YoYotta Conform

Restore clips from archive using project AAF, ALE, CSV, EDL or FCPXML files
Copy or Trim selected material to match conform, ready for colour grading or VFX

Drop in conforms

First open the desired project in the Project Browser. Ensure all relevant tapes and drives have been indexed into that project. SOURCE and COPY snapshots will be created automatically if the material was copied using YoYotta. If required filter the items in the Media table. For example it makes sense to Hide Sources as they will probably not contain the material any more. Or select Safety LTFS to just show Safety LTFS tapes.
Then open the Conform panel. Drop in one or more conform files. YoYotta Conform supports AAF, ALE, CSV, EDL and FCPX file types. They do not need to be pull lists or with handles as the edits will be cleaned, dissolves and effects will be removed.

You can also drag a folder of EDL files onto the YoYotta icon. This will open the Conform panel and add the EDL to the conform.
If any In or Out times show as INVALID or there are no matches check the project frame rate is set correctly and refresh the conform.


Locate media

YoYotta searches all the snapshots shown in the Project Browser for clips with matching reel, clip, file name and timecode. Here all 122 shots have been found, but they are offline. On the far right there is a Media table that shows which drives and tapes are needed. The shots are on a drive called RAID49 which needs to be mounted.
If nothing is found make sure that all the source media has been indexed into the project.

There are various possibilities for each clip. These are shown in the Match column and also in a summary at the bottom of the Conform panel.

Matched : A single match has been found

Offline : A match has been found, but the drive or tape is not online

Wild or Multiple : Wild means a clip has been found, but the requested timecode in the conform does not match the clip. Check the in + out timecode of the edit against the clip timecode. Adjust the Conform frame rate to match.
Alternatively multiple matches have been found for some clips.
If there are multiple matches then there will be multiple clips shown in the table for that edit. Conform will use the top one. Filter out unwanted matches using the Include and Exclude boxes. For example if it is finding both online and offline material, then enter the offline codec name into the Exclude Codecs filter box. Or enter part of the off-line folder path into the Exclude Paths filter box. Or include the online codecs in the Include Codec box.
Also unwanted matches can be selected and removed using the Remove button.

Unmatched : A matching clip cannot be found, try a wild search by turning off Match Timecode


Create a job

Now the drive with the source material has been found and connected. Refreshing shows 122 Matches. To copy the shots make sure that Trim clips is turned off. Now add the conform to YoYotta by clicking the Add Conform as Source button.
If there are multiple Conforms then they can be restored in one job by clicking the Add All Conforms as Source button.
If the footage is online (not on tapes) then thumbnails will be created.
If the conform is an LTFS restore and it references multiple tapes, add them all into a library, click the Add Conform as Source and start the job.
If using a single LTO drive load the first tape into a drive, click the Add Conform as Source and start the job.
On completion repeat this for each tape.


Conform as Source

YoYotta creates a virtual source that holds all the clips needed to recreate the conform. Here there are R3D and DPX clips. Choose a destination and consolidate the material into a new folder. Save the paths as a CONFORM preset and YoYotta will automatically use that for conform jobs. If multiple copies are needed then several destinations can be added.

Each Conform job uses a single LTO drive when restoring. However when using Conform with the Library option it is possible to create multiple "sub-jobs". This allows more LTO drives to be used at the same time, speeding up the restore.
Look in the Media table in the bottom right to see all the tape barcodes. Type the first tape barcode into the include path filter box, click the refresh button below the Conform table. Then add the job and start it restoring.
Now replace the filter text with the second tape barcode and repeat. Do this multiple times to use all drives.
If there are lots of tapes to be restored you can add multiple comma separated barcodes into the include path. This way each "sub-job" will use a drive to restore from a set of tapes.


Raw Trimming

Instead of copying the entire clip, YoYotta can trim certain codecs, creating new smaller clips without transcoding. The Conform tool uses the In and Out point from the timeline to reduce the length (and size) of the clip.
To do this turn on Trim clips in the Conform panel.
When trimming you can specify handles, this number of extra frames will be restored before the in and after the out point.
This way you can bring raw into grading sessions without the large file size overhead. In this job the trimmed duration is now about 6 minutes and 20GB instead of almost 3 hours and 280GB.
YoYotta can also make two identical trimmed conforms, one on the RAID and one on an external drive. Again saving huge amounts of time.

YoYotta Conform will trim the following formats.

  • ALEXA Mini MXF ARRIRAW, this will be trimmed to individual ARI files
  • ALEXA 35 MXF ARRIRAW or HDE, this will be trimmed to an MXF clip
  • ALEXA Mini LF MXF wrapped ProRes. See *
  • Apple ProRes MOV - Proxy, LT, 422, 422HQ, 4444, 4444 XQ, RAW, RAW HQ
  • Blackmagic BRAW including BMD URSA Mini Pro 12K. See *
  • Canon C300 XF-AVC Intra. See * and **
  • Compressed Codex ARX frames can be optionally unpacked to ARI files
  • Panasonic Varicam AVC-Intra. See * and **
  • RED R3D
  • Sony Venice 2 MXF wrapped ProRes.See * and **
  • Sony F700/F5/F55/VENICE/F65 MPEG2, SStP, XOCN, RAW and MXF XAVC
  • Sony FX6, FX9 MXF XAVC Intra. See * and **
  • Sony MXF XDCAM. See * and **
  • Image sequences ARI, ARX, CDX, CRI, DNG, DPX, EXR, TIF, TIFF, VRW
* requires macOS 10.15.7 or newer
** requires Apple Pro Video Formats 2.2.4 or newer
** MXF will be trimmed to MOV files, check the trimmed files can be imported into your edit system

For speed when trimming YoYotta will restore the entire clip, trim it and then discard it. If a local fast RAID or space on an SSD is available, then enter the volume name into the Scratch drive location. YoYotta will restore to this location, then trim to the destination drive.
When trimming clips YoYotta will automatically restore sidecar files with names that match the clip name. For example when trimming A004_C010_0224EC_001.R3D, then A004_C010_0224EC.RMD and A004_C010_0224EC.CDL will also be restored.


Advanced conforming

Back in the conform panel when trimming you can adjust the handles. YoYotta will extend each edit by this number of frames. So the restored clips will be longer, allowing for small changes in the edit.
Filter the clips to include or exclude by codec, resolution, type or path, here only the 1920 or 2048 wide clips will be matched.
If using EDL's that have the exact file name as a FROM CLIP NAME line then turn on Strict match.

All the Include filters are required to match with each clip.
You can add multiple matches to these filters for Include or Exclude by separating with commas.
For example you can include file types R3D or MOV using r3d,mov.
Or include codecs Apple ProRes + ARRIRAW + REDCode, using a filter of prores,arriraw,red.
Or can you exclude path1, path2. For example you may want to ignore any clips that have Proxy or Transcode in their paths. An exclude path of proxy,transcode would do this.
These filters are not case sensitive.
Note that it's quicker to conform if you set up these filters before dropping in your timelines.


Choose to trim or copy the required clips.
When trimming if several sections are needed from one shot then YoYotta will create separate clips. If your online software does not like having multiple trimmed clips, then try enabling Merge Clips. The merged clip will be the shortest clip with continuous timecode that covers all the selections. So depending on the selections this might not save much space.
With multiple conform lists, the conform name can be added to the path.
Optionally add all the source folders to the path.
For a VFX workflow the trimmed clips can have the EDL clip name.


Clips filtered by resolution

This job includes all clips with a width of 1920 or 2048.


Clips filtered by resolution

Just the 4k clips (from RED R3D) will be trimmed in this job. This allows easy copying or trimming specific codecs or resolutions to different destinations.


Conform and Transcode

Use the conform as a source for the YoYotta Transcode option. Easily transcode selected clips from the source material for online.


Conform is available as an option for YoYotta v4

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