[Joby Anthony jr]

It sounds like your workflow is already fairly efficient, all things considered, if 1) mailing media cards isn’t an option, and 2) you want to do all the color and audio.

Just thinking this through out-loud, but mailing the cards (or paying for high-speed file transfer solutions) would off-load everything to the remote editor with only a final to come back to you for review and posting. That would probably triple (or more?) the amount of time and storage they devote to the projects. You’d also have to trust their audio and color work.

Or, they just send the final back for your color and audio pass before posting.

A proxy workflow, I think, sounds like it really would only address the size of hand-off footage. That might make some parts of this efficient, but there’s still the same amount of time devoted to off-loading the cards, storage organization, editing, color, audio. And then add on top of that time to create proxies.

If you went to Premiere, you could at least send them proxies, you keep the raw, and all that you send back and forth is the project file (once they have the proxies). Then you could work on color and audio while they work on the edit, and then you export the final. Just be sure to so some homework with a proxy workflow, and run a couple of tests. But, that “might” get you a file transfer less than the ~13 GB sent now.

Again, just thinking out loud here . . .

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

Yep, you got it. Color correct the original, at the highest quality setting (Better Quality vs. Better Performance). Then you know you’ve touched the same thing that will be used at export. Proxies are best for efficient editing.

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

Look at either using the Rate Stretch tool or interpret the footage back to 60 fps. See if any of these methods will accomplish what you need.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/duration-speed.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/organizing-assets-project-panel.html#change_the_frame_rate_of_a_clip

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

Ah–okay. Yeah, making those changes in FCPX between directly attached harddrives should move/copy the footage accordingly if internal to the library. I did some tests to confirm and it worked as expected. When I moved a clip that was external to the library, it stayed on the originating harddrive, and only moved the symlink to the new library on the new harddrive.

NAS, I think is/could be a whole other deal, and I suspect may come with some flakiness. Maybe. I have very little experience with NAS. The only NAS we use is only for archiving, and there I bundle up everything on a local harddrive first and then move the project/library at the Finder level to the server. I’ve opened up a couple of libraries on the server in the past, and all seemed to go okay, but it wasn’t to edit with, and it left me a little nervous–mostly because the server is not mine and I don’t know how its backend is set up; it seems flaky at times just at the Finder level. Maybe someone else here as more experience with an NAS workflow and any landmines that come with it.

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

I can’t comment on editing with the new MBP, but (and I’m still getting the hang of this too) it’s my understanding that USB-C is only a connection type. That connection type can run two different protocols: Thunderbolt and USB. So instead of two different ports for two different protocols, there’s now one port that can handle either (and apparently much more, such as HDMI–I think–and power?). So something of a universal connection point.

I “think” that’s where something like the OWC dock comes in handy. Making all the connection conversions from older connection types to the newer universal connection type.

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

If your workflow is to keep all footage internal to libraries, it’s particularly important to understand what’s happening under-the-hood. I’m pretty sure I lost some footage in my early days of FCPX because of this–thinking I had moved something from one library to another and deleted the “from” library and thus unknowingly deleted the physical files in the process. So I now have what I consider to be a healthy degree of paranoia, and have moved to a workflow that keeps footage external to the library. Then, as I organize myself at the FCPX level, I know all I’m moving are symlinks and not actual files. So two organization steps, first at the Finder level and then within FCPX. A little tedious at times, but I do have to keep my paranoia in check! (haha)

And there’s no right or wrong way to media management here: internal or external. There are pros and cons to each, so go with whatever works best for your setup. But I think keeping yourself organized inside of FCPX with internal footage will require the two-step ‘move then consolidate’ as the likely necessary process.

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

No direct experience with this issue, but found this forum thread kicking around some solutions. Seems to be related to the VLC audio settings. Though the thread starts in 2012, there’s a 2018 post at the end that continues to contribute to the troubleshooting ideas. Maybe something in there will help.

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=100427

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

FWIW, we’ve had good success with the Apple TB2 to USBC adapters. Not what you’re looking for, I know, but adapters could indeed be a solution. But 2 into 1 might be risky if you’re relying on the computer to power the drives.

Though a bit more than adapters, I would think one of OWC’s docks would be a smart move and offer plenty of flexibility going forward.

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

Good morning Anthony,

Yep, you got it! SD card will always ‘Copy to library’ (little radio button in the Media Import window). No option to ‘Leave files in place.’ This is true whether importing direct from the card, an Archive of the card, or a folder of the card (if you did a Finder drag and drop from the card to a HD). [**Note: it’s possible this behavior may change for different codecs on an SD card, so I say “always copies, no option,” but that’s limited to my experience–mostly AVCHD.]

After import (or ingest if you prefer), you can change where files are stored (internal or external) from within FCPX by going into Library Properties and change via Storage Locations -> Modify Settings.

Non-SD originating media will give you the option to import by either copying the media to the library (internal to the FCPX library) or leaving files in place (external to the library). There are pros and cons to each method, but my encouragement would be to find a workflow that works best within your setup and then be consistent. A consistent approach to media management is a key component to keeping yourself organized (i.e., finding and moving stuff later).

Two items from Larry Jordan (a favorite resource of mine) that do a better job of explaining this than I can:

9:30 video covering the basics. May already have info you know, but he starts to cover the differences between internal vs. external about halfway through:

https://larryjordan.com/articles/apple-final-cut-pro-x-import-media-video/

Article that covers much of the same information:

https://larryjordan.com/articles/fcp-x-import-clips-vs-import-clip-ranges/

— Joby.

[Joby Anthony jr]

Nothing definite, but two thoughts:

1. Make sure your computer doesn’t sleep–ever. At least during the export. Go to Energy Saver and set Computer and Display to Never and uncheck Put hard disks to sleep. You can dim display manually, but keep everything up and running. Turn screensaver off too, just to be safe.

2. Turn off App Nap for Premiere and Media Encoder. Depending on your OS it may/may not be a feature. But easy enough to double-check. Find the Premiere app and then Get Info (Command + I). If you have App Nap, it’ll be a check box in the General section. Do the same for Media Encoder.

Sounds like the system could be going to sleep in the middle of the export.

— Joby.