fcpx event backup

[Michael Sanders]

First of all you have to understand that event’s and projects are two different things.

Your media is stored in the event and the timelines & sequences in the project folder.

One thing I have found is that if you have copied the media to the event folder, life gets a lot easier. If you have, you can save the event file (the current version file that live in the [FCPX event name] folder) and then rebuild it if you need to by creating a new event file, dumping the media into a newly created event and then over-writing the newly created event folder.

If you haven’t done this and not imported the media to the event file then FCP X creates an alias in the event folder, which is easily broken. In this case the best thing to do is use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate the disc with your event on.

The best way to copy a project folder is simply to duplicate to another disc, I personally use a USB thumbnail drive from Lexar that permanently lives in the computer. When you duplicate un tick include render files. This will then copy the project file which you could then archive to a disk image, drop-box etc.

Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor

[Bill Davis]

While there’s nothing “wrong” with doing finder copies of stuff as is outlined here – X actually has a purpose built construct called MOVE PROJECT that is another useful tool for managing disc space and drives.

Under the Files Menu, it lets you specify that everything related to a particular project (inducing the event references if you elect so) will be moved “en masse” to a new location. When they are moved, as long as all the links are in tact (and the MOVE command preserves them perfectly) then you can use the project just like it’s on the root drive – since it shows up in the Project Library just like any other project. When the drive is available the projects show up – when the drive is off, they don’t. This makes it very easy to clear space on your primary computer when needed. It’s essentially cloning everything about your project onto a new location.

The caveat is that when the move is finished, the project is cleared out of the old location.

So it’s truly a MOVE not a BACKUP, but useful none the less.

For me this makes primary editing on my laptop a joy. Since this plus disk images (either generated in the Imaging capability built into X or via Disk Utility) make it really easy to work on multiple projects without clogging my laptop drives.

Just food for thought.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Michael Sanders]

Yes but as you say, its for MOVING a project, not making a backup which is what the questioner was asking about.

Personally I think this is FCP X one weak area as its to easy to mess up and not well documented on how to recover from.

Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor

[Bill Davis]

Well, actually the menu choice underneath MOVE project is DUPLICATE PROJECT.

So it kinda does facilitate backups.

I mentioned the MOVE command first, because a lot of folks ignore file copying issues until they run out of drive room.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Brian Busher]

Ed,
I’ve been developing a workflow for just what you are describing over the last few days. I believe you and i are working towards the same goal: backing up our projects on a regular basis in case of catastrophe. A lot of this can be done manually from within FCPX as has been discussed. However, if you edit like me backups happen far less frequently than they should if i am doing them manually, and you are looking for a more automated solution.

Here’s what i think i know so far:
Final Cut Pro X wants to create Event and Project files on the same drive as all of your media files. Since FCPX buries these project and event files in with massive amounts of media, targeting the event/project folders on the drives creates backups that are far too large. And unlike FXP 7 and before, FCPX names ALL of the event and project files the exact same thing, namely “CurrentVersion.fcpevent” or “CurrentVersion.fcpproject”. This makes a targeted backup based on file extensions unviable as well. I used to use automator to backup all files with .fcp extension to a backup folder. It worked wonderfully.

So far, here’s my solution:
I use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup my drives every night with a custom filter. I have it exclude file types mov,wav,cal, and fppl and exclude all of the folders that might contain large media files with custom rules. The rules are “- Analysis Files”, ‘- Backups”, “- Old Versions”, “- Original Media”, “- Render Files”, and “- Transcoded Media”

This seems to be working in my tests and creates an archive with all of the folder structure you would need to recreate a project of a drive failed. Recreating the project will mean using FCPX to relink the media files, which opens another batch of problems which are being discussed elsewhere. The biggest hurdle for us has been relinking to MXF files from our new XF300. As of now, i have not been able to accomplish this, and am woking on a new workflow for that camera’s footage. the good news is that DSLR footage, graphics from After Effects, music, VO, etc. all seem to reconnect fine, and the project is up and running again in no time.

Hopefully this helps. Any feedback from the community would be greatly appreciated since i am currently testing this workflow. As my boss says, we can’t be the only ones out there with this problem. I am curious to know what others are doing to backup their events/projects.

-Brian

[Ed Sayers]

nice one

clever workaround

one other thing – is there much point keeping original (canon 5d h264) media, if you have had fcpx create optimized media (prores in ‘high quality media’ folder plus smaller ones in ‘proxy media’ folder).
i will be finishing the project entirely in fcpx so i imagine these original camera files are quite literally a waste of space….

?

ed

[Brian Busher]

Ed,
We’ve been debating the same thing here about keeping the camera original MXF files from our XF300 with all their supporting folders. I’m always nervous deleting camera originals (it feels like throwing aways tapes to me) but in the end, we’ll have the transcoded files from FCPX stored on two doubly-redundant drobo pro FS drives so it might not matter. The problem i’ve noticed is that FCPX does not seem to be smart enough to relink to the file it created from the MXF original back to the MXF if the optimized media goes off line. That is a big reason why we’re leaning towards backing up the transcoded files and ditching the camera originals.

On the other hand, h.264 files from DSLR cameras are relatively small and easy to work with. FCPX did not have any problems relinking to these files if the project went offline, so we keep those files and dump the ProRes transcoded files when archiving a finished edit. FCPX can reimport them and re-transcode them if you need to rebuild an edit from scratch.

Good luck,
-Brian

[Howard Neuthaler]

Brian,

Thanks for this great information. I use Event Manager X, which moves projects and events between their regular folders and “Not In Use” folders in order to “declutter” the FCPX interface so it doesn’t load every project and event ever created. The downside of this is that it causes automated backup processes that backup these folders to copy large amounts of data whenever a project or event switches to or from a “Not In Use” folder.

To remedy this, based on your suggestion, I now have Carbon Copy Cloner do a nightly backup of my “Final Cut Events”, “Final Cut Events Not In Use”, “Final Cut Projects”, and “Final Cut Projects Not In Use” folders, excluding the subfolders you mention, to a new “Final Cut Files for Backup” folder. I backup this new folder, rather than the Projects, Events, and Not In Use folders, to my Time Machine volume and “the cloud”. (I keep my original media separately, and do not copy it into the FCPX event folders, so I do not have to backup any original media within those folders.)

Thanks again,
Howard

[Howard Neuthaler]

Well the solution I thought was great has now screwed me up entirely. FCPX now will not recognize the drive on which I have all of my events and projects, apparently because of the duplicates of those within my new backup folder. So I deleted the backup folder and all of its contents, emptied the trash, restarted, etc., and FCPX still does not recognize the drive. Can anyone help?!?!?! Thanks in advance.

[Howard Neuthaler]

OK, problem solved. It seemed to have been a permissions issue – I think CCC had somehow changed the permissions of the drive.