EMERGENCY!!! HELP!!! Export Problems!!! FCP!!!

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dadirector89@yahoo.com

Active member
Ok I just got done editing my first DVD. It's been a hassle from the beginning because I ran out of storage space on my start up disk while I was capturing the footage to my computer, so I finished capturing the rest of my footage onto my external hard drive. I also set all my scratch disks to my external HD because my start up HD had very little memory left.
I finished editing my DVD and it is about 50 minutes long, I usually edit music videos and have never had to deal with editing and rendering this large amount of footage. After completing all my editing I then attempted to export my file to my hard drive which had about 278GB left on it. After about 5 hours my Final Cut began to pause and then eventually failed to continue exporting because of lack of space on my start up HD, however I was exporting to my external. I deleted files that I was not using off my start up HD and only have about 2 GB available. Sooo...does anyone know how I can manage to export my file safely without having to add more storage space to my mac? Could I use Compressor? Please any information is appreciated. Thanks.
 
Never, ever, ever fill up your internal HD. Furthermore, never, ever, ever use your internal HD as your media/scratch drive. You should always capture media to a separate drive (external if you're on a MacBook, iMac, or Mac Mini... second internal drive if your on a Mac Pro).

Here's the problem: your boot drive needs extra space to move data. It uses that space as a buffer, and sometimes as a (very) temporary storage space for data in transit. If it's trying to buffer a file that's larger than the available space, it won't work. Also, the drive has to be able to read quickly in order to keep both the OS and your NLE running smoothly, and the more data that's on the drive, the more it has to sort through to find what it needs, and the more sluggish the whole system will be. I'm surprised you were able to get through the project with your HD that full. Common wisdom is that you never fill your operating drive past about 80%. Less if you can manage it.

So, you need to get all of your media off the operating drive and onto your external.

When it comes to exporting, never export using anything like QuickTime Conversion or Compressor. Those methods are clunky, sluggish, and downright unpleasant. Export a QuickTime movie, self-contained, using current project settings. Once you've done that you can quit FCP, then launch Compressor and use that to prep your file for DVD authoring.
 
Ok, thanks so much. So my best bet would be to transfer all my files to my external to free up space, than attempt to export my movie to my external. I have about 278GB of space left on my external, do you think I will be able to run my export smoothly if I free up more space on my internal? About how much free space on my internal do you think will be needed?
 
I agree. Free up space on your internal drive. I'm not exactly sure how much, but I would do as much as possible. I have also had problems with this in the past. I stayed in the office for 29 straight hours once (fell asleep on the pull out cough in the studio during exports). It would export for 6 hours then tell me that it failed. Bare minimum, I would free up more memory than the estimated size of your export. Good luck! I feel your pain!
 
dadirector89@yahoo.com said:
Ok, thanks so much. So my best bet would be to transfer all my files to my external to free up space, than attempt to export my movie to my external. I have about 278GB of space left on my external, do you think I will be able to run my export smoothly if I free up more space on my internal? About how much free space on my internal do you think will be needed?
Click to expand...

Get ALL of your media off your operating drive. All of it. In fact, if you have lots of stuff in iPhoto and iTunes, you might be better off storing those on an external drive as well (I use an external USB drive for all of that stuff... none of it lives on my MacBook). If you can clear up your drive so that it's only at about 40-60% capacity, you should be fine.

Free up as much on your internal drive as you possibly can.

I should probably also mention that filling up any drive past 80-85% is going to slow things down a bit.
 
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