Saving Project Question

B

bentramer81

Well-known member
Kind of a long one, but I appericate your help, thanks in advance! :2vrolijk_08:

Here is the situation.

1. I capture my footage and save it to the computer as "project 1". (because computers crash I want to save it to an external hard drive)

2. Next, I go to "save as" and change the name on the file to "project 1a" and save to my external hard drive. (but I think this is not transfering the media, or is it? I think it is only transfering my prefernces of the sequence, stuff like that, right?)

3. Everytime I upload footage I have to save it to the computer (since I have to dissconnect the external hard drive, this is the reason I can't save it directly to the external HD) After saving to the computer I want all that media to go to the external HD, how do I get it over to the external HD and then how do I clear it off the computer, doesn't it get saved in some auto save vault, simply deleting it won't free up space on the computer right?)

How do I have it where all the media (everything assoiated to this project, all the media, sequences, etc.) are being saved to the external HD in the same spot?
 
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1. Where are you saving this footage you capture?

2. Your PROJECT file and MEDIA are separate entities. Your project file is a collection of data that points to the media that exists where you captured it. To back up your project, simply drag and drop it on the Finder level to an external hard drive, or flash drive. If you want to back up the media, get another hard drive and manually drag the contents of the project folder that resides in the CAPTURE SCRATCH folder. But there is no big need to back that up...as long as you have your project file and the source tapes, and you captured timecode when you captured the footage, then if you lose the media drive, all you need to do is recapture from the source tapes.

3. Why can you not CAPTURE your footage to the external drive directly? This is a preference you set in FCP...SYSTEM SETTINGS. You tell FCP what drive is your CAPTURE SCRATCH. If you have a firewire drive, you can daisy chain the drive to the computer and then the camera to the drive. This works for many people, me included. But, if it doesn't, then after you capture, drag the footage to the external drive manually, or use the MEDIA MANAGER in FCP to COPY it to the drive. After that is done, manually drag the media on the internal drive to the trash. You might need to RECONNECT the footage when you restart FCP, but it will do that if you click on SEARCH.

Again, you designate the capture scratch drive in the SYSTEM SETTINGS window, in the FINAL CUT PRO menu.
 
Thanks, two quick questions

Thanks, two quick questions

Shane Ross said:
1. Where are you saving this footage you capture?

2. Your PROJECT file and MEDIA are separate entities. Your project file is a collection of data that points to the media that exists where you captured it. To back up your project, simply drag and drop it on the Finder level to an external hard drive, or flash drive. If you want to back up the media, get another hard drive and manually drag the contents of the project folder that resides in the CAPTURE SCRATCH folder. But there is no big need to back that up...as long as you have your project file and the source tapes, and you captured timecode when you captured the footage, then if you lose the media drive, all you need to do is recapture from the source tapes.

3. Why can you not CAPTURE your footage to the external drive directly? This is a preference you set in FCP...SYSTEM SETTINGS. You tell FCP what drive is your CAPTURE SCRATCH. If you have a firewire drive, you can daisy chain the drive to the computer and then the camera to the drive. This works for many people, me included. But, if it doesn't, then after you capture, drag the footage to the external drive manually, or use the MEDIA MANAGER in FCP to COPY it to the drive. After that is done, manually drag the media on the internal drive to the trash. You might need to RECONNECT the footage when you restart FCP, but it will do that if you click on SEARCH.

Again, you designate the capture scratch drive in the SYSTEM SETTINGS window, in the FINAL CUT PRO menu.
Click to expand...

Two Quick Questions:

1. Thanks for the info. Shane. I have the 24" Mac and the firewire and the external hard drive use the same plug in on the computer, so how would I "daisy chain" them. By "daisy chain" I assume you mean both are plugged into the computer and you "save as" directly to the external HD, right?

2. If I go ahead and change the Capture Scratch location to the external HD, but later on I want to start saving files to the computer again, what file location (the name of the file location, my documents, movies, etc.) will I use at that time?

Thanks for your help.
 
1) Daisy chain refers to plugging the drive into the iMac and the camera into a secondary fw port on the drive. The technology will allow for the camera data to pass thru the drive's fw ports to the computer and then your scratch back out to the external drive.

2) By setting your scratch disk to the external it will only have an effect on FCP not your finder. In the system settings for capture scratch it will ask you for a location. When you tell it to use your external, it will automatically create a set of folders. What I like to do is set a folder at the root of the drive called FCP SCRATCH and then every project you create will have it's own set of folders inside those folders.

Don't worry about documents, movies, etc... those will still be on your system drive.

Hope that helps.

CaptM
 
1. Thanks for information, sounds like I will plug the external hard drive(EHD) into the Mac and then the camera firewire into the (EHD). Then set FCP scratch folder to save to the external HD. By doing it this way everything will always be saved to the (EHD). Sounds simple enough I'll give it a whirl, please let me know if I have left anything out here.

2. I went into the autosave vault and deleted some projects out of there to free up space but it didn't free up very much space, are these just prefernces and not the media? Thus explaining why only a little space was freed up? If so where is the media being stored? What I'm looking to do is get my Mac closer to it's original space storage 750 instead of being down around 350 left in space.

Thanks in advance!
 
350 isn't too bad.

Here's what I'd do... look in DOCUMENTS for a folder called FINAL CUT PRO DOCUMENTS

In there you'll see folders called:

Audio Render
Autosave
Capture Scratch
Render Files
etc

The one with the biggest space hog is the Capture Scratch. Just move those files to your external drive. If you ever want to work on the project using those files again just point FCP to that drive and all will re-link.

Good luck,

CaptM
 
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