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HELP!!! Project Sizes – Too Big?
First, I’m an Avid guy, and my company is testing out a Final Cut system to see if we want to go in that direction. For our main shows on the Avids, that an hour long, we average around 60 to 80MB a project. The show that we are developing the FCP, is now averaging around 48MB and we are running into problems. The company we got the system from for our testing purposes and support, tells us that it’s our file size. How can that be? On average, what are the project sizes you’ve been working with, and is it having any direct effect on how FCP runs? Does it matter that we are not on an XSAN and running 2 terabyte drives?
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3 Replies
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“we are running into problems”
Could you be a little more specific about the problems you are running into. Are these the same 1 hour projects you were that were even larger on an Avid. Thanks, oh yeah system info including ram etc is always a bug help too.
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Sorry…wrote that in a bit of a hurry. Our system config is as follows:
Mac G5/2.7GHz/DP/4GB/250GB/16xSuperDrive/Rad9650 which is connected to (2) 1 terabyte drives, running FinalCut Studio with BlackMagic DeckLink Extreme
Anyways, when we attempt to consolidate through the Media Tool, Final Cut crashes. Other times it just hangs and we get the neverending spinning wheel of doom. We need to consolidate as we are not on an XSAN or Unity type server. We are currently running off of 2 terabyte drives and as with any production, the Producers do not want to throw anything away, but once shows are finished, in the Avid world, we’d consolidate the show, and dump any unused media.
My tech support is telling me that this is due to the Project file sizes, idealy (in their opinion) Project sizes are not to exceed 20MB. I find this to be an impossibility with an hour show – on any current NLE system. They tell me that there shouldn’t be nested sequences in squences, nor should there be any JPEGs in the sequence until you output. There may also be an issue with how long the sequence is – yes, he actually said that. The one show we have been trying to consolidate is at 63.8MB. On average, a 1 hour Special in Avid land would be about 80 to 100MB.
Now, I’m told (by another source) that I’d have better results if I make the current project an ‘Offline Project?’ Any thoughts on that? Can anyone recommend a better way to consolidate media? Is the FCP Media Tool as probematic as I’m now being told? I ask, again because, I am an Avid guy who has literally jumped into the Final Cut pool – the deep end. A little help?
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Hmmm. Could you be specific about your media manage process? What exactly are your settings that are causing you to crash. Do you have a lot of Multiclips in your project? Are you just trying to consolidate to a finished sequence full of media? There are a lot of ways this can work non of which should be causing a crash but it’s probably in those settings some where that’s somethings getting messed up. Make offline is helpful and so is XML sometimes exporting an XML of a sequence and re-importing might work too.
Sorry for all the questions. Hope I can help.
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