Editing a project on two computers (office and home)

[Michael Sacci]

I do this with files every now and then and even between me and an editor cross the country.

Nothing syncs the project files and only one person can be working on the project at a time. SO this is more of a house keeping thing.

As long as all the footage and files being used for the project are with a single main folder, but you can have folders within this main folder. Each person/system has a copy of all the media.

Then I keep track of the current project by name. It starts as

FCP Project_System01_In01, before I send it to the other person the file changes to
FCP Project_System01_Out01, the other system changes the name to FCP Project_System02_In02, then send it back as FCP Project_System02_Out02, then it becomes FCP Project_System01_In03 and so on. The OUT files are label with Red and the IN with green.

You will need to relink each time the project goes to the other system but if you use the same names and folder structure you link the first file and FCP links the rest.

I have done this on HD multicam projects with 8 angles and 3 TB of footage.

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Jim,

The EASIEST way to maintain your project between computers would be to have a separate FW drive that you write the project and media files to. We use a lot of G-Raid drives for this and it works perfectly.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Michael Sacci]

NO the easiest way is to use the same HD in both places, that way there is only one project file. But if you use 2 drives whether they are FW or RAIDs, You need to have a system to keep track of the project file. If you have two FW drives and you name the drives the same and keep the file structure the same you may not get the reconnecting dialog box but I’m not 100% sure on that.

My suggest is more for keeping track, you know which file to open. So if you worked at home the night before and go in the office the next day you don’t accidentally open the older file, cause you see that it is labeled “OUT”

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Michael,

Sorry if you miss read my post or I didn’t explain it clearly, but that is exactly what I meant. ONE external FW drive to write the project and media files to.
Then they just take the FW drive back and forth between the laptop and tower.

thanks for helping to clear it up.

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Michael Sacci]

I think between the 2 of us we got him covered. 🙂

[Jim Bell]

Thanks guys,

This was great. The in/out labels will save me a lot of head scratching, and using one portable drive makes the problem go away.

Just hate lugging the gdrive everywhere.

In 10 years our kids will sit down at any mac, type in their password and have access to every file they’ve ever created. Alas, that is not yet. Thanks, and godspeed the Supercloud… Guess I really should not drink Starbucks this late in the day… jb

10.6.1, MacPro Quad 6GB RAM, Macbook Pro 17″ w/G-Tech 2 TB GRaid with Sonnet Tempo eSATA via express card, FCS3, TC Electronic Impact Twin FW audio interface, 2 DVX100Bs

[Justin Cordes]

Okay, so given that I and another editor are going to edit the same project on two different computers, with two duplicate hard drives of identical media….how would I properly duplicate the MEDIA from the original hard drive to the duplicate hard drive so that I can I can view different cuts that, say my editing partner has created on the other computer.

That is to say, perhaps my editing partner will email me an FCP project file that’s been updated or changed and I assume I can open that up, re-link media and see his cut. Do I use Media Manager? Or do I just drag and drop the media and FCP project folder via the desktop.

Also, can someone explain to me, in layman’s terms, the difference between checking/unchecking the PROJECT setting, “Duplicate selected items and place into a new project” in Media Manager? I assume if you DO NOT select it, that means that original project file should re-link to those duplicated media files. I haven’t tested that out yet.

Regard,
Justin