[Dennis Widmyer]

Thank you all so much for the advice. I’m heading to a film festival tomorrow morning, but I will digest this more when I’m back. I think the big takeaway here though is to figure out asap what our final deliverable format for the film will be (2K vs. 4K). If it is indeed 2K, this will give us a hell of a lot more ceiling with scaling. If it’s 4K, then yeah, bringing shots we want to scale into their own reel / timeline, and turning off Proxy playback so I can see the raw file, is a good way to determine what the output will look like when scaled up, and how much we can push it before we see some quality loss.

Thanks again, all.

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Thanks again for all your help on this, Jeremy. You’ve been extremely available and quick with your replies and I appreciate that.

I think I got it all figured out now.

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Okay, doing a test right now.

– I went into my Events Browser (my bin of clips being used in this Event).
– I right clicked a file I wasn’t using in my sequence, but one I had imported and transcoded into the project, and then Revealed the File in Finder.
– Once there, I saw that I had 3 duplicates of this file. One in ‘Optimized Media’ one in ‘Proxy Media’ and a copy of it ‘Original Media.’
– I deleted all three of these. (again, I originally began importing files into this Events folder with all options selected and quickly ran out of harddrive space. So I’m trying to clean up the space now and only import Optimized Media and leave copies of files out of the Events folder)
– Now the file is showing up as a red thumbnail in my browser, with a yellow exclamation mark. In other words, “Media Offline.” (see screenshot 2)

Now, using the methods you suggested, I opened up the Project Library Window. As far as I know, this is the only way to get the ‘Modify Event References’ option to appear in the Inspector. But here’s where I hit a dead-end: I click the ‘Modify Event References’ option and just a bland pop-up comes up, telling me how many files are linked to this project… Yet it doesn’t give me any specific options from that point on. In doesn’t let me *modify” anything. (screenshot 1)

I included two screenshots to this post so you can see what I’m seeing.

Screenshot 1: https://f1.creativecow.net/2862/final-cut-x-screenshot
Screenshot 2: https://f1.creativecow.net/2863/media-offline-file

How do I either:

1. Relink this media that is now offline to a new source file?
2. Or, simply re-import it as ‘Optimized’ media and then link to that source file?

Thanks!

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Hey Jeremy,

I don’t think I’m being clear. Right now, I have a timeline with about 41 clips on it. They all reference the correct Events folder. So that’s not what I’m asking to do.

The problem is that, within that Events folder, I have three folders:

1. Original Media (which is mostly aliases at this point… which is what I want across the board)
2. Proxy Media (because a few days ago I was trying this out, so this folder has a handful of clips in it too)
3. Optimized Media (also has clips in it)

So this is a mess. I have transcoded files in three formats, spread out across three folders.

I want them all to be either just be Optimized or referencing the Original Media as an alias.

In order to do this, it seems I have to go to Window > Show Project Library. Then some new item appears in my timeline, which shows my clips in the Project and the attached harddrive. (note: my Project is local, in my Macbook Pro, whereas my Events folder is now on the one external drive, thanks to you! 🙂

When I single clip the Project here, and go to the Inspector and click ‘Modify Event References’ it brings up this window that just tells me where my clips are and shows me the external harddrive. This function doesn’t seem to go much further than this though. Again, I think this is a function for controlling where your project references its Events.

But I’m trying to almost do, like an ‘online.’ I want to control individual clips and where they reference, from within the project.

Is that even possible with FCPX?

Thanks.

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Yep, that was it. Reformatted it, and now I see it and can Move the Event to it. Awesome!

Okay, at this point, the whole Event is moved there and everything appears to be working correctly.

I’m no longer Copying the original media over to the Events folder, since the Raw Media is on the same external drive as the Events now, and that would just be a redundant waste of space.

Only thing I’m still not 100% on us pointing all those earlier clips in my timeline (that I brought copies of into my Events) to the original media? What I mean is, I have a number of clips on my timeline, before we started chatting, that are referencing a copied file in Events. I think I’d like to delete the copies and have them only reference the Optimized Media I’m creating off each new Import. Is there a clip-by-clip way to do that? Or can it only be done globally, from a Project level? If the later, than I have no idea how to do that.

ps
If there’s an article on this you know about, or a YouTube video that shows someone doing it, you could link that too and it may be easier than trying to explain it all. Thanks!

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Hi Jeremy,

Hmm, ‘Move Event’ is not working for me. Been at it for a day already. Read up on a bunch of other pages how to do it, but it seems like it’s not a simple thing to do for many people. When I use your method of single-clicking the Event name in my Browser window and then going to File > Move Event, I get a popup that says “Location:” and has a dropdown that says ‘No Value,’ and doesn’t let me change or browse to a new location.

Other people online say you can literally just drag the Event from the FCPX browser window into the root of the external drive, but that doesnn’t work either. The event appears to be moving, as you drag it, but won’t go into the external drive.

I still have a question about how to Modify Event References, but let me see if you can help me figure this out first.

Thanks.

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Hi Jeremy,

Again, thank you so much for answering my questions so promptly.

1. The problem is one of harddrive space. I’m quickly running out right now. So I would use Optimized, but I fear it’s going to eat up more space than Proxy would.

IS there an easy way to move the Events folder onto an external drive for just this particular project?

2. Have been unable to locate the “modify event references” feature. Tried all the different View modes with the Video Inspector open, and it’s not an option in any of them. Even searched through the Help menu and nothing came up there either.

Thanks.

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Hi Jeremy,

The footage is H264, 1080 HD, shot on a Canon 7D.

Also, if I’m just going straight to Vimeo and YouTube, you still think Proxy wouldn’t be quality enough?

—
Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com

[Dennis Widmyer]

Hi Jeremy.

I want to thank you for your help thus far. It’s very appreciated.

I’m having a new problem, and yet again, it’s one that I’m having a tough time finding a clear answer for. It seems that when I brought my media into this new Event, I had both:

Create optimized media
and
Create proxy media

…selected. Now, my harddrive space is dwindling as I see in my Finder window that Final Cut X is store THREE versions of every file I import. The ‘Original Media,’ the ‘High Quality’ media and ‘Proxy Media.’

Being that I’m only cutting this commercial to go on Vimeo, and be seen on a small window, I figure Proxy Media (which is still ProRes 422) should more than suffice.

So for all future media I bring into this Event, I’ve unchecked ‘Create optimized media.’ But this leaves me with two questions for you:

1. Will it still also bring in the original media? I’d prefer that it didn’t, so please let me know if there’s a way to turn that off. I have all the raw media on a Firewire external drive. I don’t need a duplicate of those raw files brought onto my Macbook Pro too.

2. Is there an easy way to swap out the high quality files that are already on my timeline in the sequence? I’d want to swap them for the Proxy files and then delete the high quality ones already in my local Events folder.

Thanks!

[Dennis Widmyer]

Thanks, Jeremy. That worked. It’s a little tedious though, as I had to do it to each specific clip. Is there anyway to select them all and do some sort of global command that removes the Video effects from them all at once?