Taking the Long Clips point even further - Consolidating Project Files

The earlier query on this forum about managing long clips raises an issue a colleague recently propositioned me with...

Basically he edited a 5-minute promo for TV delivery.

The library file was basically 1TB of vision, with a lot of large, continuously recorded clips. He was selecting very small selections within these for the edit.

He now wants to export a consolidated project file out (primarily to recover disk space but retain the project file)... and initially I suggested using the 'Copy Project to New Library' option within FCPX.

However the problem with that is, that the entire source clips are transferred, resulting in still a very large new library file that accesses a small edit!

He's a guy who's been an AVID and FCP7 editor for a long time (actually is also a senior Director for some of Australia's biggest Live Sporting events), and I can see he's close to making a leap to FCPX. He undertakes small projects with it from time to time, to see where its at...

Its these little hiccups that make him hesitate and at times - rail against the software...he's a key decision maker and its these sort of people we need to win over for this software to continue its upward trajectory.

I understand his only real option is something like Primaries Exporter? But I get the logic that FCPXs strongest suit is consolidated media management, so having to XML in and out of the app to manage media is a bit silly.

Probably Apple need to have a 'Copy Consolidated Project to External Library (with handles)' option - like every other NLE has!

As for me, I am of the School of keeping everything and as storage media pricing continues to improve, will become even more attractive. So its not so much an issue for me, particularly with products like Library Manager to help regain storage (again these sorts of features should be integrated).

But bottom line is, I think FCP X needs a tighter and more cohesive, integrated approach to stringouts or dailies workflows.

Thoughts?

I entirely agree. It is not uncommon, especially in broadcast and documentary workflows, to use small portions of very long archived movies. You obviously don't want to have complete copies of this same archived media every time you need a small part of it in a new project. Archiving used media only (with or without handles) is such a basic media management action that there is no excuse for not having it in FCP X. Third party solutions should only be needed for specialized actions and workflows, not for basic ones.

- Ronny