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File Sharing – Breaking The Rules before 10.1, what now?
Hey Creative Cow Peeps,
So I am still relatively new to FCPX, been editing many years, even before non-linear was a thing (anyone remember the edit droid?) Meanwhile rather than whining about the shortcomings of FCPX I’m working through them and embracing relational database editing in a 64bit environment. One of the big challenge areas is file sharing and I’m curious what the community has been doing with 10.1? I am currently editing a documentary feature so really putting faith in this software, currently running 10.1.2:
BLISSFULLY BREAKING THE RULES
Before FCPX 10.1 I had a wonderful work flow of doing all my own encoding to ProRes from our mostly 5D documentary onto an external GRAID and letting FCPX encode ONLY the proxies on a separate GRAID into various events. These events were then copied to bus powered 2TB WD Passport drive ONCE and only ONCE. Then for any work done on the events remotely on laptops, the editor would simply email or post to dropbox the “CurrentVersion.fcpevent” file. I would archive the current one in a dated folder on the master GRAID drive and place the new one in the appropriate directory. This works PERFECTLY. Now with 10.1 the events are hidden inside the package contents of the new “Library” system. I’ve done some testing and it still works though not quite as elegant as now I have to export the events into another library rather than simply copy the event folder. Then you have to go into package contents to replace the “CurrentVersion.fcpevent” file with any updates.ONLY LOADING WHAT IS NECESSARY
Before 10.1 I could simply move the events to a “Final Cut Events HIDE” folder (basically what folks paid Event manager X to do) and FCPX would only load the events I needed immensely speeding things up. Now that keywords can be shared across libraries I keep all my events in one library. I love having keywords shared across events, been waiting for this obvious change, it’s been one of my biggest gripes. I haven’t experimented with a way to HIDE events to speed things up, I’m assuming I’m going to have to climb into package contents and create a HIDE folder? I’ve considered creating a library for every event foregoing the sharing of keywords but apparently you can’t source from different libraries when editing to a project without duplicating media ;( This is madness to me, it should simply unlink files if source libraries aren’t loaded, hopefully that will be resolved.SO MY QUESTIONS ARE
Now that 10.1 introduces this package contents style libraries how are you folks avoiding the load of all the events when say you only need one? How do you folks exchange modified events etc done on mobile systems without duplicating media? There must be a work flow when you know you have already duplicated the media events etc once. In my professional experience you simply exchange “pointer files” not media between systems and especially mobile systems.Curious to see what others are doing and appreciate as always constructive advice.
MA
“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano
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8 Replies
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[Michael Angelo] “how are you folks avoiding the load of all the events when say you only need one”
Events are now a subset of the library file. You have to load ALL of the events within a library. You can, however, freely decide which libraries you want open if you want only one or more libraries active. To close a library, select it in the FCP X event browser and close from the file menu. If you hold down the option key when you launch FCP X, a menu comes up allowing you to select any specific library to load.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Yep, got all that per my original post, thanks for confirming
More trying to work around the catch 22 that you have to load all events in a library even if you are only working on one event. This is spendy, less stable and I have a 1000+ hours of HD footage and some RED. If you try and work around this by creating separate libraries with individual events inside each one, you end up duplicating media if you edit from different libraries and can no longer share keywords. That’s no good either, making this new design somewhat ill conceived.
I’m looking for a work around. I’ve literally moved the events out of the “Package Contents” kinda like “Event Manager X” used to do and it leaves some remnant of the Events when you re-open the library, basically an index with no media. Seems like the library itself is keeping an index of the events created in the “CurrentVersion.flexolibrary” file. Perhaps this doesn’t really matter, I need to test it some more and don’t know a lot about the software coding so can’t speak to the shortcomings, if any, of this technique.
Regarding my other question about Sharing Events etc between different systems, I’m curious if anyone else out there uses the swapping of the “CurrentVersion.fcpevent” file to more efficiently share edits. So far it’s working great on 10.1 but totally open to other techniques.
“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano
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In my opinion, you should be careful horsing around in the Library.
I’d use a transfer library to move Events around, and then simply drag the new one in to your original Library, delete the old Event, and rename the new Event to the old Event.
Jeremy
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Hi Jeremy,
I fear you are right that horsing around in library is not ideal… I like your idea as it’s more in keeping with the software design though you’d have to open the software with all the events, wait for them to load then move them, then close the library you moved them to. Probably the safest idea so thank you.
I did read on page 23 of this guide it’s not a good idea to move events between libraries too many times though they don’t say why:
https://www.10dot1.co.uk/content/FCPXInASharedEnvironment_FINAL.pdf
Personally I’d like to see a modern day “Event Manger X” that safety suppresses the loading of unneeded events. I never bought the old one as it was easier to move them my self 😉
Cheers
MA
“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano
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[Michael Angelo] “Personally I’d like to see a modern day “Event Manger X” that safety suppresses the loading of unneeded events. I never bought the old one as it was easier to move them my self ;)”
Libraries don’t work the same way unfortunately.
You may want to think about using more than one Library as mentioned before.
You don’t need to dupe media anymore thanks to FCPX’s new media management capabilities, you will only dupe links to the media, whether that’s original, proxy, or optimized. Keywords are easily passed between events with drag and drop of clips (the keywords come with), ir simply add a keyword and apply to the unrated footage
I have found performance of Libraries, in general, to be much better, but I have not used 1000+ hours of footage.
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Jeremy I think you are right regarding loading less events…
Have you tried the swapping of “”CurrentVersion.fcpevent”” file when working across different machines?
I’ve been doing it for a year with great results, no media management needed and very small fast file exchange…
MA
“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano
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[Michael Angelo] “Have you tried the swapping of “”CurrentVersion.fcpevent”” file when working across different machines?”
I haven’t, but it’s only becuase I would hate to lose anything. In the early days of fcpx, I had a few events corrupt by me trying to break them. I learned enough to know that interfering too much with the structure can cause problems.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t do what you’re doing, if it’s working I guess it’s fine, I would just be careful and make a lot of backups.
Libraries are now a bit more complicated, as are Events, so I play it safe and use the fcpx media management capability that are built in. Now that libraries can be so small, it works really well.
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I back up once a day… Not sure how swapping the “CurrentVersion.fcpevent” file will work now, gonna keep testing, but it was fantastic pre 10.1!
Doesn’t seem that the designers at Apple have enough professional advisors to realize once you have duplicate media on another system you should no longer need to exchange media files other than renders etc, it should simply be a matter of swapping the pointer files in this case: “CurrentVersion.fcpevent”
I’m betting Apple will catch up and I have of course sent this to FCPX feedback. Meanwhile back to making it all work with the tools provided 😉
“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano
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