SONY FS700

Hi guys, Iast year i cut a 13 episode fishing show shot primarily on the Sony FS700.
As the footage is filed into a self contained AVCHD package i am forced to copy files to the library. Is there anyway to avoid having to do this? Unless I'm missing something once these files are copied to the library they will need to remain there. I haven't created optimised media but simply copied. If I delete these files out of the "original media" folder i have no option to relink even through re-import through camera archive and everything remains offline.
For season 2 Im quite keen to avoid having the original material and a duplicate contained inside the library.
Any thoughts are appreciated as is ridicule if i have been a muppet..
Chris

The standard procedure for most productions is to create one camera archive, which is stored separately from the production media for safety, and then to import from that into your library location for production. Media does not have to be stored inside the library bundle.

Thanks for that Tom, appreciate you getting back to me.
I have actually tried importing from camera archive and still haven't been given the option to "leave files in place" (see photo).
The files had been arriving on hard drive in a folder structure.Im wondering if the Camera op has missed something whilst dumping files to drive?

The application wil not allow you to leave in place in a camera archive. It's by design. Nobody is doing anything wrong. You're getting the medua as an archive, which is always intended as a separate, preserved, untouched, not used, safety recording of your camera originals. Most feature productions have three of these in addition to the production medua, which is separate from and in addition to any camera archive. No matter how many camera archives you make FCP will not ever let you use the media in them in production. I know this frustrates many users, but FCP cannot tell if this is a sole camera archve or your 10th camera archive. It always copies from anything than is in a camera structure.

A lot of people misunderstand that just because you can't select "leave in place" when you import from cards or an archive, this means that the media HAS to be copied into the library. It doesn't... you can put it anywhere, depending on where the library is pointed. Select the library and go to the inspector and modify the destination where media gets copied. This is by design because you NEVER want to leave in place if you're importing from something like a card... if you disconnect the card, you'd be SOL.

Also, even if you have copied it into the library and didn't want it in there, you can consolidate it to anywhere you want.

If the files are in a folder structure on a drive, consider THAT to be as if that was your card, and you'd import from that. It probably came on some transfer drive... so why would you want that imported as "leave in place" anyway? As soon as you disconnected that drive, it would be offline, and maybe it gets sent back to the set.

Also take a look at this:


(PS - is there any way to post a youtube link without the video getting embedded? You can't view videos without Flash on this forum, very annoying)