Big Projects – Crashes – Out of Memory Error

[Peter Dunphy]

Very good post! Can I just ask – what would be a ‘safe’ way of removing sequences from a project please? I often have spare sequences that I tuck into a ‘keep safe’ bin as I’m terrified of making them offline and removing them from disk for fear of losing something!

Recently, I’ve created new project files which only contain a minimum number of sequences and bins.

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Sevan Matossian]

What I do –

I duplicate the entire project file.

Rename the new file name V1, or name V17 or whatever the newest version is.

Then I quit FCP. Re-Open the new version and erase all unwanted sequences.

In the past I have actually created project files that simply contain old sequences (as a back up). I am extremely paranoid about losing sequences or portions of a project.

Maybe there is a better way …

But this is how I have done it.

cheers
sevan

[Peter Dunphy]

Thanks for clarifying Sevan :o)

How do you normally erase all unwanted sequences please? Do you make it offline and leave it on the disk, or send it to trash or delete from disk?

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Sevan Matossian]

From my understanding the “sequence” is different than “clips” (regarding how they are saved).

I just highlight the sequence (in the browser) and hit “DELETE” on the keyboard. Of course I have the sequence saved in another project first (just in case).

Then the sequence is GONE. But I don’t want to get rid of the clips in the sequence. I need them.

I suspect that it is the actual construction of the SEQUENCE that is consuming so much memory/space in the project file.

AS soon as you erase a few sequences and then hit save, you can go look at your project file in your FINDER and you will see it is significantly smaller.

[Peter Dunphy]

Excellent, thanks Sevan :o)

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Shane Ross]

Never, if you can help it, let your project files get above 200MB. I mean…wow. I try to keep mine under 100MB. HOW? Breaking the project up into multiple project files. Footage in one, sequences in another, music and effects in a third, and so on. And I duplicate projects rather than sequences.

BUT BE WARNED…if you have one project for cuts and another for footage, you cannot match back to the footage nor the bin. Going across projects like that breaks the clip affiliation with the other project. Not a big thing to some, but it is big to others.

a 12 hour timeline? Why?

Shane

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[Sevan Matossian]

Hi Shane,

The project was 100 hours of footage shot over two days (5 cameras).

The way I have always organized is to keep everything in ONE sequence. None of my peers seem to work this way.

In this particular SHOW, there are more than 100 flash backs… and it has been especially useful having the entire project at my finger tips.

QUESTION…

Do you see any problems with the following

I am going to

– take the completed sequence and put it into a new project file.
– Then render the sequence in this NEW smaller Project
– copy the competed rendered sequence bak into my old project.

Will the “F” match function not work on this newly rendered sequence (after I import it back into the old project file). ?

cheers
sevan

[Milan Collin]

Hello all,

I have the same thing over here at the moment. I was already trying to divide my project over a few sub-categories as I noticed it constantly crashes. One project size is 218MB right now and that’s the one I am working in. Now I read these post I will try to make it smaller somehow.

I am filming for the last eight months. We have over 300hours of footage so we don’t film to much. It would be great for the editors to have excess to all the footage without opening many different projects. But it is taking a long time to open the project and if it crashes I have to restore many times.

So I’m gonna cut the big file in two projects.
Thanks for the post.

Milan Collin

[Walter Biscardi]

[Milan Collin] “I am filming for the last eight months. We have over 300hours of footage so we don’t film to much. It would be great for the editors to have excess to all the footage without opening many different projects. But it is taking a long time to open the project and if it crashes I have to restore many times.

So I’m gonna cut the big file in two projects.
Thanks for the post.”

Our current documentary is over 100 hours of footage and I cut it into 8 projects based on the various sections of the piece. It’s worked out quite well. Now we are in the last stages of conforming the doc and I have the compiled timeline open in one project and the Capture project opened separately. I’m able to work back and forth between the two quite well without dragging down the system.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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Biscardi Creative Media

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[Eric Martin]

This may seem relatively naive, but my issue speaks to this problem and I’m sure you guys have some insight.

What is it that when I export to an EXTERNAL drive and set my scratch discs/auto save/render/etc destination to anything and everything but my main drive, that all said main drive space is eaten away
anyway? Seems like I’m doing everyrthing to tell FCP “Please don’t write here”, but it does what it wants
in spite of my directives. Why is this and more importantly, where is all my drive space going and how do I recover it? When I go into the FCP docs, there is nothing current to match the consumption of said space…