Where does optimisation show up?

FCPX 10.2; MB Pro, El Capitan
I have imported two video files (DV and MOV [Prores 422]) into FCPX and set the option to produce optimised media.
When I loaded the finished files from the library into MediaInfo it reported the two files exactly as they were before import, i.e. I was expecting the DV to have been changed to Prores 422.

I have obviously missed something here, will somebody please enlighten me.

DV is already an optimized format. It's an I-frame format.

Thank you Tom. I had to quickly look up I-Frame before coming back. Great.

Can you help then with a problem regarding a DV file that I tried to put in a MKV container to view on TV but something went wrong and I lost my DV, but... I ended up with MKV, instead of 720x576 Interlaced, I got 352x288 progressive. That is all I have and of course it is physically small and resolution small.

What advice might you have for conversion (to) with MKV not being recognised by FCPX?

What MKV converter were you using? I don't know much about the format. Codec doesn't with AV Foundation or QuickTime.

I used MakeMKV and I attach a text file from MediaInfo that describes the end result (MKV) and new (DV). I realise I cannot regain what is lost, but I need to lose as little more as possible.
I think it created Progressive because of the 288 height limit.

I don't know if I can mix clips in with different resolution video (DV) or whether I should convert this to match. I can produce DV from this but I don't know what the converter will do to alter the resolution back (duplicate lines presuming I lost one of the interlace frames??).

Does the converter in going from 278MB to about 1.67GB just duplicate data or does it uncompress something meaningful? I cannot seem to find meaningful info on the internet.

Any knowledge you can impart will help me decide what to do.
Thank you

Hang on, where you trying to save the FCPX optimized file instead of sharing from the time line? If this is yes, then I think that is the problem, as I understand FCPX creates what is really 2 junk files, optimized and proxy, both are to aid in editing on under powered devices, and those files, optimized and proxy are throw-away files once finished, you create and delete as you need, they are not meant to be copied or archived.

I noticed you said DV, but DV is not DV, in your case, DV would be domestic cameras, and standard definition, 2 channels, very poor quality frankly, yet the information you provided seems to indicate you are using DVCPRO, not very popular range of tape based cameras and edit playback decks.

DVCPRO was produced by Panasonic, I know about DVCPRO as we still use it today, in cameras, and these are ingested into Final Cut Pro 7, with DVCPRO you had few options, if you went DVCPRO 25, you had 1 video track, 2 audio tracks, depending on the tape, usually 66 min recording at 25MB a second.

later DVCPRO 50 was introduced, this increased the number of channels and increased the bit depth, same tape was used, but you lost duration, double to MB 1/2 the duration, a 66min tape recorded 33min of footage.

Later for a very short time DVCPRO100 MB was introduced, replaced by disk recording, a professional blue ray system DVCPRO HD, we have a few players, disks lying around, again the same if you increase the MB you loose duration.

I have no idea about mkv, I see it, and I thought maybe wrongly this was some sort of virtual dvd playback, VLC plays mkv with no issues, quicktime not!!

I just checked Handbrake does MKV and it works, that is I have never had any problems with Handbrake, with the others, yeah, never got those to work, I trust handbrake!

your two MediaInfos tell two things:

• your DV is 'normal' .dv = standard def, dv as codec = 13GBs/h...
• the mkv tells: axed resolution by factor 4, converted to mpeg2 = much smaller files, but, as any compression lossy process.

So, what is your question anyhow?

Do you want to know, where FCPX stores the transcoded, optimized files?
Those are well hidden inside the Library.pkg

@Karsten, the MKV was made from an original DV, and I lost the DV. The MKV went wrong (or rather, I did) and I ended up as you see. The reason for Progressive instead of the original Interlaced is because the output 288p height is below or at the limit for Interlace. The MKV cannot be ingested so needs converting, which I did to the current DV.
My question is whether there is a better solution because I guess the new DV is no better in quality than the MKV low res. Is there some way to recover anything better than the MKV-mpeg-2? One point being that 13GB/h is a waste of space if I have not improved on the MKV. If I cannot improve I need a conversion that will not make it worse but will not waste space for nothing. Based on Tom's comment regarding DV being I-Frame suggests that any other format I convert to will need optimising as well.

I only thought I didn't know where the files showed up because I only found non Prores. Having had that explained by Tom, I now know I was in the right place, inside the package.

So my only question is regarding the conversion as stated in the reply to Tom #76152

@MsJustine, there seems to be some confusion here. I was not trying to save anything, my problem was that I cannot get the MKV into FCPX and so wanted to convert it with as little loss as possible (having already mucked up and lost the original DV). I then produced the current DV via conversion from the MKV. My DV tapes are old domestic as opposed to my new AVCHD. My query is as noted above.

I would suggest ProRes LT or DVCPRO 50 are your best bets. Less chance of degradation converting the MKV file, heavier than DV, which is quite compressed, while not as heavy ProRes 422.

what Tom says...

you converted dv into mpeg2 (prehistoric codec ) and killed resolution - no way to bring that back.

matrushka (mkv) is an exotic media wrapper.... you could try the free rewrapper REMUX to repackage the mkv to some mov container ... but will FCPX swallow that? Doubt that. mpeg2 (inside your mkv) comes in many variations and is a muxed codec... not meant for editing.

dv would work without optimizing, any h264 would do (mov or mp4, not mkv) ... proRes is FCPX own intermediate format, optimized for edit ... but not for size

.... I stil don't get your topic, but ...anyhow .... do what Tom says....

Thank you both for your input and the final solution from both seems to be do what Tom says. I will.

As for my Topic... you may note the original post rather than the change of topic part way.

I ingested a DV that I had generated from MKV and a MOV (prores422) and was looking in the library package to find what had changed (using MediaInfo). I did not find any change to either, whilst I expected to see a change to the DV. That led me to believe I must be looking in the wrong place and sought help to solve that.
Tom did so by telling me that DV was already optimised media.
I then (probably wrongly - I should have started a new post with a new Topic avoiding this controversy) changed the subject.