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Archiving/Consolidating
I onlined a 96 min feature doc cut in Avid, consolidated for online in Resolve. All ProRes HQ. The consolidated media takes up under 600GB of space. So this, along with all the audio deliverables, GFX masters, and other assets, fit on a 1TB drive for archiving.
I recently onlined and delivered a 90 min doc cut on FCP-X. The consolidated footage (PRHQ) from FCP-X took up 6TB of space….because it doesn’t trim media not used in the cut. HUGE waste, IMHO. And yes, there is a third party app to deal with this. I’m just getting a bit frustrated that in order to do basic edit functions in FCP-X, you need to keep relying on third parties to come up with the solutions.
“But it’s because not everyone needs all these features, Shane!” I would argue that most people would want the ability to consolidate ONLY the footage, with handles, used in a cut, for archival purposes. As well as keeping the camera masters and project files. But I guess most people who use FCP-X cut short form, so all the assets are pretty damn small as it is, and this is only really a thing that us long form people care about?
It’s just another one of those basic functions that FCP 7 had that FCP-X doesn’t that then requires someone outside of Apple to come up with a solution that adds to my not liking Apple. They know there’s a need, and don’t make the add-on solution themselves. No, they wait until some third part person goes, “Hmm, this is a need, but is it enough of a need that I can then spend time making an app to do this, and make enough money doing it to make it worthwhile?”
Of all the great things FCP-X can do, it’s the basics that annoy me. BUT HEY, I get annoyed at Avid for not fixing the basic stuff it needs to fix too…
Shane
Little Frog Post
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46 Replies
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Funny enough – I’ve used Resolve to trim FCPX projects before. Export FCPXML, import to Resolve, check that everything came in ok, then render a flat pass with handles. In the future, it might make more sense just to edit it in Resolve!
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
Yeah, in the future I will be doing that….possibly. But the point of the archive is so that the media can still be accessed in both the edit app, and the finishing app….if I trimmed with Resolve, then did away with the original media, then FCX wouldn’t be able to link to it. I do have enough handles (2 seconds) to allow for minor trims as needed. But I guess I COULD render it out as something that could then be opened in FCP-X.
My main gripe is that say you only used FCP-X to edit and online and all that, you couldn’t consolidate the final cut with only the media used, unless you had this third party tool. Further evidence (IMHO) that Apple doesn’t care about a certain sector of editors by leaving off basic tools, and HOPING the some third party programmer would come up with them and that enough people in that market would buy them so that programmer would make some money for the effort.
Shane
Little Frog Post
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[Shane Ross] “I would argue that most people would want the ability to consolidate ONLY the footage, with handles, used in a cut, for archival purposes. “
Yes Shane, that’s what I want. I copy the “project” to a new library that I place on a hard drive and only source material from “the cut” is in that library and it’s a lot smaller.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding?
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Nope! That’s it. But FCP-X won’t do it. You need a third party app in order to do that.
WORX4 X
https://marquisbroadcast.com/worx4-x.html
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
X will give you the project with only the source material you used in the cut without a third party app. I’m guessing that’s what most use to simply archive a project. This app looks more useful for setting you up to move your project to another app but for simply saving space archiving, do I really need it?
It looks cool.
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OK….Not quite what I want. I want ONLY the footage used in the sequence, with handles. So, for example, I have a 6 min 4K archival clip (Apollo launch). We use 10 seconds of that…and only 10 seconds. If you archive using only FCX, then it’ll copy over the FULL 4K ProRes HQ file, many many GB…instead of just 14 seconds (10 seconds with 2 second handles).
And when I have a project with lots of clips where only small portions are used, then I get LOTS AND LOTS of large files, making the archive for this project, nearly 6TB.
Meanwhile, in Avid (and Resolve, and Premiere land)…when I MEDIA MANAGE, I can have the option of only clips used in the sequence, with handles. And my archive is much smaller. In the case mentioned, only 600GB.
Shane
Little Frog Post
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FCP USED to do this. FCP 7…totally did this. For some reason, this very simple little operation is something Apple didn’t think people wanted anymore. It’s not included in any version of FCP-X. So a third party app was made to fulfill this need, which enough people needed, apparently, for this to be made. But in google searching this topic, people have been missing this feature ever since FCX first came out.
Shane
Little Frog Post
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I wish FCPX has this too, bit for archiving necessarily, but for trimming for sending to color grade in other applications outside of Resolve.
Ironically I use Resolve to trim but the process is tricky and clunky. Worx4X would be great but it doesn’t trim MXF media. This means I would have to transcode everything first and then trim the transcodes, which is a huge time suck.
This is one area where FCPX is not the greatest. A straight forward way of trimming media with handles to a common codec would be amazing.
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What FCPX offers is a collect and copy function, so you get the full-length original source clip without transcoding. Premiere offers both. However, the purist/engineering answer, which came from Adobe BTW, is that any transcode degrades the image and therefore, not ideal. It’s their excuse for not consolidating (with trimmed media) any Alexa clips that have embedded LUT metadata. So everyone has some sort of issue in this case.
Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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I ran into the same issue with a 90 minute Doc I cut in FCPX. Huge time waste at the end to make back ups to multiply drives of material that was never used or never will be. It should be basic…
Warren Eig
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