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How to minimize size of FCP Project?
Hi my Dear COW friends,
it’s been a while…but here I am again, needing some advice, from my dear colleagues in cyber space:
I am editing a documentary. it’s a lot fo footage and different sequences, and unfortunately the project is now145MB big. Weird enough the film I edited before, had the same amount of material, but was only 45MB at its largest moment.
The only difference, the 145MB one has more markers on the source clips in the Browser and as way more text layers, since the whole movei is subtitled.
What can I do to reduce the size of the project, since I heard & read many a times, that FCP Projects should not be bigger than 100MB at most.
I want to avoid deleting footage and sequences from the Browser and put them in separate projects, since I’d need it all together.Any ideas?
Thanx a lot and have a splendid day!
Greetings,
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
11 Replies
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If you worked on the project file for a long time it is possible that FCP gathered some unnecessary data trash in the project file. (At least I had this a few times).
Create a new project and copy and paste everything in the browser-window from the old project into the new one.
Check if that reduced the file size…Head of Postproduction
Motherlode -
What do you mean? Select All in the Browser window of the old project, open new one and & paste into the new browser window?
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
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Ok. I will give it a shot. Let you know about the outcome.
Thanx a lot.
Greetings,
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
oh, no, that is terrible advice!
it is true FCP used to behave like this, and projects would bloat,
and it may even be a little bit true today,
BUT
if you simply select all in browser & copy / paste into new project you will most likely LOSE ALL your master affiliate relationships.you will never be able to match frame back to your browser bin.
that’d be a pity!to do it safely, you need to copy bins of clips in one move,
and sequences in another.
if you copy both at once, it can confuse FCPthere might be other options:
firstly, ill say, yes, lots of markers and lots of subtitles will contribute to the bloat.
but you need them, so you have to ditch something else.first thing to look at is how many versions of sequences are you carrying.
get rid of all but one!
copy all old versions into an “old version” project.i try to have one major version in my project.
i use screenings as “landmarks”
for a screening, i copy my various parts (sequences) from their respective projects into a screening project.
then i do whatever i need to do to get exports,
but i now also have an archived copy of the entire edit representing a particular version of the film that we all may refer to.
if someone says: remember when we showed the film to so-and-so. i liked such-and-such a scene,
well you can get to it very simply, by going to the project for that particular screening.
copy & paste whatever you need back into your main project if you want to.you could also try deleting all your render files, and starting over.
they make for a lot of memory, i suspect.but Sasha, it may be that you will just have to split your project.
surely there is some organisational way you can do that?
you can have the same material in both projects.im just finishing a doc with some protest scenes in it.
one is mainly used at the beginning, another is mainly used at the end,
but i have all protests in both my “beginning” project,and my “end” project.when i split projects, i rather than copy/ pasting i tend to copy the entire project, and delete what i don’t need.
nick
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Thanx Nick for your long reply!
I will try the safe copy/paste way you suggested first.
I am sure, something is not right and it is not supposed to be that big.
Before I did a feature, that was not much less than this, but had only 45MB.Will keep you all updated how this method turned out to be.
Just have to do it tomorrow…gotta leave for a shooting.Thanx so much!
Greetings,
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
Run Preference Manager:
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/
Also, if your FCP project gets bloated, try copying your final edit into a new FCP project. Save that new file out as a new name. Your media will still read from that new project, but now, you won’t have to have such a huge internalized project. There’s also a consolidating feature, if you move the media and project files to another drive, this rids you of tons of media and assets that you may or may be using. For example, editors copy large amounts of raw media b-roll, that are never used in the edit, go through and figure out what you can cut out and remove from your drive, if all the raw is save on another drive, remove all media that you don’t think you will use. Also, music, if you have copied over a ton of temp music, rid yourself of all extra fat you’re not using that is not tied to your linked media, and blow it away off your drive. Minimize how many sequences you have in your project. Migrate your final sequence to a new FCP project, and see if that helps.
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Digital Chop House
Salt Lake City, Utah -
” try copying your final edit into a new FCP project. Save that new file out as a new name”
you wont be able to match frame back to your rushes bin if you do that.
rushes & sequences have to be in the same project if you want that to work.nick
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I tend to keep a copy of the cut at various stages so that I can go back to them if I need to, which means that I end up with multiple sequences, which adds hugely to the project size. So what I do is create a separate project for all those saves, so my master project only has the current cut that I’m working on and the rushes in it, that works for me.
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Hallo to everybody. Thanx so much for all the good and informative suggestions!
What I did: I deleted (long process, since FCP did not do that well), all the markers on the clips in the TL and left them only on the MasterClips in the Browser.
Then I took all the Sequences I do not need in the current project and outsourced them into own projects.
Both things together did the job: I went down from 145MB to 40MB. Seems to be perfect size for now.Again: Thanx to everybody! C.O.W. rocks! And you guys make this site such a valuable tool for all filmmakers.
Thumbs up to all of you!
Greetings,
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang
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