Final Cut Exported File is HUGE!

I made a 5-second video of my brother running around the yard and teleporting him everywhere in FCE 4.0.1. I exported it using AIC defaults. The 5 seconds of video is 87mb! I can't even think about how big it would be if I decide to make a short film... How can I reduce this file size and keep the HD quality of the video?
Thanks in advance,
Adam

Understanding what a codec (COmpessionDECompression) is will help.
It's because the footage on the camera is COmpressed, when ingested to FCE, FCE transcodes to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec, DECompressing) to allow for frame by frame editing. The CO & DEC are short for CODEC.
Think about your camera footage as a vacuum clothing bag with all the air taken out to save space. When the seal is broken it returns to the original size.
When FCE ingests the footage to edit it, it has to open the seal to get at each frame.
Search for GOP and CODEC and you will get the idea.
Al

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I've been working with Adobe products for a long time and typically when you come across an error that has anything to do with a XML file export problem its due to things such as effects you may have added in, color corrections, cross fades or any type of video transitions between clips. Remember your work flow should be
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Claire W wrote: - so is this file not a regular .mov file then? Or are you saying that's the case with all .mov files?
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Are those figures meant to be Megabytes because most of my projects of around 10 minutes are in the region of 5MB which is roughly equivalent to one JPEG photograph.
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Maxplanar, Thanks!!
never thought to just rename to .mov, it's always the simplest thing! i recently learnt about .dmg to .iso in certain cases, i never thought a simple suffix change like this would be the solution, just assumed FCP quicktime files were FC read only!
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The system drive has a lot to do. It is accessing OSX including managing the virtual RAM that OSX always has open, accessing the FCP program as well as any widgets, apps, and a multitude of background process. If I can throw the FCP project on another disk, it relieves the drive one more thing. And since FCP is very drive intensive, anything I can do to help may be useful.
x

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Tom,
Thank you, too, for getting back to me.
Really disappointed in the recovery software that I purchased (File Salvage & Data Rescue II) that it couldn't pull out the Final Cut Express project file. I spent about 200 dollars for them.
Really puzzled that Data Rescue II recovered multiple Final Cut "pieceparts", but instead of Final Cut Express, the software designated them as Final Cut Pro files. You could be right that the recovered "stuff" is previously discarded cache or render files.
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Greetings!
Running a Macbook Pro with Final Cut 7 on it.... our office had it pre loaded with FCE 4 until we got final cut loaded on it. Never used FCE... I happened to be looking for an autosaved version of a final cut pro project I was working on and noticed that all the autosaved files for that FCP project and all of my other FCP projects had been autosaved as Final Cut Express files. It required the registration of FCE 4 in order to open them. I was able to grab one, dupe it and open it in FCP... but what caused that?

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Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

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Can Final Cut Express 4 open Final Cut pro files?
Can Final Cut Pro open Final Cut Express 4 files?
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cheers,
Dean

1. no
2. perhaps
x

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it's 1Gb. How do I export that video into a format that I can upload to YouTube (has to be under 100 megs) without losing all the clarity of the original file?<<</div>
REALITY CHECK: Anytime you compress video the quality will suffer; the higher the compression, the lower the quality within any given codec. You cannot realistically expect to maintain "all the clarity of the original file." Period.
-DH
ps: Welcome to the forum!

Can't open a video file after Final cut export

Very strange issue which getting me nuts.
I've FCP 7 on Lion.
I'm finishing a project and export it as it is on an external hard drive for back up.
I've got a .MOV file.
After that I'm making an other folder and export all the working file from FCP.
End of the story.
Later I want to open the Quic time video file... and then I've got an error message telling me that QT is looking for data of the video file "xyz-FIN-0000000e"
There is only a STOP button.
If I press it I've got a new error message telling me :
The file "xyz-FIN-0000000e" can't be found. Without it the video can't be play correctly"
(I'm translating the message from my french system)
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It was an export and I ask the exporter to make a self movie...
Realy I don't understand what's wrong.
Any cue ?
Thanks !
Jean do

Is this a Final Cut Pro .mov file. If it is it would open with FCP. Are you sure you saved with "self contained" checked. I seem to remember someone with a problem like this.
I think in the future you need to open your exported self contained FCP.mov files with quicktime Player and change the "open with" to quicktime player.
DM

Final Cut Exported File is HUGE!

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