Managing Your Work Environment > Clip History >

# Modifying Clip History in Batch

For some clips, you may have to modify their clip history in Batch. Do this for any clip that you created using more than one effect or operation. To gain access to the original sources and effects settings, you expand the clip into a Batch process tree.

If you edited clips together, and at least one of the clips has uncommitted clip history, you can only access that clip's history using the Batch timeline. The clip history for a segment can also be expanded into a Batch process tree.

Some nodes in a clip history tree appear as blank nodes. These wildcard nodes represent an effect that was applied to a clip that does not have an equivalent Batch node. They are named after the module used to create them. You can disconnect or connect these nodes, but you cannot modify their values. They contain frames rendered at their position in the process tree.

Because wildcard node frames are rendered, changes made upstream do not propagate downstream. If you need to make upstream changes, you must recreate the effect. To do so, you exit Batch and rebuild the effect in the module originally used to create it.

NoteIf you flush the cache of a wildcard node, you lose the rendered frames, which results in a useless node. If you do this, you cannot process a new clip without first recreating the wildcard node effect outside of Batch and importing it to the process tree as a new clip.

When expanding a clip's history, a node adopts the intermediate clip's name. For untitled clips, the node take a generic name (CC4, for example). You can also manually name the nodes.

You can load a clip with clip history into Batch to display a process tree that recreates the clip from its original sources, through all operations and effects, to its final output. You can then modify the process tree at any point. Once you have modified a clip, you can process it to create new clips, which, in turn, also have their own history.

NoteOnce a clip is processed in Batch, the modules in its history are replaced by a Batch module that is non-editable on the EditDesk.

To expand a clip's history in Batch:

1. Bring a segment with history into BatchFX.

   See Creating Batch FX.

2. Drag a Desk node to the Batch schematic and select a clip with history from the EditDesk.
3. Double-click the clip in the Batch schematic.
4. Click Basic.
5. Do one of the following.

   Click: | To expand:
   --- | ---
   Expand Hist | The entire clip history into a Batch process tree.
   Expand One | The most recent step of the selected clip's history. If the input clip to the last node also contains history (denoted by “H” in the clip name), you can also expand the history for that clip. Expand One will not display any Action media. To expand the history of clips on any media, convert the media into Batch Action media, and then expand the history for that clip.

6. Edit, add, or remove nodes, or connect and disconnect nodes and clips as you would in any Batch structure.
7. Add a BFX Output node to the process tree, set the processing options, and then click Process to render the Batch tree. See Processing Batch Results.

   The new clip is added to the specified destination. The original clip remains unchanged.