Taking my project on the go

TonyBoyV wrote on 3/29/2012, 11:55 PM
Hello,

I have a problem with Vegas pro when trying to open my project on my laptop. I have my project and all the files on an external hard drive. I edit on my desktop but now when I try to open the project through my external hard drive on my laptop, Vegas cannot seem to find a majority of my files even though they are on the external hard drive.

It goes through all steps of asking me to find the file but I have to do it one by one, as there seems to be no option to specify vegas to look through my external hard drive for the rest of the missing files. I have heard that the reason why vegas cant find the files is because the letter of my external drive has changed, which I dont know how that happened. If thats the case, how am I suppose to know what the letter to change it back? Is there an option in vegas for the "media offline" files to show up and to have vegas find the files? Also if I find a way to fix this on my laptop, will that mean that this same problem will pop up when I try to edit on my desktop again?

This has never happened to me before in past vegas versions when I jumped from one computer to another.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you

Comments

Rory Cooper wrote on 3/30/2012, 3:08 AM
The problem with working with external porty drives is that can happen. One way to prevent media going astray is to consolidate all your projects onto the porty drive,when you are done = when you save check save media with project.
Create a new project folder and consolidate all media into this folder, I realize that this takes up HD space but once consolidated I delete all my old working files.

To help with your present situ.
When you open the veg it will ask you to find replacement media then go to the hard drive and import the media since the media files will have the same name re import all the media again save and shut the veg down and re open the veg. all the media will now be reset on the timeline then delete all the blank media off line files.
TonyBoyV wrote on 3/30/2012, 3:59 AM
Thanks so much Rory.

So let me get this straight. I should open my project on my external drive connected to my laptop then re import all of the files again? The thing is, I have SO MANY files that importing them all one by one again will take a while. Can I just open the project on my desktop workstation, save and check "save media with project" then take my external drive to my laptop and open up the project there? Will that work? Also, will this solution be okay when I take my external drive back to my desktop to continue editing or will I have to do this solution again?

Thanks again.
Rory Cooper wrote on 3/30/2012, 5:47 AM
Yes. If you are on the PC with the veg open and no media issues then consolidate to the hard drive from the pc where everything is in order. It will take a while depending on how big/many the clips are. But it is worth it . I traffic between 4 pc’s on projects and this is the safest way, unless the pc’s are networked then I have all my media on a server which I share with a few editors so no issues there.
I don’t have any issues trafficking between the pc’s but If I run off the network I consolidate media into 1 new folder on the hard drive then pop onto a different PC.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/30/2012, 6:11 AM
I found it easiest to force my desktop (XP) to say it's drive E & my wife's laptop (Vista) to say it's drive E. That solves the problem. They should remember to auto-assign those drive letters unless something else (ie a USB thumb drive) already has that letter.
TonyBoyV wrote on 3/30/2012, 1:47 PM
To Rory,

Alright I tried what you said. I went to my desktop clicked "save as" renamed my project to something else, checked the "copy media with project" box and then clicked ok, but the problem is it only copied my music and sound effects, nothing else. So when I took my external drive to my laptop and tried to open it now, it still gave me the same problem, vegas cannot find certain files even though they are on the hard drive.

To TheHappyFriar,

I tried this method as well and it still didnt work. Vegas still can't find the footage even though I changed the letter to match the one I get on my desktop. Do you think if I system recovery or reinstall my OS and start factory fresh of my laptop it will help?