icon in this instance might take care of removing the offending clip that is causing your pain-in-the-neck issue.