Too many projects in one library

[Bret Williams]

You’re doing it the way the majority of us do it. I think Jeremy was just saying having 27 projects in a library isn’t that many. For example, I’m currently on a job that is a set of 8 videos. On some of the videos we’re up to v5, 8, even v10. So that’s easily 40+ projects. One for each version. Lots and lots of compounds too. And since each version, except the current, is a snapshot, all those compounds exist alone. I would think that each compound counts as a little mini project in the eyes of FCPX as well. There certainly isn’t any magic number. Just like any edit, the more sequences, clips, fx, compounds, etc the more space and memory you’ll need.

_______________________________________________________________________
https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Mark Suszko] “Am I doing it wrong? I make a new library for every new job that comes in, and keep all related media and projects together with it. It just seemed more intuitive to me that way, but I’m willing to be schooled.”

As Bret alludes to, there is no right or wrong, only what’s right for you.

We have shared storage and keeping libraries on there would allow any one person to open the same library. We choose to run our storage this way (there are ways to lock folders and files) but it’s just easier to keep libraries local and share XMLs or whole libraries.

Also, the cache runs faster on our local drives than it does over the shared storage, so we keep that local too.

We do not keep media in libraries because it makes moving them around very cumbersome, especially when our projects are currently running in the 1-3 TB range on average. Having managed libraries could be very beneficial if you don’t need to move them around very much as you’d only have the one library file and all of the resultant media will go with. It just doesn’t work as well for our needs since people need access to the same media, it’s better to have it stored once, as opposed to stored many times in individual libraries.