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Media Management in FCPX
I had a nice system under FCPS that worked well, but not perfectly.
System Drive: FCP Projects
RAID in eSATA case: Scratch disk
Other Internal Drives: P2 Card data (exact copies of P2 Card structure)What worked is that all my various FCP files were on separate hard drives. What didn’t was managing what media I had. I was using Expression Media 2 to catalog and keyword.
Now in FCPX I can manage my media and find those clips from an old project that will work in a new project. However I’m not sure how to best organize my Events and Projects. Here is what I’m thinking:
System Drive: Just FCPX
RAID in eSATA case: Final Cut Projects
Other Internal Drives: P2 Card data on disk and Final Cut Pro Events (linked to P2 video using Raylight)What I’m not sure about is which would benefit most from the fast eSATA RAID – Projects or Events? From some testing I’ve done it seems the Projects folders can get big fast, lots of reading and writing going on.
I did try and put my P2 media on a different disk than my Events. However the issue with that is if the P2 Media/Raylight files go offline then FCPX shows these files as offline, but does not have anything that tells me where they are (what offline drive I need to put back online). If I keep the P2 folder and Event on the same disk then this is not an issue. I can then use Event Manager X to keep track of offline media.
BTW…is there any way to search for keywords in offline media (sort of like Aperture)?
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5 Replies
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Definitely Events- that’s your media so you want those to be on a fast drive. The Projects are the edits themselves.
Noah
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And your project files contain the high quality render files. I think you want your events and your projects on the same drive.
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I thought we used to say don’t keep the project and media together? another change?
Now If we crash lets loose everything.
Being Paranoiac when on a long programme I often take my project home with me on a thumb drive “just in case”The project folder for some reason keeps the high quality renders, so if you render the whole programme, do you still need the events folder to playout?
Steve
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I tested this. Set up an event on one drive, project on another. Quit FCPX, unmounted the event drive, fired up FCPX again, opened the project and got nice Red offline clips.
I then tried to move the event to a different drive, then delete the original. Again, FCPX ‘lost’ the media. When you move an event FCPX does not track this so projects are not aware that you moved it. Seems like a big deal to me. Where you put things is where they must stay. Moving is not an option (though there are some awkward workarounds). Similarly you cannot find out where the missing media is. There are no indications of what volume you need to find. Reconecting media is also not an option.
Right now the media management is very basic and sensitive to any changes that I would think are fairly common. I’d like to see it behave more like Aperture. Offline files are easy to look up the location of the source media, you can move media and it tracks where you put it.
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The only reason to do this would be to keep them together. I see a few issues with that. One is data failure. Lose one drive, loose it all (however we all backup to at least 2 other drives….right?). The bigger concern is performance. The source media is on the same physical disk as the rendered media. That means slower performance. It has to read and write to the same disk to perform the task. Two drives means each can read/write much faster.
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