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A JOURNEY INTO SPACE WITH Final Cut Pro THAT ENDS UP ...Without ANY! (STORAGE Space that is )

Hello Everyone,

My new iMac is now happily settled in after a few tweaks and a clean install, Final Cut is producing some exceptional results and then yesterday......


I had started working on a new project , one that was new in many ways as it involved 4K footage , 3D Titles (Something my old MBP could never do ) and a plethora of special effects and magic. In essence a music video set in Deep Space.

All was going well when suddenly in the afternoon a notification popped up informing me that a) Final Cut Pro was going to close to save work as one of the "Storage Facilities" had been closed or not available and this was swiftly followed any another announcement b) from the iMac itself that I was running out of memory and I should alert the media. (well not quite but you get the gist, in my head there was the echo of a Klaxon alarm like in Alien!)

Intrigued, I dutifully closed all except the finder and then proceeded cautiously (like Ripley in Alien) to the huge steel vaulted door of the iMAC STORAGE CHAMBER jets of steam hissed at me to stay away and the voice of MOTHER informed me that "options to override automatic detonations had now expired, Jones the cat hissed angrily back at the steam and flung himself out of my arms scampering off missing his footing on a patch of slime as he turned out of view.

I cautiously opened the heavy door and made my way to the huge bank of Activity Monitors and noted with alarm that several if not all of the system processes were, one by one , shutting themselves down, This could only mean one thing, I ran over to the Main Drive The MACINTOSH HD M.O.T.H.E.R. and entered my security password , nothing , just the numerals a quick shake , taunting me , denying me access , laughing at me , "C.MON" I screamed and jabbed my security code in again , ACCESS GRANTED flashed, and I pulled with all my might on the huge access handles, my knuckles turning white, to reveal the display I feared most....Mother now announcing loudly The option to override automatic detonation had now expired This Mac will SHUT DOWN in T-MINUS 30 seconds, The Klaxon alarms kicked in with deafening rapidity and as the sweat poured from my brow I looked helplessly at the reading before me blinking red as it slowly diminished , Mothers countdown now 19.. 18.. 17...and I could only wonder at the almost identical readout 12...11...10....

7GB .....7Gb I whispered to myself "What the Ffff... a Two Terabyte Storage Facility had been reduced in seconds to 7GB the Meltdown stopped and my NOSTROMO pen I I had held up to test the acid leak had stopped. The iMac blinked at me sadly and with a small apologetic blingk shut itself down. I could only sit there exhausted wet, with sweat, wondering what could possibly have caused this , how could I have let this happen Then as the camera tracked away slowly from me and out through the kitchen window and on into the night air , through the sounds of the streets below I heard a small 'meow' and Jones appeared snuggling himself into my lap and purring loudly. "Darn Cat" I said to him softly just as the beautiful soft light of a full moon fell upon us , and continued stroking his head "Darn Cat".

Credit Roll THE END

In all seriousness apart from Jones this all actually happened well sort of , the iMac did reach a full storage readout and had literally 02gigabytes at the end before I shut it down and yes this is a 2 TB SSD . I re booted to find that the Library within which I had been working on my Deep Space Video in Final Cut, had recorded a staggering 939 GIGABYTES in the Library readouts and the iMac , having used most of the other half of the drive in other duties was understandably worried . I knew FCP overestimates on the Library capacity but I have never seen this much, so I deleted the generated library rendered files and event files and guess what... 63GIG was the final tally .So that was my journey into Deep Space , and I really wouldn't have even given it a second thought other than brushing it off as an FCP anomaly or one of its little idiosyncratic burps , and then.......

The same thing happened all over again this morning , I could feel the hairs on the nape of my neck as the chill ran down my spine and I shivered in the morning sunlight.

Any thoughts anybody .....anyone .....


With All best wishes and kind regards

Sam




iMac 27", 10.15

Posted on May 10, 2020 7:40 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 11, 2020 12:07 AM

If you can open the library in FCP X, select it in the browser sidebar and do File->Delete Generated Library Files...

Check all the boxes.


Quit FCP X and check the available space.

Behold as hundreds of GB are returned to you.


Then open FCP X and before you do anything else, go to the preferences and UNcheck the boxes to create optimized and proxy media on import.


Here is what happened: you imported a few GB of media, and FCP X dutifully proceeded to create optimized media (and probably proxy media as well). Optimized media can, depending on your original format, take ten times more space (and possibly more than that) than your original.


Make sure that the option to create optimized media on import is always off.

In the rare cases you may need optimized media, you can create it later.

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 11, 2020 12:07 AM in response to SamFrancisco60

If you can open the library in FCP X, select it in the browser sidebar and do File->Delete Generated Library Files...

Check all the boxes.


Quit FCP X and check the available space.

Behold as hundreds of GB are returned to you.


Then open FCP X and before you do anything else, go to the preferences and UNcheck the boxes to create optimized and proxy media on import.


Here is what happened: you imported a few GB of media, and FCP X dutifully proceeded to create optimized media (and probably proxy media as well). Optimized media can, depending on your original format, take ten times more space (and possibly more than that) than your original.


Make sure that the option to create optimized media on import is always off.

In the rare cases you may need optimized media, you can create it later.

May 11, 2020 5:38 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Luis you're a star , The Optimised Media was indeed checked as I've adopted a new "regime" since I've been editing with the big boys 4K and 3D and one of them was to check the Optimised Media AND check the Leave Files In Place button also. My reasoning being was that I thought if FCP X transcoded all the various clips, some of them huge, 1.2GIG, down to the Workable Edit Format of what is it 422pro- res? and if I left the files where they were in the Exterior SSD Drives purely designated to FCP X then that would help reduce Library sizes and rendering times, consolidations etc so I guess with the best will in the world I was wrong . I had no idea creating optimised media did that, it was just always in my head as a much less quality media to work with, but performance wise , brilliant for fast smooth editing. I shall have to do a small refresher course on the basics methinks.

Thanks again mister I really appreciate it .

Cheers


Sam

A JOURNEY INTO SPACE WITH Final Cut Pro THAT ENDS UP ...Without ANY! (STORAGE Space that is )

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