Final Cut Express moving videos off hard drive

So I started capturing some footage on my laptop because I didn't have an external drive available. I finished the project, and now I'm back home with my external drive. My internal drive had 1.5 gigs free now, and I want to move all the footage I captured from FCE onto the external.
I know iMovie has an option to export the project and all the files into a single file. Does FCE have an option like this, or do I need to go through finder to where it saved all the footage and move them like that? How can I do this without losing all the links and having to reconnect my media...
hopefully this all makes sense, I've never really used FCE

Hello Drew,
FCE doesn't have that option. You will have to use the Finder to copy the folders/files to your external drive and yes you will have to Reconnect Media after moving the files.
Be sure your external drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended and is connected via Firewire.
In FCE, close your Project. Then in FCE preferences reset your scratch disk location to the new Final Cut Express Documents folder on your external drive. Then exit FCE.
The default FCE scratch disk location is /Users/yourusername/Final Cut Express Documents. Normally your FCE project file and related material is in this folder. Under it you will find the following folders:
Autosave Vault
Capture Scratch
Render Files
Waveform Cache
Thumbnail Cache
and there may be an Audio Render Files folder too
At this point you should be able to find a Final Cut Express Documents folder on your external drive; it should have automatically been created when you reset your FCE preferences earlier, along with an Autosave Vault and a Capture Scratch folder. Copy the files from your internal drive's Autosave Vault and Capture Scratch folders to the corresponding new folders on your external drive. Don't bother copying the render files or cache files - it will be better to re-render after you move your project. Also, if you have any other source media such as photos or music, copy them to a new folder on your external drive. Keep your FCE project file on your internal hard drive but do make a backup copy of it somewhere.
After copying everything, verify & double check that you have good copies of your clips on your external drive because the next step is to delete the originals of your captured clips that are on your internal drive. Don't delete any folders, just the captured clips themselves ... and all the render files. This is necessary so that when you reopen your FCE project it will be forced to reconnect media and you can point it to the new location on your external drive. Otherwise it will just continue to use the clips that are on your internal drive.
Then reopen your Project File that you left on your internal drive and reconnect media when prompted.

Similar Messages

Using Final Cut Express for video editing without attaching external device

Hello,
I am a newbie to Final Cut Express as well as Mac's in general. I am wanting to use Final Cut Express for video editing of files, but without an attached camera. Is there any way to have Final Cut Express startup without having it prompt for an external A/V device? I just want to do some basic editing and use the chroma key feature. Can anyone help?
Greatly Appreciated,
Knight2000
iMAC Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi Zak,
Unfortunately, I've tried that and I get into an issue that was addressed in this posting: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=836595&tstart=120 where FCE will show the splash screen and then the program doesn't start. I then have to delete FCE preferences and then I will get the Easy Setup dialog box prompt me again for choosing the external device.
I am looking for a way to use FCE for video editing of files that I already have on my computer that I created using iClone software and is in .avi, or .mp4 format. I get FCE to work one time without the external device actually being attached, but then when restarting the program I get the dialog box asking for the external device and if it's not there, the program just closes, and to get it to work again, I have to delete the preference files and go through the process all over again which is time consuming especially when this is at work. If FCE is not the right program, can anyone suggest a good video editing program that doesn't require an external device and is as good or better than FCE?
Thanks again for your help and support,
Knight2000
iMAC Mac OS X (10.4.9)

When using Final Cut Express, the video in the Viewer window looks fine, but when I insert the video into the Canvas Timeline it appears to lose resolution, and look fuzzy and blurry. Are there preferences or settings for the Timeline that cause this?

When using Final Cut Express, the video in the Viewer window looks fine, but when I insert the video into the Canvas Timeline it appears to lose resolution, and look fuzzy and blurry. Are there preferences or settings for the Timeline that cause this?

Thanks David. I had to convert the mts file to Quick Time (using AunSoft Conversion software) before I could import it into Final Cut Express. And I made sure I kept the size of movie (720 X 480 with letterbox) to compliment what I set my Panaconic AVCCAM video recorder at (720/60). Even after I fully render it, it still looks fuzzy in the Canvas window at the right that plays what I have editing down in the Timeline. A friend that edits some using Final Cut Pro helped me to narrow things down to this problem. This is also wierd. If my Viewer window at the left is set to 200% to get the person's head the same size in the Canvas window at the right we needed to put it to 400%. Does this make any sense. We think we need to control the Time line resolution somehow but cannot find any options from my manual, or the help, or in the various drop down menus. Do you have any clue? What is going on?

Final Cut Express-Capturing footage off of mini dv with no timecode

Hello,
For some reason my canon xm1 isn't showing timecode from the mini dv. I've already played footage from the same mini dv off of another mini dv deck and it did show timecode. Now Final Cut Express won't allow me to play clips in because it has no reference. Is there a way around this?

Hello Franco,
Welcome to the forum. There are lots of good people here who can provide advice & help.
What is your exact hardware setup - are you using any external Firewire hard drives? What version of FCE are you using; what Easy Setup are you using in FCE (DV-PAL, for example).
Did it work before or has it never worked with FCE?

Final Cut Express issues: Video and no audio

Ok.. sorry about before. I posted in someone elses message, for that I'm sorry.
My name is Justin Smith. I'm a freelance videographer out in Kansas. I have a brand new Macbook Pro. I'm shooting with a Dvx-100. I took my camera and tried to import video into Final Cut Express. When the short video clip was finished capturing, I tried putting it to the timeline, but only the video was added. So I have video, no audio and a bunch of questions. How do I get my orginal audio from the tape onto the timeline? Also, I have a question about importing audio from say Itunes. I can import the song fine, But when I lay the track down on the timeline, I'm getting a continuous beep noise. I read the FAQ and it told me I have to convert the track to AIFF? How do I do this?

As for importing audio from iTunes, yes, you must convert it to AIFF first. iTunes can do this unless you purchased the songs from the iTunes Music Store. If you did, they are protected AAC files and won't convert. There are ways to do it but since it most likely violates the copyright, no one on this forum can legally tell you how to do it.
If they are not protected, then go to iTunes preferences, select the Advanced icon at the top and click the Importing tab. Select AIFF encoder from the "Import Using" popup menu and make sure the settings are 48khz. Then select the song from the library and choose (from the menu bar) Advanced->Convert Selection To AIFF. A new music file in AIFF format will appear in your library.
Another way is to use Quicktime Pro (the paid version of Quicktime). Open the music file in Quicktime, choose Export and select AIFF, 48Khz, 16bit for the format. Again, this won't work if its an iTunes protected file.

Final Cut Pro X and external hard drive problem

We are having trouble getting Final Cut Pro X to recoginse our external hard drive. It is works fine with i movie. We are very new to all of this and desperate for any help.
We have read a previous discussion that recommended we go to disk utilities and change format (currently saying windows ntfs) but worried if we either do "erase or partition 1 " we will erase everything off the external hard drive???
Thank you

We only have the one hard drive and originally formatted it thinking we would use it on a windows computer. Is it strange that it is recognised on I Movie but not FC? If we change the format to MacOS Extended (journaled) we are worried if we apply this it will erase what we have (as says something about this)? We are non tech people and don't know what we are doing!!!

Final cut isn't recognizing external hard drives

Just bought new version of Final Cut and it will not recognize the external hard drive that I plug into my usb or the extra hard drive that I had installed into my laptop to do video work on for more space. What is the problem here?

WWhat computer? What drives? How are they comnected? How are they formatted?

Saving Final Cut Pro on an external hard drive

Hi i was just wondering how you save a event from final cut pro on a external HD every time i do it it saves on my Macs SSD help.

Alternatively, if you are just creating an event, you can select the hard drive to use from the list at the top left corner of the Event Library.
In the shot below I clicked on the WD 2TB drive before selecting File>New Event, so the event was created on that hard drive.
Selecting where your projects go works in a similar way in the Project Library.

Pleases help. Final cut won't see my Hard Drive Camcorder anymore!

I have a Cannon HG10 that I used to import all the time to final cut. Now it will not see my camcorder. I hooked it up to iMovie '08 and it detects it just fine. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong
Thank you

Caleb,
what have you done to troubleshoot this?
Try closing FCP (Do you have FCP 6.0.2 and you are connecting through USB?) and/or reboot. I unserstand some of this consumer cameras are quite sensitive to the order of steps and connections to follow prior transfer.
G.

Final Cut Express 4 - video converter

I need a video converter software for Flip and GoPro videos. Any idea what to get? Thanks!

All Flip cameras except the Mino and Ultra record video as MP4/H.264. Use MPEG Streamclip to convert the video to Quicktime/Apple Intermediate Codec.
The Flip Mino and Ultra record video as standard def MPEG4/AVI. You should be able to use MPEG Streamclip to convert these videos also. If that doesn't work, then you should use Flip4Mac WMV Player Pro + QuickTime Pro. Since these are standard def 4:3 aspect ratio videos, convert them to QuickTime but you could select either Apple DV/DVCPro NTSC or Apple Intermediate Codec compression as you prefer.
The GoPro Hero cameras record to MP4/H.264. Use MPEG Streamclip to convert the video to Quicktime/Apple Intermediate Codec.
The GoProSD Hero Wide cameras record to AVI-MJPEG. Use MPEG Streamclip.

Final Cut Express problems galore

It's hard to know where to start with regard to problems relating to Final Cut Express. How about this: the 3 simple steps for importing a project into FCE from iMovie, as set forth in the 'getting started' book, result in nothing more than a message telling me that the File is of the wrong type. And that's that. Not much to go on there. Any suggestions? Most of the other problems with 'getting started' - and there are quite a few - have resulted in masses of 'rendering' issues, complete with hundreds of numerals, decimal points, and acronyms which are entirely meaningless to me. Having spent years on iMovie 06 generating lots of highly edited movies, and enjoying every minutes, I gotta say that FCE is somewhat beyond daunting. Is there, perhaps, a book out there that would be useful to the likes of me? Something that begins: 1. Sit down at computer. 2. Turn computer on. 3. Launch Final Cut Express, and so on?

Hello and welcome to the forum.
FCE is a totally different animal compared to iMovie. It does have a steep learning curve, but there are good resources available and good people here to help you learn it. Once you have the basics down, it gets a lot easier. Here's what I'd recommend for learning FCE:
Tom Wolsky's Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop book and Final Cut Express Made Easy training DVD
Izzy Video's Learn Final Cut Express 4 videos (online, free)

Final Cut Express HD (3.5) closes right after opening?

Hi,
I believe years ago I had this same issue and it was as simple as deleting the preferences (??).
Basically, what's happening is I just installed FCE HD (3.5) on my G4. I meet the system requirements to run the application AND Soundtrack Pro and LiveType open and run fine. FCE closes immediately after opening and then I get an error: "The Application Final Cut Express Quit Unexpectedly."
Any ideas?
Thanks!

Yeah, sorry for being so confusing. That's exactely what I did. Since my main HD is 500Gb and my secondary drive is 120Gb, I just copied all the necessary files to the 500, formatted the 120, reinstalled OSX, and booted to it. The intention was to let the FCE software think it was installing on a fresh drive (which, it was).
However, even then it won't let me install FCE. Just LT and Soundtrack. ?? I'm a bit confused because the system requirements for Soundtrack and LT are the same for FCE.
I'm trying to install it on a Dual 1.25ghz G4 Quicksilver with 1.5Gb Ram. ??
The funny thing is I WAS able to install the complete program initially when I got it. I had a previous copy of Final Cut Express (1) on my main drive. I ran the FCE HD installer, and the program installed just fine. However, it kept closing right after it would open. I figured it was a preference conflict between the newer version (3.5) and the old version (1.1). So, I've done my best trying to erase all evidence of FCE ever being on the drive and still get nowhere ??
Thanks!

IMovie vs Final Cut Express and Pinnacle Studio

Before I had the Imac (6 months now) for my video or photos I use Pinnacle Studio 11. Now I want to update the IMac to Leopard with ILife 09. Now I also want to use Final Cut Express for video editing. However since I seen the introduction of IMovie 09 I'm not sure which investment to make.
My question to you: with my experience with Pinnacle will Imovie 09 apply for video editing or should I also get the FCE. And what about my projects done in Pinnacle Studio.
Thanks in advance for all your reactions.
Ron

I migrated from using a PC and Pinnacle Studio 11 to a MacBook Pro and Final Cut Express about 9 months ago. I had no previous experience with a Mac, so it has been a very steep learning curve for me. But I have been studying the bright minds on this forum for awhile and have also been taking advantage of various Final Cut tutorials on the web. I eventually stopped regretting leaving Pinnacle behind and I have come to love Final Cut and the greater creative control it offers. As for iMovie, I found it a little too basic for what I want, but it may be suitable for your needs.
As far as your Pinnacle projects are concerned, finish them up and then immerse yourself in Final Cut. I think you'll be glad you did.

Family Videos on DVD into Final Cut Express and external hard drive?

I have family videos that were transferred from video tape to DVD. I now want to get the DVDs into Final Cut express to make movies.
1. I am using mpeg streamclip -- what format is best to save to disk to work with FC express? DV or QT? Other?
2. Is it faster to use an external drive (firewire) or the main hard drive of my computer? I have an iMac (intel, very first one) as well as a recent macbook pro 2.33 GHz core duo)
3. I have an external fantom drive (1 TB) that I had connected to an airport extreme, and used briefly with user login as a central server. I now want to connect this to my iMac, but with some files I get "error code 0" when I try to copy them over, and others will work. I had hoped to keep all of the dVD files which I anticipate will be large on this drive. Anyone know what this means? I do also have a 500 GB G drive which works perfectly, but I suspect is not as fast.
Thanks to anyone who can help. I am new at this and excited about making the movie, but not about the learning curve -- had been proficient with iMovie until the new version came out.
thanks
Paul

I don't know how new you are to Streamclip but there are 2 DVs and the one you want is got via QuickTime as Tom said.
When you drop your DVD files onto Streamclip and go up to the File Menu you will find "Export to QuickTime" and "Export to DV".
The second one, I believe, is for iMovie but for FCE you click "Export to QuickTime" and in the window that opens you alter the "Compression" setting from "Apple Motion JPEG A" to "Apple DV-PAL" or "Apple DV/DVCPRO-NTSC" as appropriate.
You can usually leave all the other settings alone, click "Make Movie" and wait !

I'm running Final Cut Express 2. How can I move entire project and application from one internal hard drive to another? Ran out of space on one drive. Thanks.

I'm running Final Cut Express 2. My video project is 95% done and I've run out of space on my 500g internal hard drive. How can I (1) move the complete FCE program and video to my unused 250g internal hard drive and operate it from there and (2) how do I then purge all the FCE info from the 500g drive without losing anything from the 250 drive?
Also, is it possible to change the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9 when the project is finished? If so, how? I now know this all should have been done before I started. Thanks for the help.

1. You can't move the application. It must remain on the system drive. Move your capture scratch folder to the external FireWire drive and use the reconnect function in the project.
2. What's the media 16:9 or 4:3?

Final Cut Express moving videos off hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for