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Unable to drag and drop clips between events and/or libraries?
Hey there FCPX Hive Mind,
Noticed for quite a while that sometimes you cannot drag and drop certain clips between events and/or libraries. Does anyone know what causes this behavior?
Sometimes we have to use the “File/copy clips to Library command” or create a new event then drag the clips, but have yet to find the rhyme or reason. The GUI “bounces’ the clips back to where you were dragging them from letting you know visually they did not transfer. What’s REALLY strange is sometimes a clip gets locked inside an event and we have no way of moving it out or to even delete it, even knowing that it is NOT used in a project.
Before 10.3 we used to “Restore Original Layout” and it solved all sorts of strange behavior, alas that trick is no longer a menu item, would love to know an alternative.
Thanks in advance for any help!
MA
PS As per usual sent a report to Apple, did soft hard reboots, tossed preferences, definitely tried some work arounds, stood on one foot and scratched my ear etc. 😉
Harvest the compromises…
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8 Replies
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What sort of clip? Perhaps it referenced to a clip on a drive you don’t have loaded for example and only rhe proxy is online.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training -
Hi Noah,
Hmm good idea, just tested the clips in question with all media being available by making sure all drives were mounted, still having the same challenge. Here’s our workflow:
Since it is such a big show, we work with optimized media that we transcode ourselves (not FCPX) on external drives. We then bring this material in with the setting to create proxies only so the optimized material also becomes the original material as far as FCPX is concerned. This allows us to have just proxies, stills and audio clips living inside the library package and we can collaborate sharing “light” libraries.
Because of this we often have the external drives off when working from main office to work faster and lighter. Could that be causing the issue? Turned the external drives on with optimized media and things were still not able to drag between libraries. To make matters worse, ever since 10.3, our larger EDITS library locks up when ever we have the external drives with optimized media mounted! Because of this we had to break out the projects we absolutely need into smaller EDITS libraries to avoid this challenge.
Appreciate you reaching back, thanks so much
MA
Harvest the compromises…
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Yup- when you drag proxy clips between Libraries the original media needs to be online for the references to be written properly in the destination Library because both it and the proxies are being referenced.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training -
Hmmm so that would make remote collaboration between proxy only libraries impossible without original media? The project is so big we have multiple libraries at the main office and for each editor remotely so they have access to all the source material. When needed we move things between libraries on the same drive, proxies only, creating sym links to save space. We just have to make sure that what ever we do remotely we do at the main office and vice a versa.
What’s so strange is that it’s an inconsistent challenge, works with some clips but not others, perhaps related to how they were originally imported. Seems like a big limitation especially as we are working with 2,000 hours of footage, would be pretty insane for each remote editor to have to have all the original optimized media just for libraries to communicate with each other (about 20TB)
The inconsistency makes me think perhaps there is a way to make this work, that and having done it for years with other application. Truly appreciate your input, time and energy!
Thanks
MA
Harvest the compromises…
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I’m assuming on a project of this scale you’re working with a MAM system of some sort?
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training -
Hmmm, no Media Asset Manager other than our show tracker which we built by hand in google doc. We started small of course so now we just have a ton of 8TB GRAIDs:
– 1x8TB holds libraries and proxies with room to grow
– 3x8TB holds all the optimized media that we import into FCPX
– 2x8TB for all the original source material, graphics, animations, audio, research etc.Do you think the 10.3 issue opening older large libraries could be resolved with some type of MAM? The idea of a MAM looks intriguing, googled and found this: https://www.keyflowpro.com/ We are pretty bummed as everything worked much better for us before FCPX 10.3 so your ideas are greatly appreciated.
Thanks
MA
Harvest the compromises…
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Oh absolutely from a workflow perspective a MAM would be my first move for a project of that magnitude.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training -
Thanks we’ll start looking into it
Cheers
MA
Harvest the compromises…
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