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FCP X BTS workflow question about performance

Hello everyone,


Hope al is well and cannot thank the forum enough for past advice. I have been extremely happy about the 10.1 update but I haven't felt like the new "libraries" structure has been helpful for my specific needs or much more realistically, I haven't found a way to utilize properly and make it work for me. The idea that a specific library for related events and projects is fantastic but my curiousity involves how accumulated events and projects effect the peformance in FCP since I can't seem to just place the events in an "archive" folder which is what I was used to and recently have been creating a multitude of libraries, each for a specific project and am sure that is not what was intended to happen with the new structure.


A little background into my issue:

About 4-5 per week I compile very short BTS videos of different photoshoots that I have been doing while working in Miami, so at first I created one Library titled "BTS" and would make a different event for each day under this library. My main concern in doing this was mainly performance as I was always used to placing unused FCP Event and Projects in an "archive folder" to make sure that FCP wasn't referencing those Events and Projects when they didn't have to and I don't necessarily want to delete these events and their respective projects/duplicates in case I want to go back and reference them again.


My first question that's been bugging me is, does keeping all these events under the same library keep their appropriate files "active" or only when that event is selected. I do these videos 4-5 times a week almost YEAR ROUND so i'm not sure what would happen when 75 events appear under the same library in regards to performance.


Recently, I started creating a new library with a new event and new project for each BTS clip. It seems as a bit overkill to have to do this for every short I am doing. Any recommendations on how to better organize my files in regards to my specific workflow that will not affect performance of FCP (i've been assuming that the "buidup" of these events/projects under a library affects the speed and efficiency of FCP)...


Thanks again everyone, hope i'm not the only one curious about the change in FCP performance the new library structure brings in regards to performance/efficiency...


Anthony

Final Cut Pro X, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), Macbook Pro, 13" Mid 2012

Posted on Mar 25, 2014 9:39 AM

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Posted on Mar 25, 2014 11:09 AM

There is no "one size fits all" solution, of course.

Nevertheless, I think the idea of creating a library for each "production" is a sound one.

If you have material that you tend to reuse, it may also be a good idea to keep a library for this kind of thing.

FCP X ensures that there is no interlibrary dependency - so, for example, if you use a clip from library A in a project that sits in library B, it will be copied over.


If you fear that this will start filling your drive with many copies of the same thing, there is a solution for it, too. It is called "external media". FCP X makes it easy to organize this stuff: when importing, you get to choose where to copy the files where you want them to be (into the library itself or somewhere else; or even to "keep in place" if the files are already in your drive).

External media is never copied (nor, it must be stressed, is it deleted!) by FCP X, it simply works with symlinks (which are like aliases, very small files) that point to it. So you could reuse the same file in many libraries with minimal overhead.

4 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 25, 2014 11:09 AM in response to perazaphoto

There is no "one size fits all" solution, of course.

Nevertheless, I think the idea of creating a library for each "production" is a sound one.

If you have material that you tend to reuse, it may also be a good idea to keep a library for this kind of thing.

FCP X ensures that there is no interlibrary dependency - so, for example, if you use a clip from library A in a project that sits in library B, it will be copied over.


If you fear that this will start filling your drive with many copies of the same thing, there is a solution for it, too. It is called "external media". FCP X makes it easy to organize this stuff: when importing, you get to choose where to copy the files where you want them to be (into the library itself or somewhere else; or even to "keep in place" if the files are already in your drive).

External media is never copied (nor, it must be stressed, is it deleted!) by FCP X, it simply works with symlinks (which are like aliases, very small files) that point to it. So you could reuse the same file in many libraries with minimal overhead.

Mar 25, 2014 11:13 AM in response to perazaphoto

Yes. Having a large number of events in a single library can slow performance.


That said, it's only going to impact performance if the library is open.


So one way to approach this is to open only libraries that are working libraries – keeping the others closed unless you need them.


Nothing wrong with a one event per library system – if your naming convention allows you fast access.


A reasonable alternative for someone who routinely cranks out a lot of different films (like you), would be to organize your shoots by a library for a given week or bi weekly – whatever – keeping it manageable.


Good luck.


Russ

Mar 25, 2014 1:58 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thank you Luis that very curiousity and worry about my system performance being affected is what prompted me to start keeping my files in place from the get-go. I've done so without any notice or difference in perfromance (I was so used to copying the files over to ensure smoothness when editing). The creating one library with one event and one project for every single 15-20 second teaser clip started to get tedious but I think may be my best bet. Because the models are different each day and because each clip would only feature clips shot from the specific scene having multiple events under the same library is almost useless to me. There may be a time when I plan on making a compilation of these shoots but I rarely do these "comps", if I did I would just import the master files as clips from scenes I was interested in and work off of those. But I appreciate your help!!! Hope all is well brother!!


Anthony

Mar 25, 2014 2:03 PM in response to Russ H

Thanks Russ, I never thought about doing a library bi-weekly or weekly... that's awesome. i'll be able to figure out what works for me, there are never any scenarios where I would take a portions of one day and add to another, those instances are rare since I rarely do "comps" from different shoots for that model. Each BTS clip I upload is always for that one specific shoot. Since I don't remember the last time having to refer to an edit I did, the other thing i've also done is made sure i'm much more thorough when sorting through the raw footage, doing so multple times, and make a rough cut, export that cut as Pro Res 422 highest setting, then work on final, polished version, export that and consider just deleting the event altogether since I keep all my files in place (without copying over), I can always refer to the best portions/cuts in the master file... thanks again for you help!!

FCP X BTS workflow question about performance

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