If you work with Final Cut Pro, you might know that Final Cut captures files without using QuickTime’s .mov suffix. This is fine in most situations, yet, in cross-platform environments other operating systems like Windows XP need the .mov suffix to open these files.
If you use Xsan and StorNext oder Mac OS X Server’s SMB service to share video files across your heterogeneous network, you might look for an easy solution to do so.
You could use the little AppleScript included with Mac OS X, which allows you to add the suffix of choice to files you select in the Finder. Yet, this is slow and has the disadvantage that Final Cut will consider your original files offline as their names change during the process.
So what I did was to write a little UNIX shell script that creates a hard link to your files. The new hard link has the appropriate suffix and doesn’t need disk space. I also created a little droppable application which allows you to just drag your files and folders onto it to create the hardlinks.
The application can be easily downloaded, then you can copy it to your Applications folder, and drag it into your Dock. Now you just drag the files of choice onto the app symbol in the Dock and get the results you are looking for.
If you are interested, here is the source of the underlying shell script:
#!/bin/bash
#
# =======================================================
#
# written in 12/2005 by Andre Aulich, www.andre-aulich.de
#
# WHAT IS THIS SCRIPT GOOD FOR?
# This script is meant to create hardlinks to your
# QuickTime files created with Final Cut Pro. As FCP
# doesn't attach the suffix .mov to your files, operating
# systems like Windows XP don't recognize the files as
# QuickTime files. Simply adding .mov to the files would
# make these files being offline for FCP, so we decided to
# create hard links to the files that include the
# appropriate suffix.
#
# HOW TO USE THE SCRIPT
# Enter the Terminal, drag the script onto it, then drag
# one or more files or folders into the Terminal and press
# ENTER. If you drag files, the script will simply create a
# hard link in the same folder to the original file and
# add the suffix _hl.mov.
# If you drag a folder into the Terminal, the script
# creates a second folder in the original folder's parent
# directory named like the original folder plus the suffix
# _MOV. Within the folder you will find hardlinks to all
# files in the original folder, yet, they will have the
# suffix _hl.mov. If the original folder includes
# directories, the script simply ignores them as FCP
# doesn't create folders within a capture directory.
# You can also drag a combination of files and folders
# onto the script, it is intelligent enough to understand
# what's going on.
#
# ========================================================
# If you use this script with one or more files, it simply
# creates a hardlink to it within the current directory:
for i in "$@"
do
if ! [ -d "$i" ]; then
ln "$i" "$i"_hl.mov
# If you apply this script to a folder, it creates a second
# folder within the parent directory with the same name like
# the original folder plus the suffix _hl.
else
case $i in
*genhardlinkondrop* ) echo "Ignoring the droppable script itself" ;;
* ) cd "$i"
ORIGINALFOLDERNAME=$(pwd)
NEWFOLDERNAME="$ORIGINALFOLDERNAME"_MOV
mkdir "$NEWFOLDERNAME" ;;
esac
# And now it creates hardlinks with the correct .mov
# suffixes to the FCP QuickTime files
ls -1 "$i" | while read Filename; do ln "$Filename" "$NEWFOLDERNAME"/"$Filename"_hl.mov; done
fi
done
I used Platypus to create a droppable application out of this script.
The script is just a fast hack, and I guess that sooner or later Apple will offer an update to FCP that uses .mov suffixes for captured files, but until that day, I hope this little script is of some use for you.