[Tangier Clarke]

I trashed the FCP X preferences and that seems to have given me back the choice of choosing any of the five channels in the channel configuration, but not the case for the synchronized clip with the same five connected audio clips.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Just for kicks I tried making a multicam of the same single video file and the 5 audio files. Still no luck getting all of the channels to show in the inspector.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Yeah, that’s what I am doing as well – Raid 10 on a 4-drive system for my current projects and I have it that way for the same reasons as you.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Thanks for this fantastic insight. Much appreciated. I stayed with RAID 10 despite the postings about what the industry does. There are so many factors as you put it and different circumstances governing this decision; so very true. This is not to say I would stay with RAID 10 in all scenarios, but with the storage I am working with for the size of the projects, the post needs, and the budget of course, it’s the best overall situation pre and post potential drive failure.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

I do know that I tend to leave it on extended instead of basic. I’ll have to visit specifically what those settings are for and how to better use them.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Yeah, you’re probably right. Though if the color was maintained in the XML i sent I probably would have never started this thread.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Perhaps I need to do a reinstall. The reason this all got started was because I was sending XMLs to someone else who had a duplicate of the library and none of the color using the built in color board was being maintained.

Sorry for spreading misinformation everyone. On this search I did read that the XML did not support color. Now reading your post I went to the FCP X XML format description doc and it says that in XML version 1.3 it does support color.

We’re on FCP X 10.2.2. One computer using El Capitan, the other Yosemite.
Back to the drawing board. Interesting though that nobody caught that throughout this thread or perhaps I just read over that too.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Actually, that’s what we tend to do. Once we finish a project and complete the archive we will delete unused render files, proxy files, etc.

If need be we go into the library package, delete all media that we originally shot so all that’s left is the library with music, stills, graphics, perhaps. The point is not to duplicate files and increase space because we already have the camera originals backed up to cloned drives before any editor gets their hands on it.

I won’t say this is ideal but it does mean we don’t have to buy archive drives as much because we’re not doubling our space by keeping the card copies and the copies of the card FCP X brings over. One could wonder why we don’t just keep the library original media in the library and call it a day; delete the camera card backups since FCP X copied it in. I considered that at one point, but the problem is that assumes that all of the media was imported. Not a risk I am willing to take.

After we’ve made all of our deliverables such as masters, stems, audio archives, etc. All that’s left is a streamlined and lean FCP X library that we can connect back to the camera originals and FCP X will transcode as needed. And we export XMLs of the final project and the entire library.

Next stop in this process is trying out KeyFlow Pro by years end. We’ve really wanted access to all of the keywords and metadata from FCP X from several projects; akin to what Final Cut Server did. Once we archive a project all of that searchable valuable information is locked with it; something NeoFinder can’t help us with.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

Joe, I didn’t know this. Thanks. Usually direct it to the first clip and it finds the rest; being that I try not to abstract my files into folders for the very purpose of simpler relinking.

Tangier

[Tangier Clarke]

I follow similar practices although my folders are different and I leave backups in the MacOS Shared account so it’s not bound to a user. This is only for the machines that aren’t mine exclusively like my laptop. Though the structure below is more for the final archive so it’s what I expect editors to give me as a package when done.

My folders are:
shoot sources
editorial files (for XML and trimmed FCP X libraries – since the shoot files were already backed up no need to keep the original shot media)
audio archive (D, M, & E, mixes, PT, Logic Pro X, files, mixes, etc.)
motion graphics
thumbnails
miscellaneous
exports (for masters and web versions)

Additionally I employ a file naming structure for created content so that we’re not relying on folders or rely on them as little as possible. I try to keep things with search in mind and I tend not to use short names for shows because people may not know what it refers to without using some other database, excel, sheet etc. So my project name in full is in the file name and library name. The event name can be abbreviated

For example:
lower 3rds (from Motion or AE or whatever) = lower3rd_[whatever the name is]
motion graphics = mgrafx_[name of file with version
…

Archive goes to backup drive, drive gets cloned and synced with Decimus Synk, then a run of NeoFinder on one of the drives, then to the shelf (or drawer) both drives go until the next archive…repeat until drives are full and more need to be purchased.

Tangier