Archiving a FCE project

I know that in iMovie I can easily archive Events by going into iMovie, finding the external drive and dragging events from the internal hardd rive folder into the external drive folder. Is there an equivalent in FCE?
I have about 35GB of elements (video clips, music, etc.) that FCE knows where to find on my internal hard drive. I'd like to store these on an external drive. How can I move them to the external drive so that FCE knows where they are? Or do I just move them off, and then if I ever need to use them again, move them back onto the internal drive?
Thanks in advance for whatever advice you can offer.

Hello Roger,
To archive an FCE project you need to keep the _FCE project file_ and any _source media_ that you used (video clips, stills, audio files, etc).
Normally,
FCE project files are in the +Final Cut Express Documents+ folder
Video clips are in the +Final Cut Express Documents/Capture Scratch+ folder
Other media (stills, audio) will be where ever you saved them on your hard drive.
For project archiving, I usually copy all these files to a single folder having a logical name that identifies the project.

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2 complete FCE projects, files moved or missing, and memory full----help!

I have a
MacBook Pro version 10.4.10
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
and purchased the FCE HD.
After completing FCE projects-exporting to iMovie-sharing it over to iDVD-and burn to DVD, I was and is still in a blur from what happens next.
When I tried to create another FCE project, it said low disc space, so I purchased a 160GB Seagate, and attempted to copy the finished FCE projects into the Seagate, but when I try and open the project so I'm certain if I need to go back and edit or burn another DVD, it will be there, then it says there are files missing, or error code 1309.
I then got nervous, read through the FCE .pdf for assistance, started moving files around, trying to copy whatever over to the external. Now, when I try and open the existing project, I can't
I may be over cautious, but because of it, I've used up all my memory. Now, I can't open the projects because I've moved the files around.
Right now, I am at a halt. Can anyone help me please, is there a way for me to reorganize my files so that I can open my existing FCE project as the final product, and then archive and move to the external drive, and still be able to open, edit, and burn again? I'm trying to clear the memory from harddrive so I can work on add'l FCE projects.
When I check Disk Utility for my Macintosh HD, the capacity is 148.7GB, and my available is 479.7 MB.
The 160GB Seagate's capacity is 149.0 GB, and the available is 93.0GB.
Thank you for any assistance.

When you purchased the Seagate, did you format it Mac OS Extended?
-Go into Disk Utility
-Select the disk
-Make sure all your files are off the drive before you do this:
-Change Format to Mac OS Extended.

How to connect two iMacs to the same FCE project?

Hello All,
Right now I have an iMac that is about 1 year old. I'm about to purchase another iMac. What I want to do is run FCE on both and work on the same video project on both. Is this possible?
So the idea would be that I one person A could color correct and person B could edit and perform other functions on the second iMac. Can you hook them up by firewire and do this or is this beyond what you can do with FCE and two iMacs?
Thanks for your help.
Mike

Hello Michael,
First, you will need two fully licensed copies of FCE, one for each iMac. Each license allows you to install FCE on 1 Apple desktop + 1 Apple laptop as long as you own both computers and do not use FCE on both at the same time. But it *does not* allow you to install it on 2 Apple desktop computers (eg iMacs).
Second, in order for two people on different computers to access the same project, you would have to store all the media & scratch files in a common location, and set up each copy of FCE to access the files from that location. The problems with this approach are 1) FCE cannot do this over a network, 2) you cannot connect an external FW drive to both computers at the same time, 3) FCE prefers that your FCE Project file(s) be on your system HD.
You could use an external FW drive to store your media & scratch files; then connect the FW drive to the computer that is going to work on the project - but not to 2 computers at the same time. You will still have to copy the FCE project file between the two iMacs each time you swap from one to the other for editing.

Can I edit FCE projects when the files are on a External HD?

Hello,
I've recently reinstalled Snow Leopard. Since I have a clean start, I'm thinking about new ways to manage my video files for FCE editing.
Video projects take up most of the space on my HD, so I'd like to keep them on an external drive this time.
Is working on FCE projects while all the video files are saved on an external drive a bad idea? Or will this work out just fine? This way I don't have to first save them to my internal HD, finish the project, move video files to the external HD, and point FCE to where they're saved again. There just on the external HD from the start and while I'm editing the video! I can get a HD with firewire too.
Thanks.
Message was edited by: MrChicken

Is working on FCE projects while all the video files are saved on an external drive a bad idea?
Not at all. This is the correct way to work with a laptop.

How could I export FCE project into XML format?

Hello,
I recently decided to upgrade from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Pro X. But I don't seem to be able to export my FCE unfinish projects. That is because FCE does not export into XML format !!!
Does anyone knows how to have FCE to generate a XML file? Or to have the FCP file format converted into a XML file format?
Thanks

If you are editing in FCE4, then you can open your FCE Project in FCP6 or FCP7 and do the .xml export there. Once you have that .xml file, you need to use the software 7toX to convert the file to FCP-X.
http://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/7toX/
It should be noted that the conversion of a sequence file to .xml and then .xml to FCP-X may not pass 100% of the information.
There is information about what is and is not translated here:
http://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/7toX/about.html
MtD

Moving one clip from one FCE project into a second FCE project on a second

hi, I would like to take one clip of several from a FCE project, save that one clip and put it into a movie on a second computer. Can I do that? How? thank you joanlvh

Take the clip or clips. Export as a self-contained QuickTime Movie and move it to the other computer.

Help! FCE project files converted to unix executable files

I recently added a USB external drive and put my FCE project files on it. When I rebooted, the files now are unrecognizable by Final Cut Express as project files. In the finder they are now recognized only as unix executable files. Is there any way to reverse this problem. I really can't afford to lose all that work! Thanks

How is the drive formatted? If it's not Mac formatted you may have a problem. It may be recoverable. How many project files are you talking about? What about the media?

Combining FCE Project Files Contents

I started a wedding project on my external hard drive (importing footage via imovie as I can't import direct to FCE, probably due to slippage on the camera - not sure that's relevant though). The pins on the power cable snapped. While waiting for a replacement cable (ages!) I carried on the project on my imac hard drive. My external drive is now back in action, so I would like to now combine what I have on the wedding project on my imac, with what I started on my external drive - and carry on from there as I still have some footage to import and edit.
I think I am ok moving the media clips across (which I have on the imac desk top) to the capture scratch on the external drive. My question is around what to do about the project file on the imac. Can I somehow combine that with the original project file on the external hard drive?
Or am I trying to approach this the wrong way?

Thanks very much for this Ian. I am quite new to FCE, so just to check my understanding - unlike imovie, FCE projects have a media file (containing the movie clips) and a separate project file containing all the references to how the clips have been edited etc?
If I just copy over the timeline of the continued project on my imac over to the original project on the external hard drive, does that mean the clips and the reference info will all be copied over and will automatically then live in the original media and project files respectively?
And even more basic - to copy over, do I just click into the timeline, go Edit, Select All (which will pick up video and audio tracks) and then Edit, Copy - and then paste into the timeline of the original project?
Apologies if this is all rather lame!

Is it possible to open FCE projects in the latest version of FCPX?

Is it possible to open Final Cut Express 4 projects in the latest version of Final Cut Pro X (10.0.4)?
I have 18 projects on my hard drive, and I'm concecrned about their compaitibility in the future. Should I leave them as they are, and I'll be able to import them into Final Cut Pro X, or should I first convert them to Final Cut Pro 7 projects?

You can't open FCE projects in FCPX. If you can open a copy in FCP7 and export an XML file.

Can't open an FCE project in FCP

I got FCE 4.0.1 and have now upgraded to FCP 6.0.1. When I try to open my existing FCE project in FCP, I get a message that says, " File's format is too new for this version of application."
I just bought the FCS, so I assume it's the latest version of the program.
Any ideas?

The latest version of Final Cut Pro is 6.0.5.
Use the software updater to get to that version.
My guess is the 6.0.1 was released before FCE 4.0.1.
"In general, Final Cut Pro can open a Final Cut Express project if it was last modified in a version of Final Cut Express that was released before the version of Final Cut Pro that you are using."
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24708?viewlocale=en_US

FCE project won't open timeline, browser, etc

Hi guys,
Suddenly when I try to open a FCE project, it only plays the finished project. The browser, timeline, canvass, etc are blank like a new project. Theres no way I can do additional editing.
The only project that opens normally is one which was never completed, never exported as a Quicktime movie. Help!
Leesa

Probably, by mistake, you are opening the exported .mov (even if the extension is not visible) in place of the FCE project. When you double click a .mov created by exporting a sequence from FCE, the .mov opens in FCE by default, but it does not have any timeline nor canvas.
If you want to continue editing you must retrieve the FCE Project file (.fcp extension if FCE 3.5) ed open that one.
Piero

Confused on how to start (opening FCE project in Livetype)

Sorry to sound completely clueless, but I watched the wonderful video tutorials at Livetypecentral.com, but there's no mention of exporting and importing. Before I start my Livetype project, do I import my FCE project into LiveType, or vice versa? I want to make sure I do this correctly.

do I import my FCE project into LiveType, or vice
versa?
You will create your Live Type project and save it.
Then you can import it directly into FCE for use in
your final cut express project.
Doug
But I was planning on having the text positioned in different places around cropped images of the movie. If I don't have the FCE movie on while I'm working with Live Type, how will I know exactly where to put the Live Type text?

Too much compression on FCE project

I have a FCE project that is 14.4 min long and 3.81 GB. When I us DVDSP to create the menu and DVD it ends up as a 995 MB DVD. Compared to the original FCE project, it looks really grainy. I upped the encoding as high as it would go, but I can't get it larger than 995 MB. Since it is the only movie on the DVD is there anyway to get DVDSP to not compress at all?

DVD footage is most often compressed to MPEG2, but the bitrate can vary widely up to 9.8Mbps if you use a replicated disc. Additionally, you can also use MPEG1 on a SD disc, which is not as high a quality, but can allow you to fit vastly more minutes of video on the same size disc.
If you are burning a DVD on your mac then anecdotal evidence suggests that a video bitrate of no more than 7.4Mbps is prudent. More than this and the disc may 'choke' in some players.
This isn't necessarily to do with the laser, so much as the reflective properties of the re-writable disc not being as good as a replicated one. All DVD players should be able to cope with 9.8Mbps from a DVD-Video disc (although sadly not all do, surprisingly), but keep in mind that a DVD-R is not a DVD-Video disc.
If your pristine footage is coming out as grainy when you encode then you really ought to check the settings that you are using. Is the source footage and lighting good quality for the footage? Have you applied any filters or effects? Are you using a good quality encoder?
The final size of the file produced will vary according to the encoding used. The higher the bit rate the larger the file size will be. Audio files add to the overall bit rate on a disc, to, so using AC3 (Dolby Digital) is a very good idea - they have a smaller file size, lower bitrate and can allow you to increase the rate for your video to gain quality.
Be aware that the visual difference between footage encoded at around 7.4Mbps, compared to that encoded at 8 or even 9Mbps is so slight that most people won't notice. There appears to be a law of diminishing returns in operation - you really don't gain anything by encoding at much higher levels, but you will prevent some players playing your disc back reliably.
If you've not yet used Compressor then you really ought to be looking at it. If your results are coming from Compressor, then it is about time you looked at BitVice and if necessary used the DVNC setting there to reduce the noise on the final output. There are other encoders, but none so easy to use as Bitvice, IMO.

Importing music to my FCE project

Hello,
I am having trouble importing a song from itunes. I have put the song into itunes for the purpose of importing it into my FCE project. I save the song on itunes, go to FCE and import file, gives me the selection up until the song and it is not highlighted.
Should I be doing this another way?
Todd

Is this a song purchased from the iTunes Music Store?
http://www.fcpbook.com/Audio4.html

How To Archive Encore CS3 projects

Question: How To Archive Encore CS3 projects
I edit my AVI files in Premiere Pro CS3 and then author in Encore CS3. When the project is finished, I want to archive both the Premiere and Encore projects. If I need to restore a project, I would recapure the AVI files from the mini DV tapes using Premiere.
What Encore and Premiere files and folders do I have to save so I can later restore the project?
What files and folders can I erase?
Thank you for the feedback.

Adobe Premiere Pro is very similar to Final Cut Pro (non-X). It has a number of pros, including being bundled with the Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop.
Avid Media Composer is, IMHO the best "story telling" editor, but is a little more difficult and unwieldy when it comes to effects etc. In addition to being pricey, it also require compliance with the use of only AVID approved hardware.
Autodesk has Smoke on the Mac, which is an excellent effects editor, but with a $17K price tag.
My personal plan is to bunker my FCS 3 systems and run them until they drop, while slowly and comfortable migrating to Premiere Pro.
One big advantage to either of these editors (with the exception of Smoke on the Mac) is that they are cross-platform, so if you learn the Mac version you can switch easily to the PC version - which protects your investment of time in learning the softwre as the future for the Mac Pro is also hazy.
MtD

Archiving a FCE project

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