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Moving/Sharing an FCP X Event/Project with a Laptop for remote editing
Hi all,
Wondering if anyone has an office/studio setup with a main system they edit on, then also like to edit on their laptop at home (say over the weekend) before returning to work and finishing up the edit there.
I created a proxy set of files to streamline my laptop edit, but what I’d love to do is move/copy JUST the proxy files to my mobile FW drive / laptop WITHOUT copying over the original media files, since they would be too big and I won’t be using them off my laptop.
However, when I try to move/duplicate an event from one drive to another, it copies EVERYTHING, including the giant-sized original media.
I suppose I can individually copy just the files I want via the finder, but was hoping FCP X would have an easy way to copy just the offline files I need.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Gene.
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2 Replies
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I totally hear you. I have the same workflow and issues. I’ve put in a feature request to create a “proxy event” or project for laptop editing. Apple actually totes this feature, but didn’t actually implement it. Look what it says here:
https://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/all-features/
Proxy creation
Create proxy media in the background, so you can work outside the edit studio without copying large original files. Import once using high-quality master sources, then transfer lightweight proxies to your notebook for editing on the road. When you’re back in the office, just reconnect from proxy to original media and keep working at high resolution.Emphasis mine. 😉
Notice they say ” then transfer lightweight proxies to your notebook for editing on the road.” How exactly does one do that? Like I said it was thought of but not implemented.
Back to your question, one thing you don’t want to do is move the files around at the Finder level. That is because FCP X doesn’t create proxy media for some things like audio and some stills.
A better workflow is to have your entire event/project on an external drive. For smaller projects I just leave them on an external FW800 drive. I plug into my MacBook Pro and edit with proxies and then I plug it into my MacPro and edit with original media (or I just leave it on Proxy and edit faster.)
For Larger projects I use an external drive with eSATA. I fortunately have an older MacBook with an ESATA PC Card. So again this works well.
If I have to work on it on the weekend, I just copy the entire event & project to an external drive (original and proxy footage). Even thought it takes some more time it is less error prone for now.
Although this sounds like a bit of a pain, FCP X is almost seamless when it comes to moving an edit to another machine… well if it kept the motion templates used on the project in the event/project file that is.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
Was there a resolution to this problem? Because I tried moving the proxy files to a 2nd system, and it didn’t recognize them. Maybe I need to move the fcpevent file as well. I had to reimport them and when I did that there were more files created, and when I move the fcpproject file back to the original system where the media was created, it didn’t link up with the media again.
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