I’m working in Pro Tools and I keep getting these gaps (like over 700 of them). The film was edited in Premiere Pro. I first tried matching just a movie and a dialog guide track from each version, then I added 3 stems (dx, mx, sfx) and deleted the guides and got similiar results, now I’m about to try an EDL from Premiere and a Session Info text file from Pro Tools… or would it be better to use an AAF from Pro Tools?
OK, you need to compare apples with apples. So EDLs vs Session info from PT is not going to make any sense. Maybe that’s not what you were suggesting, but just FYI…
The best approach is EDL from each version of the cut, while the videos are loaded, so MB can double check against vision.
Failing that, Video Files only compare is often good enough, with a little bit of manual tweaking of the results.
If you’re getting lots of little gaps, then maybe you have the healing setting turned down in MB? Did you investigate the gaps in MB to see why they are not matched? Maybe the editor has changed the colour grade drastically, or overlaid a watermark in one of the outputs.
It’s really hard for me to say what the gaps mean without seeing the video, but it should be immediately obvious if you check them out in MB.
If you’re not doing it already, the most important “tip” is:
Check the green match ranges and the gaps between them before setting them loose on your session. Never just “Matchup” then “Reconform” without checking out what MB has found/missed.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear, but editor no longer has a copy of the old edit. Using an XML file from the new edit and the session info file from PT has left me with only 200 gaps. I’ll try the 2 video files only next.
I sure appreciate the help.
Yeah, you can’t compare apples and oranges. You need XML from both the old and new. Forget about the pro tools session - it makes no sense to include that in any comparison of the cut changes.
I think you need to use the Video files or Dialog Guides (if you have them).
I wanted to try using just video files this morning, but suddenly Matchbox won’t start conforming when the Launch Conform button is clicked on. I tried a bunch of things including trashing preferences, but whatever I do, I can’t get it to run. Any suggestions? I’m still 5 days into my trial period.
Thank you
Can you please give us a bit more detail:
What happens when you hit the “Run Reconform” button?
Is there an error? Nothing any all?
Nothing at all happens. I was able to get the Run Conform window to open once, but then nothing happened after I clicked Run It. This was immediately after I decided to try adding Matchbox to App Management in the Privacy and Security preferences on the Mac, which is running Ventura 13.6.9.
Pro Tools is running 2023.12.0
weird. Do you actually have green “match” objects currently in the matches view? If not you might have forgotten to do the “matchup” step.
If you do, then this is very strange. The Run Reconform button simply opens the relevant window so you can choose settings.
Can you make another attempt, then immediately send the latest MB log file please?
~/Library/Logs/Matchbox/…
I got it running again, it took another restart and some more fiddling. Unfortunately I saw your message too late, so I didn’t export a MB log file. It’s a little strange, at one point I found the ReConform window hidden beneath my Pro Tools Edit window, but I’m fairly certain I went hunting for that window during the period of it not working. All I know is, it’s up and running again, so I can now try a few more things to see what may be workable for me. The software is very powerful and really quite stunning… if only the editor had saved the original edit, I’m confident this would really be quite painless.