[Andres Haldemyr]

Instead of transcoding in FCPX I use Clip Wrap or 5DtoRGB whatever you prefer and transcode all my footage before I start. This way the “Original Media” folder is very small and you can send it per email together with the Current Versionfcpevent file and even if you add files you are always up to date. My second hard drive is an exact copy of all the transcoded media, if something goes wrong I can continue immediately using CurrentVersionfcpevent, Original Files and the Second Hard Drive. Anyway thanks for your great hints, that is a brilliant easy backup solution for the way I work.

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thank you so much for the detailed description, I will try it out tomorrow immediately.

Edit: I tried it out and it worked perfectly. I could recover a small test event and project with this backup solution easily.

But I think I will use Clip Wrap to transcode, after having renamed the clips quickly with “name changer” making sure they are all different (New Name plus current number).
This way I have all my footage transcoded on the “working hard drive” and an exact copy on the “backup hard drive”. And when I copy the CurrentVersion.fcpevent plus the Original Media Folder they will be both very small (good for emailing). The Original Media Folder only will contain a very small “connection info” (72KB) for every clip but not the whole media file.

May be at the end of the editing process I could reconnect the whole film to the Original Camera Files. They have the same name but a different ending. In my case .mov and .mts
Transcoding has always a minimal quality loss – if this doesn’t matter, just leave it in ProRes.

What do you think about this procedure?
Cheers

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thank you so much for the quick answer and detailed description, I will try it out tomorrow immediately and see what happens, but I think I got it now. Cheers

[Andres Haldemyr]

I think I like your solution. I kind of intuitively understand what you mean, but don’t really get it.

1. I understand when you copying the whole event folder to another hard drive you would not copy the transcoded media, because you should have backed them up somewhere else, in case the “transcoded media files hard drive” goes wrong, you have them backed up somewhere else and can immediately reconnect them to the running event.

2. But if you don’t copy the “high quality render files”, in case something goes wrong, you would miss these ones in the latest version?

3. I love the idea to email the CurrentVersionFCPevent to myself. Is that enough to have the full “editing instructions” backed up? Could you explain that again please, I don’t understand it really.

4. What about the project folder? No backups?

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thanks Paul, that works fine for me.

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thanks Al Bergstein and Angelo Lorenzo for your replies. I just found the solution of the problem, which is obviously a huge problem of the Apple Lion users. Lion does not free the RAM after having used it. In the activity monitor you can see that suddenly all your beautiful RAM system memory is filled up with “inactive memory” (blue color). And suddenly your machine slows down radically, because there is no free system memory available. Lion does not reactivate the inactive memory, the devil knows why. So your machine becomes useless, if you don’t restart it. A lot of people have this problem, may be has to do with the fact that applications in Lion run on 64bits instead of 32bits unnecesserely. Solutions are:
1) Restart you computer
2) Repair disk permissions
3) THE BEST: Open Terminal and type “purge” enter/return, problem is resolved immediately.
Cheers

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thanks Todd, I also have the CS 5.5 version, but for some reason the CS 5 works better for me: Like “jump to next/previous cut” (Fn+arrow up/down) is slow for me in CS 5.5, its not immediate, it takes 1,2 or even 3 seconds. Another issue is, that I have to render a normal crossdisolve, if not it wouldn’t playback. So I went back to use CS 5, where I still have the performance issues described above.

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thanks Todd, I also have the CS 5.5 version, but for some reason the CS 5 works better for me: Like “jump to next/previous cut” (Fn+arrow up/down) is slow for me in CS 5.5, its not immediate, it takes 1,2 or even 3 seconds. Another issue is, that I have to render a normal crossdisolve, if not it wouldn’t playback it. So I went back to use CS 5, where these things work better but I still have the performance issues described above.

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thanks Chris, I tried it, the right key to hold was “option”, it trashed all my preferencies, but didn’t resolve any issues described above

[Andres Haldemyr]

Thank you Chris, I don’t get you, could you explain that a bit more detailed? Thank you so much