Archived projects missing .m4a files

[alaindresse]

Hi all,

I tried to archive my first finished project in PE4, and was surprised that the iTunes music included in my project (.m4a files) were not in the archive. Has anybody else had that issue ?

Thanks & Regards,
Alain

[Chuck Engels]

I have not tried archiving a project in version 4 yet, I wonder if the same would happen to WAV or MP3 files?

[alaindresse]

Chuck,

My jpg, avi, wav, and mp3 files were archived. only the m4a were missing.

Regards,
Alain

[Chuck Engels]

You can move them to the archive folder manually. You didn't have them on an external drive that wasn't connected when you archived did you?

[alaindresse]

Final note: if I archive the project as a copy (and not trim), then all my files are in the archive.

Regards,
Alain

[Chuck Engels]

The copy places all media from your project in the archive, whether it is used in the project or not.
The other option only places the actual parts that are used in your project (on the Timeline) in the archive.
Are the m4a files actually on the Timeline somewhere?

[alaindresse]

Yes Chuck, my music clips are used on the timeline, and PE4 complains about missing files when I open the trimmed archive.

One of my music clips was used at two places, with different in and out points. Maybe PE had issues splitting the file... If that is the case, I would have expected to get an error message though.

In this case, copying the project was fine with me. I had to delete the temporary preview and encoding files in the copy - conveniently placed in a separate folder, opened the project and asked to ignore missing preview files to make it fit on a DVD, but I can live with that.

Regards,
Alain

[Steve Grisetti]

I've not been able to use MP4s from iTunes either.

The solution is to right-click on the music in iTunes and select the option to convert it to an MP3, which will work just fine.

If iTunes won't let you do that, you'll need to crack the DRM on the song first, as I discuss in this thread.
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1581

[Chuck Engels]

I am sure Paul had a way of exporting the audio clip in another format and replacing the original.
I thought it was a one step process but I can't find it at the moment. I do know you can export the audio as a WAV file and add it back to the project, then replace the original M4a.
That will probably solve your problem, and hopefully Paul will post his method (probably for the 100th time)

[Odat]

Possibly tangentially related to this, I have run into problems with other files that have "gone missing" when using the project archiver. Never a sound file, but entire DV clips have failed to archive over, or still images. Always items that were actually in the timeline at the time. Probably the only reason I've never had a problem with a sound file going missing is because I haven't tried to archive a file with sound in it other than the track attached to my video.

In one extreme case no matter how many times I tried to archive my project (copy or trimmed) I ended up with a directory with the preview files in their proper directories and the project file but no media whatsoever. I had to quit and restart to get it working. Now after I archive something I rename the directories with my source clips in it and then try to load the archived copy, to make sure that all of the files made it (and manually copy over the ones that didn't).

Using PE4, by the way. I really like it and it's features, but every now and then I get bitten by some sort of really weird bug. Like that time I tried to use it to upload a video directly to YouTube but I couldn't get it to log in, because it decided that my D key shouldn't work when entering a username or password. Worked everywhere else, though (in the program and out, that is. Just not in the share panel. At that one point).

[RJ Johnston]

Type 1 DV-AVI files are not supported in the archive, according to the Readme.html file.

The other thing is that if it isn't DV-AVI type 2, then the archive will most likely copy the entire source video. If it happens to be MPEG, then the entire source file is copied however many times there are subclips in the media bin, even if the subclips all reference the same source file. Nothing like ending up with 20 copies of a 2 GB MPEG file.

[Odat]

In my case it's Raw DV files that I'm using that sometimes (but not always) fail to archive. I capture them from Linux and then transport them over to windows using the external drive that I use to back up the raw clips. Once I'm done with the project I archive it trimmed for further backup.

Redundant, I know (doubly so since I also keep an archived copy on tape as well). Part of my computer nerd disease, I suppose.