Media management issue, Storage Locations

Hey guys,

Been reading this site for quite a while and thought I would ask for some help now, since I'm having an annoying problem and couldn't find a clear solution despite a lot of searching.

For all my projects I use this simple way of managing media, something I learned during one of my first video production internships a few years ago. It's based on Final Cut 7 but it used to work great with FCPX too. Basically I just have a folder structure for all my different media types. There's an "Audio" folder with separate subfolders for music, voice overs etc. There's the "Video" folder for raw footage, "Graphics" folder with subfolders for jpg, psd, you get the idea.

This was a good way to keep all the files organized and easily accessible. If some of my colleagues needed to find specific file that was used in project X last summer, they need to find it easily without knowing really anything about FCPX libraries. This is the main reason why I prefer not to keep the files inside the FCPX Library.

I used this technique successfully with FCPX for a long time, but somewhere along the line everything changed. Before I was able to place my files in their own folders and then just import them by drag & drop to my projects, working on the project and keeping the files where they belong.

Now with 10.1.4 for each project (for each Library) I change the Storage Locations settings. Instead of keeping the files inside the FCPX Library, I select my folder for video files, since that's where I want my video files to be. Now this is where things get tricky. First of all, Final Cut starts creating its own folder structure inside my destination folder. There's at least the "Final Cut Original Media" folder, which gets filled by folders just named by date (2015-02-18 etc). These date folders contain everything that was imported on that date. Secondly, if I import a song from my Audio folder into my project, Final Cut will copy that file and place it in the Original Media date folder mess. So basically my destination folder ends up being a mess, full of folders named by a date and those folders contain duplicates of audio files, grafics, etc.

Not too long ago everything worked fine though, I was able to keep all my file types in their own folders and still import them into my projects without creating a mess and a bunch of duplicate files. Did this come with an update? Did I just mess up my settings? How could I fix this? I know FCPX's logic is to keep everything inside the Library file and not to worry about the original files, just work with your Library inside the app. But for my job where I often have to dig up old files and share them, I'd like to keep using my old technique.

Any ideas would be highly appreciated.

Set your import preferences to leave in place. They FCP's folder structure will only have symlinks. You could also used managed media with leave in place to create symlinks in the library bundle.

Thanks Tom, I forgot about that setting in the good old Preferences panel, I've been just focusing on the Storage Locations settings in Inspector. That solves my problem with importing audio, graphics and all that stuff.

The problem with "Leave in place" option comes when I'm importing AVCHD footage from an SD card. If the "Leave in place" option is selected in the Preferences, then during import you don't have any other option than to copy the files in the Library. This used to be different with earlier versions, although I don't exactly remember how.

If I shoot on DSLRs I'll just copy the files from the SD card to my desired location, all in Finder, and then import the clips to Final Cut. With AVCHD footage you can't do this, so I'll have to take it through FCPX import function.

It's such a small and stupid issue, feels frustrating after using the same workflow for a long time and then something changes and it's not working like it used to.

The only thing I can think of now is to import my AVCHD files by copying them into a selected folder, then going to Preferences and changing the import setting to "Leave in place", but this would require changing the import settings every time I need to import AVCHD files. Any other ideas?

Use leave in place in preferences. When you import from AVCHD the drop down sheet gives you the option of how to handle the media. If the library is set with a location that's where the media will go. You don't have to change the preferences back and forth. Importing from a card will not let you leave in place.

With the AVCHD, make camera archives, then import as "leave in place" form those.

BenB wrote: With the AVCHD, make camera archives, then import as "leave in place" form those.

Some people said in prior versions (although this is debated) you could copy the entire AVCHD package from camera to local hard drive, then import with "leave in place", but on current versions you cannot.

In the field we have to backup all media every day, typically by copying from camera to laptop, then duplicating to a portable hard drive. For everything except AVCHD that material can later be imported directly into FCP X with "leave in place". However current versions of FCP X don't allow this, rather import into a managed library whether you want that or not.

I just tried importing an AVCHD package shot on an HF-G10 then copied to a local hard drive. Even making a camera archive from the on-disk AVCHD package will still not then allow importing with "leave files in place". Is there any rational reason for this? What is the expected behavior for importing from the complete on-disk AVCHD package with "leave files in place"?

We shoot very little AVCHD material; I'm just trying to figure it out.

When you import AVCHD it's rewrapped to QuickTime, so it can't be left in place. If it's inside an AVCHD structure it can't be left there.

Tom Wolsky wrote: Use leave in place in preferences. When you import from AVCHD the drop down sheet gives you the option of how to handle the media. If the library is set with a location that's where the media will go. You don't have to change the preferences back and forth. Importing from a card will not let you leave in place.

Thanks Tom, we're definitely getting there. The only thing that bugs me about this workflow is when I do this, instead of just putting the video files neatly in my destination folder, Final Cut creates a "Final Cut Original Media" folder there, which then contains folders named by date, and those folders eventually contain the video files.

Now that I tried this I got a flashback and remembered this is exactly how it started acting after a certain update, which got me experimenting with different importing options. With earlier versions I was able to just name a destination folder, and all the video files were imported there without extra folders inside folders.

I guess it isn't a huge disaster if there's a few extra folders to go through to access my video files, I just don't get it why Final Cut is so stubborn making these completely unnecessary folders and not letting me choose whether I want them or not. Time to send some feedback, maybe?

Thanks for the help though, nice to see there's such a helpful community here. I'll be glad to hear more suggestions if someone comes up with something against this folder loving piece of software