How to break up media file into smaller files based on subclips

[Tom Meegan]

Short answer:

FCP will have no problem dealing with a single 3.6 GB file.

Long answer:

The media manager has several different ways of breaking things up. Look at the manual on the media manager. The manual does a pretty good job of explaining the options.

It will likely become clear after several minutes of reading why it is not behaving as you want it to.

Best,

Tom

Best,

Tom Meegan
Woven Pixels, LLC

[Declan Smith]

I have read the section on media management but I have obviously missed something. It always creates a clip of exactly 3.6Gb. I select all the subclips and open media manager. Using either “existing” or “copy” from the options, still creates a single large clip. I have however, managed to get it working after a fashion and I think it could be a possible bug.

Steps taken.

1. Start new project, capture tape, DV start/stop detect, create sub clips
2. Selecting any adjacent clip (i.e. clip1, clip2, etc) it creates a single large file.
3. Selecting non-adjacent clips (i.e. clip 1, clip 3, clip 5) it creates the separate files as expected with differing sizes.

When I say adjacent, I mean timecode wise (after the DV start/stop detect) such that clip 2 follows immediatly after clip1 etc.

Is there some other setting that I missing out here?

Declan Smith

[David Roth weiss]

[Declan Smith] “It always creates a clip of exactly 3.6Gb.”

Is it possible your media drive is improperly formatted as FAT32? FAT32 has a 4Gb file size limitation.

You can check that and reformat if necessary to GUID with the Apple Disk Utility, but of course you’ll need to move your media files to another drive in the interim.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Roth weiss]

[Declan Smith] “If I select clips in order 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc (which are the adjacent clips from the full capture) then media manager will only write one single, large file, a copy of the original full capture. Smells of a bug to me, but open to suggestions. “

Declan,

To me it sounds like a remnant of EDL management. In the old days, when we routinely used EDLs to recapture and online, two adjacent clips, or even two that were just close by, would be captured as one large clip in a NLE, as a timesaving measure (i.e. fewer machine starts and stops, and less timecode searching). I suspect you have stumbled upon the EDL protocol that was most likely incorporated when creating Media Manager.

BTW, for the record, media management is not the strength of FCP. Personally, after years of using NLEs that were rock solid in that area, I simply refuse to use Media Manager unless I absolutely have to.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Declan Smith]

It is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Two 1Tb disks in a striped raid array.

As I said, If I pick all the odd subclips (1,3,5,7,9) and use media manager to copy them out, that works, then do all the even ones (2,4,6,8) etc.

If I select clips in order 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc (which are the adjacent clips from the full capture) then media manager will only write one single, large file, a copy of the original full capture. Smells of a bug to me, but open to suggestions.

Declan Smith

[Declan Smith]

David,

Thanks, this sheds a little bit more light on things. I guess the real question for me is workflow. I have come from Sony Vegas, which breaks clips up on capture, so naturally I am attempting to set things up in a similar way with FCP, which may not be the best way.

I suppose what I really need is “best practice” guide for capturing an entire tape (to save on the wear and tear of log and capture). I like the fact that FCP puts emphasis on the log and capture as it should save time in the long run.

A previous reply to this thread (by Tom Meegan – thanks by the way), suggested ,that keeping all the subclips pointing to one large capture file should be ok and not introduce any performance issues.

Maybe what I am trying to do by splitting up subclips into separate files is pointless ?

Regards
Declan

Declan Smith

[David Roth weiss]

[Declan Smith] “Maybe what I am trying to do by splitting up subclips into separate files is pointless ?
“

Yes, I think so at any rate. It’s just waste of time with FCP, because there’s no way to do it in a way that is time efficient, and I’m all about efficiency whenever possible.

Several years ago, I transitioned to FCP from Discreet Edit*, which had a very cool feature that allowed you to create a new clip every time you hit the enter key during a capture from tape. I found that to be exceedingly helpful when editing docos, which is what I do, but I’ve since learned to get along without that in FCP.

I tend to capture entire tapes, which is no longer the problem it once was, as the machines are powerful enough to easily handle whole tapes, and of course, are drives are ridiculously inexpensive no as well.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.