editing between libraries

I shoot many very long interviews and I keep them in various libraries to keep the libraries from getting too big. Sometimes I need to create promos which draw from multiple libraries. When I add a short clip from one library to my promo library, it doesn't just copy that particular part of the clip, but the entire clip. I hate copying a 30 minute clip every time I need a 20 second bite. Is there a way around this? I suppose I could create breaks during the interviews to keep the clips from getting too big, but that can be distracting to the people in the room. Maybe my work flow needs adjusting. Thanks.

The best way is to keep your media outside the library. When you import from a camera card set the location to a folder outside the library. Set import preferences to use the library location rather than the library itself.

Thanks. I started doing that a while ago, but these are older interviews. Is there any way to make the media files already in your library external? Of course, that sounds like a disaster in the making.

Not hard. Select the library and in library properties click Modify Settings. Make a folder for the media. Use Consolidate to move the media into the folder and replace the library items with symlinks.

That works for newly imported media. I would like to export the media already in my library to an external folder, but it doesn't look like I can do this. It says existing media will remain in their original locations. Never mind - it worked! thx

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Thanks for pointing this out. I'm really happy to have this option. Down the road, if I decide I want to have all the files in the library, I can simply consolidate them back in. It would nice though to have the option of only importing the parts of the clip that you actually use so the final library size wouldn't be so enormous. Do you think that might become a feature at some point or is it too complicated? thx

There is if you're importing from a camera, not if you're importing a file. There is a way to trick the system to make the files think they're coming from a camera. Andres Kiel's VirtualCamCard can do this. Not sure if I have the name right. Go to spherico.com.

Thanks - I'[ll look into it.

I too, would like to find a solution to this. Need to make a showreel. But with material from many many different libraries and events I'm not quite sure how to go about this without ending up with so much duplicated footage. And I'm already super low on hard drive space... Not too eager to bring all old projects to external folders either...