[Craig Alan]

Thanks. Drives slow down when getting full. But what about sparse images?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thank you. Helpful.

I think all views of a selected range should have the handles in the browser. and we’ll see what the next update brings. But for now yes I can bring up the keyword editor instead to select multiple ranges within clips.

Selecting a favorite is faster though and applies to that particular clip. Plus the favorite selection can easily be given a name as well. And favorite flags the range as a suggested edit.

All that said I like doing most of the fine tuning in the time line.

X certainly seems to address the fact media from card based cams tend to be “logged” in the browser. And we now have powerful ways to organize them.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I’ve read that bundles are better for other reasons. They might get corrupted in a small chunk rather than the entire image going down. And they are faster to down-size if the need arrives.

But (and I’ve asked this in another post), some end users are reporting that their sparse images are slower than the drives they are in and a call to Apple Care pro app department got me a strong recommendation not to use sparse images – that they would slow things down. My tests on a raid with plenty of overhead and relatively small images housed in it did not show this however. I used Black Magic and AJA apps to test the speed of the raid and the sparse image. If anything the images were faster.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Hi Jeff,

I am in the same bag as Sascha.

Trying to come up with a FCP X management system for the long haul.

I too started with sparse images.

Since X only uses one Projects/Events folder per drive on the root level, sparse images worked wonderfully.

However, there are some complaints from end users about speed issues with sparse images and a strong recommendation from Apple Care support (pro app department) not to use sparse images. I did a speed test using apps from both AJA and Black Magic. I did not find any speed problems with the small projects I had set up in sparse images. However, maybe as the drive gets full or the projects get larger that changes?

I understand you can’t back up your images while open. Still, they provide a very neat container to transfer, back-up, move to a different Mac, etc. So why exactly did you decide to switch to a different means of organizing multiple projects? Did you need to back up while they are open while shooting? More importantly what is your alternative? I need a way that not all projects are loaded. Not only does this slow things down but I will be setting up a lab in which users cannot have access to each other’s media and projects. Sparse images seemed to be the perfect solution but now I’m second guessing…

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Well I decided to go all in and try to get all the media associated with this project into one Event and use keywords instead of the folders (events) I had created. The mess I had started by my importing from different media folders from different cams and choosing to put them in their own events.

I can’t at this point explain every step I took but it was a combination of finder level and FCPX level moving, deleting, relinking, and using “File>organize event files”.

It all worked out ok. There are no missing files. The project is neatly organized in one event with keywords representing the different events I had.

I went back and forth between the finder and FCP X. Not sure I understand everything on the finder level. But I did not find it impossible to go home again if I moved things around on the finder level. Which does not mean I’m recommending it. And I did not move files from one event to another on the finder level.

The worse moment I had was when I could skim through my timeline but when I tried to play I got a spinning beach ball and had to force quit. This got corrected with a hard reboot.

FCP X does not seem to fight you that hard in term of reorganizing. I discovered too late in the game that it allows you to ‘merge events’.

As for my original question, in the empty event there were files on the finder level that were being referenced by the other events. Once these were deleted on the finder level I was able to delete the event in FC and relink where necessary. Still not sure how the event was being used as a reference yet was empty. And yes i double checked to make sure no filter including a space as a search was applied. But I think on the finder level there was missing folder(s) that allowed its contents to not show in FC.

I would really like a much better understanding of the relationship between FC and the finder structure. I will be running a lab soon with many students and I’ll need to trouble shoot mistakes they make with organization. To be honest I do not recall so many different opinions about organization issues with any previous NLE.

I’ve read in several places that there are advantages to copying original media into an event rather than referencing the original media. But if I have say a camera card folder in the finder and then copy all those clips into FC rather than create references to it this will take twice the space. What exactly is the upside? If I do copy these files into FC, can I then safely erase the originals?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

[Craig Alan] “Will the handles still be there if these clips are edited into the timeline? “

I do have the handles in the timeline but don’t seem to in the event browser when a filter is selected like favorites. It would be nice to be able to bring up all your favorites and then fine tune them a bit before editing to time line.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12765

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

“All clips” is selected.

I just tried an experiment. I option dragged a clip from one of the new events back into the original event. It shows up there but with an error message that the media is missing. It is still in the new event. If I now delete it from the original Event, the error message goes away.

Either I have done something FC does not like or this Event is corrupted. I can’t just delete it cause in the finder it holds media. Though the media is also in the other event folders. I do notice in the finder that the original event does not have the same folder structure as the others.
It has a backups folder
It has the event Icon FCPevent
It has media files
It has a render folder

The other events also have a folder called
‘original media”

Any ideas? And any suggestions on best practices in the future to group clips in events that allows me to organize them the way I like? Or should I just keep all imported media an an event and organize within that event using keywords?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

No.
I moved the files within the FC browser – drag and drop.
The original event is empty, the files have been moved to new events.
In the OS X finder they are still in the original event folder.
And if I try to move the original event to the trash (within FC browser) then the media is lost to the events the files have been moved to.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

[Caspian Brand] “Keep in mind FCP X only allows for one user per Event/Project period. No Read users, regardless of network file system”

On the mac pro I have been experimenting with, I set up a student account with a simple finder. If a sparse image is mounted on the teacher account (the account that it was created in), the student account can open it’s events and projects.

Or do you mean allow one user at a time?

Will I be able to use Apple Remote desktop to see what they are doing in an open project and help them if needed?

[Caspian Brand] “performance of Sparse Disk Images is not as consistent when introduced in a network compared to using them on local disks, so care should be taken on a properly configured RAID as well as keeping your production network ‘clean’ and keeping your storage system over as direct a path to the edit systems as you can without traversing a bunch of routers or switches.”

I have 20 computers and external raids for each. Since I had heard that FCP X was not working well in networked facilities, I decided to keep each computer paired with its own media drive. Also I did not get the funding all at once so it was put together piecemeal.

Is there a problem with sparse image performance even on a thunderbolt connected raid to a single computer?

Your solution is definitely‎ networked : so are you using volumes within the server storage instead of sparse images with software to assign ownership to a volume? Are sparse image speeds compromised?

Could we use the thunderbolt raids in such a system? Maybe daisy chained together as a large network storage. They are pegasus raids with four hard drives each.(8TB total, but can be changed out).

What would be a ballpark figure for this type of package for a 20 seat computer lab? Please keep in mind that in our school district we do not have a budget. What I do is apply for grants and I need to know ahead of time how much things cost so I can put in a request long before I get to order anything. It’s a very time consuming, overly complicated way to fund programs. But it is what it is.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.