About Unlinking and Relinking Media and Clips

Inputting and Outputting Media > Unlinking and Relinking Media and Clips >

The clip library contains a suite of tools for making different versions of a project— Unlink, Relink, Reformat, and Recapture. These tools allow you to separate the media of a clip from its metadata, optionally reformat the metadata of an unlinked clip to another resolution, recapture the associated media, and then relink the metadata to the newly captured media.

You can use these capabilities for a number of purposes, for example:

Create multiple masters by working on a project at one resolution and then reformatting it to another. You can speed up your interaction within the application by working on the lower resolution version. You could, for example, shoot in HD or film, finish the project in SD in Smoke, and output in either resolution.
Work on proxies instead of the actual media during the course of the project. You can unlink the media from a clip but retain the proxies. When the project is complete, recapture the media at the required resolution, relink, and output as the finished version. Working on proxies provides an improved level of interactivity, particularly with projects based on high-definition media. Also, less space on the framestore is used during the project.
Replace shots that were captured incorrectly, for example, if frames became corrupted during capture.
Replace shots that were worked on outside Smoke after being captured. For example, replace shots that were colour corrected using an image processor after the original capture.
Move clips to a new facility. Unlink the media from clip metadata, transfer the metadata to the new facility, recapture the material at the new facility, and then relink the recaptured material to the clips.
Unlink media from a timeline prior to archiving at the end of a project, the result being a much smaller archive. The media would need to be recaptured and relinked to the timeline when restoring the archive.
Free up space on the framestore. Media is removed from the framestore when unlinked from a clip, given that no other clips are referencing that media. Depending on the way you manage clips on a project, this may be a feasible method of gaining framestore space.