FCP Workflow - Do you backup mxf files and online files?

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boroc7

Member
I'm working on a feature-length documentary, and already have about a terabyte of documentary footage. I've duplicated these original mxf files for backup safety purposes.

What I don't understand in terms of workflow is, is when it comes to importing that mxf footage into online quicktime material.

I have another drive which contains all my online mov files, which I edit in FCP. Should I then be mirroring this drive as well for safety purposes? I don't think that would make sense, as I should be able to recapture or retransfer my original files.

I'm not sure how to do this. Is there something I need to keep in mind when doing the original log and transfer process, or do if I lose my files do I simply have to do a batch capture kind of thing in which case it will reconnect my in and out points?

Hopefully I'm asking the right question here. THanks for your help. I don't want to buy more hard drives than I have to.
 
NO need to mirror the media drive. If it dies, or you lose the media in another way, then all you have to is highlight the footage and hit BATCH CAPTURE...with the drive containing the MXF files attached. It will reimport the footage.
 
It would be a little redundant to mirror the drive of the quicktime mov files since you can go back to original. When logging and transferring, I believe FCP keeps a record of the master clip and the subclip that you log/transfer into your project so you would only need to keep the very original mxf to be able to re-log/transfer it if you lose the mov files. So be sure to back up your FCP project files.

Another alternative would be to use a program like DVFilm Raylight for Mac (25% off right now) which creates small quicktime references movies instead of full sized self-contained files of log and transfer. This would pretty much eliminate the space requirements for the quicktime movs so you could just have your original mxf files and the backup duplicate of them. If you lose the Raylight made quicktime movs all you have to do it run the mxfs through Raylight again to rewrite the tiny references movs.

You should be covered the way you have it now. You would just save yourself some processing time if you got an extra backup harddrive for the quicktime movs or got Raylight if you lost those quicktimes. Raylight would save you the log and transfer time of the your next project though.

Best,
Andy
 
Consider how long it will take to re-import etc... (my doc spans over 3 terabytes..)

What I've done is keep my original MXF's on a various Hard drives...

Originally I had 9 x 320GB drives... 7 x Firewire and 2 x USB.. these were my working QT edit drives...

Once I had the story to my liking I consolidated the project to another drive... and that became my working drive - (2TB Lacie... which was actually still another backup as the Consolidated Project is now naively on my system hard drive...)

My project took over 2 years and since then drives have become ridiculously cheap- in Oz I can get 1 TB for $200... so I reckon you should just mirror the material... drives are too cheap these days...

Cheers
 
Thanks for all the thoughts.

I tried playing with reconnecting via batch capture, and I guess you just have to load all the different reels first before it works? That seems like a pretty good way to go. But in the long run, when I have terabytes of quicktime files--if I lose that, that would put me back quite a lot of hours. Is that the safest and most time sensitive way to do it?

So with Raylight then u are editing lower-quality quicktime files, like the old school photo-JPEG method of FCP old? I hate looking at a crappy image. I wish FCP could edit mxf directly.

Like all social issue docs we have a small budget, and the 1TB of footage we have now is just a starting point, so to do the double mirroring would still end of costing us more than we'd like. Anyhow, we just don't want to spend more than we have to. And doing a reconnect seems like a pretty good option. However, I would be a little concerned if later down the road, with many terabytes, losing all that and having to reconnect/recapture.
 
When you use Batch Capture, all you need to do is make sure the backup drive is connected. And it might ask you where the first card is, and then it will find the rest on a relative path. Yeah, it might take a while...a good thing to let go overnight.

Raylight does NOT create low res files. Raylight (and MXF4QT and Calibrated) enables FCP to work with the original MXF files...natively. ZERO conversion. I find that MXF4QT is much smoother and allows for import of the all important metadata into FCP, but Raylight works just fine. If you opt to edit the MXF files directly, make sure to copy them to your Media drive, and NOT work with the originals. Lose the originals, you are lost.
 
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