events consolidation merging and duplicating etc…

[Anita Sancha]

Thanks….

re All you need to do is keep versioning Projects. There’s no reason to create new Events and delete media. Just keep the first Event until the end when you want to make a new event with only the used media from the Project.

That supposes that you are not working evenings on a laptop and transferring back and forth… If you do then its flawed!

Also coming from after effects… where collect files and increment and save is so easy to move from one person or computer to another is soooooo simple..I never expected this much of a problem. I find this has left me utterly perplexed at the complexity. AE is seamless. Any way trashing renders is brilliant. will do that in future. And maybe put all events on an external drive. But I think myFCPX is in a bit of a mess.anything else i can trash? at least to clean up this database. However I have learnt sooooo much with this mess and must have been through every video tutorial on line … and still watch different bods giving completely different solutions to this issue. i.e move events and projects out of events and projects via finder rather than inside FCPX.

Thanks for all your help
Anita Sancha.

http://www.anitasancha.co.uk

[Jeremy Garchow]

I share work between computers. You only need to move Event and Project files (CurrentVersion.fcpevent, CurrentVersion.fcpproject)as well as media. You have to be mindful of having the same Event/Project on one machine with this method.

Or, keep everything on one external drive and simply plug the drive in to the computer you are working from (super easy).

Jeremy

[Bill Davis]

[anita sancha] “Also coming from after effects… where collect files and increment and save is so easy to move from one person or computer to another is soooooo simple.”

FCP-X is not after effects. It’s also not Premier, AVID, Vegas, or Excell. And beyond that, ALL those other programs are constructed such that the user can happily use the finder in order to manage projects and assets in a traditional way.

Now you get to X where the rules have changed. At first they’re frustrating, I know.

Then something happens and it just ALL makes sense.

Here’ s an example. I had a client ask for a simple change on a X Project I hadn’t opened in more than a year. My disk librarian program told me the event was on Drive H – (I’m working on P now) – so I grabbed H off the shelf and plugged it in via Firewire 800.

X was open on my desktop – and low and behold it asks me if I want to update this to the current version of X (said Yes which took about 5 seconds) the entire Event and Project structure loaded up in maybe 10 more seconds and I’m literally right back to the state of my project the way it was when I closed it a year ago. Everything live and on-line. nothing missing. My entire keyword structure, search, title arrangements – all accessible. Took me about a minute to make the client change and another minute to Share a copy of the updated video to the web where my client could view, approve and download it.

The efficiency was palpable. X is not just about “a program” and “files” it’s about an integrated system that lets you organize assets then use them in as many unique or different projects as you like. And the integrated nature of the system means that anything you’ve ever done in X is just a drive hookup away. Nice, neat, organized and ready for incremental work the instant you are.

Sharing the structure is a matter of understanding the structure. And I suspect that will get even better very soon if the rumors we’re hearing about changes at the X “Libraries” level turn out to be accurate.

After all, the field with arguably the MOST experience with multi-user file sharing is the database industry. And at it’s heart, the event library inside X is just a database with a very sweet editor facing visual front end.

FWIW.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Anita Sancha]

hi..

Thanks for a great deal of advice. Certainly I put pen to paper and there was a lot of house keeping that was not in good shape. Seems best to use my external passport 2TB and use this for all events and projects would be best for rolling back and forth between laptop and Mac pro. (SSDs are still only about 1TB at MAX). However it still leaves me having to drag an external about.!!!

Note…I still believe FCPX not very stable. i.e. for duplicating projects AND events off onto a laptop…. (should that be necessary) back off the laptop after working i.e showing clients etc..(in an ideal world external should not be needed) . then duplicating clips and events back onto the external after client changes! Also why have the necessity to use a slower external than the 1TB SSD that I have the use of on my laptop!

FYI Also the corrupted files may? have been multi-clipped and compound.

Anyway I know you are only the “messenger” or “helper” as we say in UK….but maybe apple would read this? who knows…
And what I would tell them is to make it as easy as ……dare I say Adobes AE!!!! LOL But seriously FCPX is a GREAT bit of software and I prefer it to Premier…. despite all. x

Thanks

Thanks for all your help
Anita Sancha.

http://www.anitasancha.co.uk

[Anita Sancha]

[Bill Davis] “My disk librarian program told me the event was on Drive H – (I’m working on P now) – so I grabbed H off the shelf and plugged it in via Firewire 800. “

Soo… seems you never moved the events at all…???? ( I presume assets were copied to an event then )
What if you had happened to have been asked to work on X over the weekend on your laptop? what would you have done then?

Thanks for all your help
Anita Sancha.

http://www.anitasancha.co.uk

[Bill Davis]

Anita,

It’s showing those things because those things exist. At some point you had multiple copies of source clips on drives. All X is doing is showing you what the database thinks is actually out there.

The disorganization isn’t the result of how X displays the clips – it’s in what you’re storing on your hard drives and importing into X. X is just doing it’s job to display what you’ve imported.

Not to beat the horse, but this is a huge part of why so many of us use Disk Images and similar cloning strategies. One single “launched clone” with all the assets that X is looking for to populate your Event – is the ideal situation.

Five copies of the same asset that’s been “imported” into X from five different locations is not ideal.

The act of “importing” directly affects what’s displayed by the database. So the fact that you’ve imported the same assets more than once isn’t the fault of how the program works. It’s just doing what you specifically told it to do.

Go into your event browser. Find the extra copies of the asset you don’t want to to display – and use the FILE>Move to trash – menu command in X to remove them. This takes them OUT of the database. (DO NOT just go to the finder and trash them – because the FCP-X database will NOT update this way.)

And remember, when you to to remove all but ONE of the asset copies – make sure the one you keep in the one stored in the actual archive you want to keep – meaning that it’s where you want to keep ALL your assets for this project. If you have assets referenced in your database from different repositories – and you take a drive off line that it storing SOME of those clips – you’ll get Red Offline markers in your Event Browser on ONLY the clips that aren’t where the program expects them to be.

I see that sort of asset checkerboard a LOT from people who haven’t properly learned the database side of X.

Good luck.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Bill Davis]

[anita sancha] “[Bill Davis] “My disk librarian program told me the event was on Drive H – (I’m working on P now) – so I grabbed H off the shelf and plugged it in via Firewire 800. ”

Soo… seems you never moved the events at all…???? ( I presume assets were copied to an event then )
What if you had happened to have been asked to work on X over the weekend on your laptop? what would you have done then?
“

Anita,

If you do a lot of projects, and don’t have MASSIVE storage available – eventually you want to archive some of your older Events and their associated projects. You do this in X via the MOVE command. I had MOVED the Event in question to a backup drive and deleted it from my working drive many months ago.

The magic of X is that the moment it “saw” that old drive re-attached, it treats it just like a current drive and loads up any Events and Projects – so you simply get an additional pool of active projects.

This is different from maintaining on-line and off-line versions of an active project for work away from your central edit bay. That too is possible, but it’s not the same as archiving presumably no longer required projects. You might check out the MacBreak Studios video on on-line/off-line workflow in X. Steve and Mark always do a wonderful job of outlining the basics. Very much worth the time to watch.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[anita sancha] “What if you had happened to have been asked to work on X over the weekend on your laptop? what would you have done then?”

It’s more work, but I think you are missing how this happens.

Let’s say you start on a MacPro. You import and organize and get some Projects together.

You then need to transfer this to a MacBook Pro.

The easiest way to so this is to use fcpx to make a copy of the relative Event and Project. You then Organize the Event on the external to make sure all media is on the external.

At this point, you turn on your MacBook Pro, connect the external, and launch fcpx. Everything should be there. If not, you have to bring over any missing assets by hand, just like any other NLE.

Now you have two copies, one on MacPro, one on external.

At this time, if you find it advantageous to put the material directly on your MacBook, use fcpx to copy the material to your MacBook. You now have three copies.

It is at this point, if you really don’t want to use an external drive, you have to do some manual Finder work.

Let’s say after you have done everything above, you have edited and shut down for the night. In the morning, you go to the MacPro and want to continue from there.

You simply take any “CurrentVersion” fcpproject and fcpevents from your MacBook Pro and replace the same ones on your MacPro. You have to follow the strict file structure that fcpx requires in order for this to work correctly. If you have imported any new media, you’ll need to bring that with you too, just like any other NLE.

Launch fcpx.

You now are working on your MacPro just as you were working on your MacBook. At the end of the day, you reverse the process.

An external drive would negate any manual copying of files, you’d simply bring the drive with you. You could leave your computers in their respective places.

If not much has changed in your Event, then you can simply bring the Project folders with you and modify events references to the respective MacPro or MacBook Pro Event.

It’s really no different than working with other NLEs if you understand FCPX’s file structure.

[Bill Davis]

[anita sancha] “That supposes that you are not working evenings on a laptop and transferring back and forth… If you do then its flawed!”

Anita,

Actually this is INSANELY easy with X.

You have a copy of FCP-X on your desktop machine and on your laptop machine.

You buy a small, but high capacity portable drive large enough to hold all the media in your project with some overhead. I use a 2TB Western Digital Passport, but I used to use 750Gig Seagates. All Firewire 800. We’ll call the drive BOB.

So you just create your FCP-X Event and Projects on BOB.

You copy your media into the Event on BOB as well – OR you can be really cool, and store your camera disk archives on BOB so that you launch them every time you want to work. The only thing this does for you is that you can have clone repositories on backup drives – rather than a folder of messy separate clips which is a lot easier to backup for safety.

You’re done and perfectly portable. Because the moment you plug that drive into EITHER a laptop or your desktop machine that’s running FCP-X – the entire shebang loads up and you can work on it.

Cuz you’re working with exactly the SAME files on both machines. The only thing different is that each maching is running a different copy of X. But X doesn’t care about that.

If you’re excited by safety, you hang another drive on your desktop system, and make backups each day of the current state of your project there – but if you’re using Disk Archives, you do NOT need to back up your footage – just your current event and any folders of separate assets like graphics and sounds.

It’s insanely simple.

You work in two places – but on ONE file.

Simple.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Anita Sancha]

Thanks guys for all your input and comments. This has been most appreciated. All the best. I have a multitude of answers and videos to watch. Thank you again. X

Thanks for all your help
Anita Sancha.

http://www.anitasancha.co.uk