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Despite “leaving files in place,” I cant get FCPX to stop copying my clips into it’s “original media” folder.
Whenever I import my footage, I select “leave files in place,” and yet when I go into the contents of the library file, it clearly copies all my footage into the “original media” folder. For a project that’s over 500GB, this is unacceptable. Am I missing something? Is this a glitch? What am I doing wrong?
Here’s what I’m looking at: https://imgur.com/a/T9CzN
This is my main issue with this program, as much as I am enjoying over premiere, it does what it wants, rarely what I want it to. Then I have to figure out what it did and work around that. It feels like apple telling me how to organize my files––how to edit.
Thank you for any help you can provide.
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4 Replies
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What media? Have you got Optimize media ticked?
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
The only time FCPX should ignore the “leave in place” option is if you are importing a codec that has to be rewrapped or possibly if the footage is coming from what it thinks is a camera card.
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Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer & Cinematographer
Hobart, Tasmania | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
From the look of the file names, my guess is the original files are .MXF or .MP4 and FCPX is rewrapping them inside a QT .MOV wrapper. If you don’t want this to happen, rewrap or transcode externally using EditReady. Then import.
You can also let FCPX do its thing, but do that in a dummy library. Then move the files out of the internal folder and into another location, where you will be able to normally import (leave in place) them into your working library.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Jeremy Freedberg] “Whenever I import my footage, I select “leave files in place,” and yet when I go into the contents of the library file, it clearly copies all my footage into the “original media” folder. For a project that’s over 500GB, this is unacceptable….This is my main issue with this program, as much as I am enjoying over premiere, it does what it wants, rarely what I want it to. Then I have to figure out what it did and work around that….
As Oliver said, your filenames indicate content from a Sony camera which may require re-wrapping by FCPX. This is also the case for AVCHD content. However in that case the “leave files in place” dialog is greyed out. So I’m not sure why it re-wrapped if the “leave files in place” dialog was active.
XAVC-S files from Sony A7-series cameras do not require re-wrapping, but apparently .MXF content does.
This can be a confusing area because the behavior is not documented and there are various sub-cases. E.g, if the .MTS files are copied outside the AVCHD file bundle they will not require re-wrapping. That is considered a poor practice and in my testing on 10.2.3 this caused problems with excessive I/O after the import, almost as if FCPX was dynamically re-wrapping each file each time it was referenced.
Ideally this should be documented in a KB article with a table showing the behavior in each case.
Normally FCPX can handle the native camera files pretty well, but (as Oliver said) if it is being re-wrapped on import my preference would be use EditReady and do that externally.
If you are on 10.3 and have installed Pro Video Formats 2.05, FCPX should handle MXF files natively, but I don’t know if that means via re-wrapping or what:
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1898?locale=en_US
You are right that media management in FCPX can be complex. Ripple Training has an entire class on this, now updated for 10.3. OTOH FCPX has implemented a full-featured asset management database. Like most databases it can be more complex to learn than simple flat files.
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