Event & Project file size

Just wondering as I'm backing up an Event file that is 80mbs has there ever been talk or discussion regarding FCPX Event & Project file sizes. Reason is that on FCP6 there used to be a general rule that project files shouldn't exceed approx 60mb because they tended to get corrupt. I know its a totally different file structure in FCPX but could there be a limit on Event or Project files?

Interested to know if anyone has had problems as there Events or Project files got bigger?

I'm not aware of any event or project size recommendations, because they work so differently. What you would be looking at is CurrentVersion.fcpevent and CurrentVersion.fcpproject in their respective event/project folders.

What I can tell you is that I have gotten strange behavior with an event that had a lot of complex compound clips in it. Essentially, I was using compound clips as full sequences, and I kept on duplicating them to create different versions (similar to how you would make different sequences in FCP7). After a certain point, the event used up so much memory that it would slow things to a crawl. Finally, it would throw up an error saying the disk had run out of space (!) and the event wouldn't save any changes anymore. Thankfully, I used Backups for FCP, so I was able to go to an earlier version and fix this by moving all those sequences into projects.

I didn't keep track of how many MBs the CurrentVersion.fcpevent took up when it started throwing up errors, though, but it could very well be a size/complexity issue.

There is a rule of thumb to keep in mind.

You should be careful to keep any database file (Either Event or Project) to be under 100 MB.

I've been abiding by this limit since 10.0.3- and it has kept me out of trouble. I can't confirm if you will actually see issues in the current version if you exceed that limit. The reason I can;t say for sure, is that I'm careful not to go over that size.

The strategy I've been employing is t have a separate event for footage, gfx, music/snd fx, and a separate event for compound clips (or rebuilds)

Maybe someone else can confirm if this limit is still a true concern.

My biggest CurrentVersion.fcpevent is a whoppin' 211MB at the moment and still a work in progress.

It does take longer to load than smaller projects, obviously, but I'm not running into any problems once FCP is loaded, so I think you should be fine

*Knocks wood*

Scott Markowitz wrote: There is a rule of thumb to keep in mind.

You should be careful to keep any database file (Either Event or Project) to be under 100 MB.

I've been abiding by this limit since 10.0.3- and it has kept me out of trouble. I can't confirm if you will actually see issues in the current version if you exceed that limit. The reason I can;t say for sure, is that I'm careful not to go over that size.

The strategy I've been employing is t have a separate event for footage, gfx, music/snd fx, and a separate event for compound clips (or rebuilds)

Maybe someone else can confirm if this limit is still a true concern.

This is interesting – and all news to me.

I've never paid any attention to limiting the size of archived events or files. I do check anything that I archive to ensure that it works properly when opened. So far I haven't run into problems.

Ruaa

The kinds of problems that you can run into have more to do with severe system slow-down. I haven't been able to make any connection to database size and corruption- just to be clear.

I've seen events take more than 20 minutes to load into FCPX. Once loaded, it would take several seconds for any edit to be reflected on screen.
Then, splitting the same event into two restored reasonable start up times and system interaction.