Managing a huge Event.

Guys I need your help please.

I have a massive event that is made up of all kinds of footage. It's about to become a one hour documentary for Australian Television featuring the paramedics who work in Alice Springs.

There must be hundreds of hours of footage already recorded and I need to duplicate the Event and take it away with me when I next visit the outback. (Wednesday)

Unfortunately I cannot duplicate the event (from inside FCP X) without the program running out of system memory an crashing.

Duplicating the Event at Finder level works just fine. But I really would like to do it properly.

Any suggestions?

I was thinking maybe break the event into smaller pieces might help.

System is an upgraded MacPro with 12 GB Ram and ATi5770.

the obvious thing to try is to add more ram and see if that added system memory makes the difference. You might simply cut half of the video and paste it into another storyline and a separate event so each event and project has half of the entire thing, duplicate them and then tie them back. awkward but it might be possible...duplicating in the finder, if possible, can also lead to all sorts of issues down the road.

Thanks. But this has nothing to do with a project. YET.

I'm thinking as these two systems will never meet I'll just copy it at Finder level.
I seriously doubt that adding more RAM will make any difference.

There is no right or wrong way to copy events and projects. Use which ever works for you. Not a single thing "wrong" with copying in the Finder, as long as you're aware of the database ID issue.

Then when you come back and want to move them back to your main Mac, just overwrite the old originals with the new updated version. No biggie, right? I wouldn't sweat it.

And no, RAM is not what that memory message is about. That won't help with doing copies of files.

Now FCPX won't allow me to break the Event apart. So I guess I'm stuck with it in it's current form.

This is something I really hope that Apple improves upon in April. :side:

I think we may have some confusion...at least I have some confusion...about terminology here. An Event is a collection of imported clips, audio, still images, that will be used to make a Project. When you say "won't allow me to break the Event apart" it sounds like you are referring to a Project. You can create a new Event any time you want and do whatever you want, so I think you're talking about a Project, aren't you?
What steps are you taking? Exactly? What exactly do you mean by "break apart", because there are quite a few ways one might break a project apart?

You are aware there is a section of the help menu about breaking Events apart into smaller Events, right? It's really easy.

Seanus wrote: … I have a massive event that is made up of all kinds of footage. … There must be hundreds of hours of footage already recorded … .

"Before fixing it - why did you made it kaputt anyhow?" my father used to say.-

In other words: What forced you to import hundreds of hours INTO A SINGLE Event?

Usually, in professional productions I was allowed to accompany ('m an amateur) , there's some sort of script, structure, concept. You have recording dates, recording locations; protagonists, main 'characters', supporting figures; your story will be a single 90min, or 13x22min; you have a narrator, an interviewer, only original quotes.

All this BEFORE production would allow me to structure my material ON IMPORT, e.g in separate Events; ok, no need for bins anymore, but clever key-wording/tagging would allow me to 'find the needle in the hay' later.

---

sorry, no solution for your issue to copy a folder from Drive A to Drive B, but ...... I'm just flabbergasted, how some 'pros' work. ...... :huh:

Well, i do see one option you can do, which would be best one for sharing and taking project with you anywhere. I would do like that:

1. Take external hard drive - create folder with name of the project, put all video and still footage there by folders (day 1, music, sfx, stills, etc.)
2. Create dummy image with disk utility, with project name. Mount the dummy image.
3. Open fcpx, create event (make copy of existing) to dummy image, create project (make copy of existing) to dummy image.
4. Turn off fcpx, hide your old project and event from fcpx project/event folder.
5. Start fcpx - it will see event and project on dummy image, but with offline files. Reconnect all files from external hard drive (no importing to dummy image, just reconnect option).
6. Turn off fcpx, unmount dummy image, put it to your external drive there footage are. Now you have all stuff on your external hard drive - you can take it anywhere, connect to any computer.

Peace.

Karsten,

I find this a very unnecessary and stupid reply. What is it good for, anyway? Does it give you a good feeling to be smarter than other people? Especially your last line with 'pros' written in quotation marks. Without knowing any background to Seanus' question you just talk down to him. Why? He asked people for advice. Maybe he was handed that footage as is? You never know. Maxbe he made a mistake on his own, okay, but then Seanus had the guts to openly ask for help. And helping him would be what this forum is about - it's not about showing off and smartassing around.

With your knowledge you can surely do better, so please stop being so German.

Thanks,
Sebastian

This was informative. I had thought/assumed you could easily cut and paste items in the events from one event to another. I thought it would be simple to select a group of clips and copy them, then create a new event and paste them into it and FCPx would duplicate the clips. Not so. There is still a LOT of things about FCPx that makes it less than a Pro app.

Overturf wrote: … helping him would be what this forum is about - it's not about showing off and smartassing around. …

My suggestion for a better workflow is what?

Ever heard the phrase "Better is enemy of good"?
Instead of going to the cause of the problem, it would be better to suggest 'use tape and a hammer to fix it'? Are we still on our way in a prairie schooner?


A FORUM (I don't dare to link you to wiki …) is beyond helping a single person; it should help all readers of this thread; making use of the features of FCPX is … 'smart'?

Overturf wrote: … so please stop being so German. …

mentioning 'heritage' is an argument for/against what?

if you want to get personal, send me a PM.-

:sick:

Ok chaps, please play nice. Any more personal stuff and I'll start deleting posts

It was a simple question the reason for it was because I received all this footage that was originally captured in Final Cut Express. There was no way to import it in separate bits as I had nio idea what anything was. I assumed it would be easy to break it down after the fact. (If it was necessary) but FCP X handled the Event without an issue. UNTIL I wanted to copy it for travel to the Northern Territory where it would become a mirrored system.

Anyway I have managed to break it down a little bit, but I've given up on duplicating the Event inside FCP X. I've copied it at Finder level and experimenting with unmounting disks etc it works perfectly.

So in the end not a big issue. But disappointed that FCP X couldn't handle duplicating a large Event.
Maybe when I get my new Mac Mini Pro it won't be an issue.

One thing that I was told by an Apple support guy was to always make sure your event and project files don't exceed 200MB in size.
I'm talking about the actual database file, now. Not the whole Event folder.

If the database file becomes larger than 200MB, then all hell will break loose. Dogs sleeping with cats, FCPX slowing to a crawl, etc.

-Just wanted to share that while I was thinking about it.

Well so far my biggest one is 57MB so I guess I'm in the clear there.
Contains just under 1500 clips though. I suspect the way to make it really blow out would be to fill it with Compound Clips.

Something I'm not a fan of.