sparse disk images

Just finished Steve Martin's Media Management & Collaboration tutorial. I recommend it for anyone still muddling through how to share projects, etc. One question I still have - why is it preferable to use a sparse disk image when you can just copy the projects and/or events to a portable drive? He describes a sparse disk as a suitcase in which you can place your events & projects. If you have a portable drive, isn't that effectively the same thing? Right now, if I want to share events or projects to an external/portable drive, I simply copy them to that drive. Could someone explain the advantage to me?

Thanks.

There may not be any for you. The advantage of the the sparse image is that it's a way to segregate projects and events and only open the ones you need.

Oh, OK. I use Event Manager X which already gives me that option. But I see how that makes it simpler if I wanted to hand it off to a second editor. Thanks.

While I have total respect for the guys at Ripple. I find that this whole Sparse Image idea to fly in the face of what FCP X was supposed to deliver.

Simplified editing.

This method is so convoluted that I hope Apple are falling over backwards trying to come up with a way that just works. This ain't it. It's another reason why Final Cut Pro X isn't gaining traction with the big post houses.

Sparse Image is only one tool we have to organize media, and its pretty easy to learn and do.

Event Manager X is another tool.

There are multiple ways to do things, and moving events and projects between Macs is super easy.

Just be aware that when you copy an Event or Project at the Finder level, you end up with multiple copies that share the same database ID. This can cause FCP X some confusion when launching. Copying from inside the app itself, the copies get assigned their own database ID number.

And, I'd like to personally see better network support. Not everyone can afford CatDV, and even that is limited.