FCPX holding my timeline hostage; need a negotiator

[Craig Alan]

Not sure I’m buying this, Bill. A databased application can find any file on any drive if it knows the path where it was stored. If it gets moved you need to point it to the new path. And a disc image is a virtual drive. It is not just a folder on the root level of a drive. The problem with disc images other than the time spent having to create them is they are just like any drive – they can become corrupted and unreadable. So if you have a disc image on a drive you have doubled your chances of having your media become unreadable. I’ve had it happen to me twice. The drive it was on was fine but the disc image lost some of of its structure and was unmountable. Now I was using the sparse bundles as a way of protecting students’ work in a class where hundreds of students shared 3 computers on multiple projects. So the percentage was very low but it did happen. I believe it happened (but this is a guess) when the disc bundle was being mounted and either the system crashed or there was a brown out to the electrical flow to the raid. I spent a lot of time with tech support from companies like disc warrior to see if I could get the bundle to mount but nothing would do the trick.

However, FCP X version 1 was designed to only work with one library on the root level of any attached drive. So maybe there is something to your theory that the root level is somehow more accessible to its database than putting it in any location that makes sense to the end user. However, libraries too can become corrupted and the idea of storing and opening all your projects overtime you open FC made no sense and was a recipe for disaster. Sparse bundles came to the rescue as a work around. Many virtual drives on one media raid = many root levels.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Mark Suszko]

I have had mixed results trying to copy files back into the P2 reader or the kiPro drive. Doesn’t always work for me.

(back to the fairgrounds, moo)

[Craig Alan]

the clips themselves are iffy but the original files copied from the P2 cards in one folder have never failed me. The camera gives an error message but then rewraps them in the playback mode.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.