Multicam!

Hi, Newbie question alert!

Once I've created Multicam clips, can I delete the standalone clips from the library? Also, I have the same question for audio syncing. Can I delete the separate audio and video files from FCP once I have created the synced clips?

Thanks!

Delete from library how? Remove them from the browser list? You can, but I’m not sure why you’d want to. Remove the media files from the library storage location? No, you can’t do that.

Nutty Amber wrote: ...Once I've created Multicam clips, can I delete the standalone clips from the library?...

While you can't really delete the parent clips of a MC clip, you can effectively do that by rejecting them and keeping the viewer filter in "Hide Rejected".

This can be useful for two reasons:

(1) If you spend time keywording and rating parent clips, the MC clip does not inherit this, thus the work is wasted. This implies the best workflow is create the MC clips first, then reject the parent clips, and only then begin keywording and rating -- on the MC clips themselves.

(2) If you accidentally edit parent clips into the timeline, those don't have the other angles or audio available. Then you must laboriously frame match the MC clip start/end points to the parent clip in the timeline, then replace the parent clip range with the same MC clip range.

Re sync clips, the same situation applies. However be advised there may be advantages to using MC clips even for a single audio and video source. Same Mestman recommends using MC clips www.fcpworks.com/sync-or-multicam-clips/

That said, MC clips have some significant limitations: Auditions don't work, stabilization doesn't work, Mocha tracking plugins don't work, and you can't export a MC clip or range from the Event Browser, only the timeline.

Also for opened MC clips with audio-only channels, the audio waveform is scaled too short. Apple is apparently using the same display routines as for combined A/V tracks (which have thumbnails, unlike audio-only tracks). This confines the waveform for audio-only tracks in an opened MC clip to a tiny vertical region of the lane.

Despite these limitations I often use MC clips even for single video and external audio sources.

If you want to delete the parent clips to save storage space, this wouldn't help. The MC clip is just metadata in the internal SQL database, it is not a redundant physical copy. The original parent clips must stay present.