10.1 media management questions

About to take the plunge. A couple of best practices type questions:

1. With the new library structure, does it makes sense to keep Libraries (and event and projects) parked on internal drives, with pointers to external media on outboard drives--like we did back with FCP7? Or does it not matter? Or in fact, do we lose speed with Libraries (and events and projects) parked on different drives?

2. In previous FCPX, having multiple events/projects open was always a big drag on system resources (and made Event Manager X a must-have). As I upgrade to 10.1 and rebuild libraries/events/projects, here's my question: If I park 10 related events and 15 projects in a single library, when I open that new library, are all the events/projects available all the time, thus kludging down my system performance? Or can I open and close events/projects within a library as need to reduce drain on system resources?


Thanks for your insights/advice.

Hi Michael,

1. You can keep your Libraries and your media on the same drive or on different drives, as long as neither of them are on your system drive. FCPX does a lot of house-keeping while you are editing, it also creates Render files and converted files inside your Library, so you don't want to overload your system drive with all these processes.

2. Yes, when you open a Library all Events and Projects inside that Library are available all the time. The 10.1/Mavericks combination, as well as the fact that you cannot skim through a Project anymore, seem to allow 10.1 to handle multiple Events and Projects much better than before. An Event is only "open" when you select it and its clips are revealed in the Event Browser. A Project is only "open" when you select it and it gets opened in the Timeline.

- Ronny

Thanks Ronny!

Re: point #2. Good to know. Will keep libraries (and events/project) off my system drive (as with previous versions of FCPX).

Re: point 2--If I have a library with 10 events and 20 projects/cuts, they won't all be simultaneously dragging down my system performance, correct? Only 1 event and 1 project are "active" at any one time as I select them and work with them? So system performance won't be affected with multiple events/projects...

Thanks again.

When you select the Library icon, all your media inside the Library will be cached and revealed at once. With many large Events and complex Projects inside the Library this can drag system resources and affect system performance especially on systems with limited RAM.

When you select an Event icon inside a Library only the media and any Project opened inside this particular Event will be revealed and cached. This puts less strain on your system.

The number and the size of the Events and Projects your system can handle depends on the kind of media you work with and on your system's resources.

- Ronny