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Just a quick question about imported video files.
If I import a 30 minute video of an interview into FCP with optimise/transcode options checked and create several short compound clips from it (split it into each question and answer, can I delete the original imported video?
I wasn't sure if the compound clips were connected to it once they were created.
Mac Pro, macOS 10.13
I am not sure so wait for others to reply but to the best of my knowledge, the compound clips are simply referencing the original camera clips just like all the other media in your project.
So if you delete that media the compound clip will no longer work.
The optimisation does bring another factor into the equation and possibly the optimised ProRes files will be all you need.
However, if you want to save space you should be getting rid of the optimised and rendered media as that takes up many times the space of the original camera clips.
Most reasonably powerful computers don't need to optimise or render.
Thanks for the reply, Ian. I thought as much re the compound clips referencing the original media but wanted to check.
Your suggestion about deleting the optimised media makes sense so once I've finished editing with that clip, I could just get rid of the optimised files. Despite my Mac Pro having 48GB RAM, it is quite old so may need to optimised files to cope.
My comments about the compound clip referencing the original media apply to non-optimised clips but the optimised ProRes media may be complete clips in their own right, in which case it would be OK to get rid of the originals.
It's something I have never done so wait for people with actual knowledge to reply before doing anything.
I would seriously consider working in proxy instead. If the problem is your mac having difficulty handling the originals, this could be much easier. You could set FCP to "proxy preferred" and only transcode to proxy as needed. Much smaller files, and much easier to handle as well. And, in the end, you can delete the proxies like you can delete the optimized. In any case, what you don't want is to delete the original media.
Deleting imported video after creating compound clips
