Adobe Bridge problem solved! Almost…

Two years ago, I sent a question to the Adobe Bridge forum about a problem I was having. Not all files created by Adobe products (.aep, .mov, .psd, and others) would accept XMP metadata. Now, as an animator, and television producer,  I have thousands of files, most of them coming from the Creative Suite, and I live or die on my ability to keep track of client revisions, my own revisions, and other details in fairly complex projects.

I use the XMP Metadata and Keywords in Bridge (CS4 and CS5) to keep things straight, write notes to myself regarding which file is which, and which file was used where. But if can’t consistently tag these files, I’m screwed. This was my quandry two years ago, when I posted here:

    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/449709?decorator=print&displayFullThread=true

The answers to my question were somewhat helpful, but there was no real  hard answer to be had – at the time.

Fast forward to today. I had accepted that this was a problem/limitation with Bridge, when I once again tried to tag a Quicktime .mov file which I was using as a motion menu in Encore. Once again, the dreaded “the file “xxx_xxx.mov” cannot store XMP metadata. No changes will occur.” error message popped up! I don’t know what I was thinking, but I right-clicked the file, just to see what my options were. Fourth from the top, was “Purge Cache for Selection”. Hmmm…hadn’t noticed it before. I figured I’d try clicking it. According to Adobe, all it does is refresh the thumbnail for the selected file.

Well, that’s not all it did! I was now able to add keywords to the file, and edit XMP metadata. Not for all files, though. I tried it with Quicktime and .aep (After Effects projects), and it worked perfectly. I also tried it with an Encore .ncor file, and it did not allow me to add keywords or metadata. Oh well, one big step forward. And…