Media Manager or straight copy? (Reposted from local UG – not answered)

[Nicole Haddock]

If they’re active projects, I would not use Media Manager. I would however, delete the render files from your capture scratch folders to avoid copying those over, and just re-render later.

And backup the FCP project itself to something other than those drives!

[John Fishback]

While the drive is alive, as a backup before your 1TB arrives, burn all the data to DVD-ROMs. If that drive dies before you retrieve the data, you’ve got trouble. The other thing you can try is run Disk Warrior on the drive. It will fix up the directories on the drive. This has saved me any number of times from what looked like dead drives. IMHO, it’s the most indispensable utility for a Mac. When you get your 1TB drive I suggest you simply copy all the data over to it.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 2 (FCP 6.0.5, Comp 3.0.5, DVDSP 4.2.1, Color 1.0.3)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Joel Wycoff]

John, you said to burn all the data to DVD.

I like this idea, but…do you use some software to do this? I think the last time I looked at this, some of my data was larger than DVD, so I needed to span a disk. And the MAC OS couldn’t do it. (??)

iMac family,

G4 – iMac, eMac, mini, core duo macBook, and Intel iMac.

[John Fishback]

Toast will do it and with multiple DVDs if necessary.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 2 (FCP 6.0.5, Comp 3.0.5, DVDSP 4.2.1, Color 1.0.3)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Jerry Hofmann]

Using media manager is the best way to copy files because I believe it must perform a sum check, creates a new project file which is connected to the new copies. This avoids you having to reconnect. I’ve used MM for this for quite a while now, and it works like gangbusters. Even copies renders without a problem. It’s easy, just select all in your project file, and then copy, turn off deleting unused media, and turn on the option to create a project file… it’s a snap actually. The new project file will be a mirror of your original, all connected up for you. It works as advertised.

If you simply copy the files in the finder, you’re asking for trouble I think. I’ve seen QT movies get corrupted over and over doing it without using media manager. After all it’s what it’s designed to do. Furthermore, it moves the media no matter where it resides on your system to the new location. When the copy is finished, the new project file opens automatically, and you can check it all out that way. THEN delete all of the media from your original file (make it offline and trash it). That way all those errant files that were on your startup disk or wherever else they were across your system get deleted. I realize you may not have several drives connected, but it sure helps out when you do and the original media is spread across them.

Of course you’d not want to delete files you always keep on your startup disk if you intend to use them in other apps.. I’m thinking iTunes, photos etc that you want to keep up on your startup disk. It may help to add the “Show Source” column to your browser view to see where everything is before you trash the original media. Right click on any column header except the name column, and then select this information from the list that pops up. You can sort on it too so you can move media that only resides in a certain location… it’s a very handy bit of information. Shows where the media file that the clip is referencing is on your system.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO, CD’s

[Jiri Fiala]

As for backing up the project files, the safest bet is probably dropbox.com. It creates a local folder that is synced to a online storage automatically, AND you can restore any previous version of it via their web interface. Give it a try, you get 3gb free storage.