Location of Render Files

Hi All, I'm using FCE 4.
In preferences, render files should be stored on an external drive.... but tonight I noticed I have a recent render file on my internal HD... as well as a recent render file on my external drive. Which is the real one? Also, periodically, I've <saved as> the file with a progressive version number. I've noticed that I have render file project folders named Project 1, Project 2 and so forth. Can I delete the earlier Project version render folders? Thanks!

Render files can be freely deleted because FCE will generate render files as needed. The only cost is that it may take a little time to re-generate them.

Similar Messages

Quick Question: Setting Render File Location

Hi all,
Quick question. I'm guessing with all the disappointment, the answer will be no, but I fully realize that I could have overlooked something so its worth asking!
In FCP7 (familiar phrase huh?) you could explicitly set a location for render files. I understand that you can save FCPX Events on different drives, as well as your projects, however it appears as if the Render Files are getting saved with a folder which also contains your .fcp project file.
I ask because I like having my project file on my internal so my Time Machine will pick it up when I have it hooked up, but all of those render files take up loads of space and I'd like that on my external media drive instead.
Is there:
a.) A way to tell FCPX to store Render Files in a different location
OR
b.) A way to move the Render Files to a different location without screwing up FCPX's ability to recognize the project and load it properly.
If so, great! If not, I'll send it along as a suggestion among with some others. Other than those overlooked technical aspects, I'm kind of digging the UI of FCPX and background rendering is saving me so much time its not even funny.

Hi Jorgen
I spent a bit of time on this today without any success.
In our studio, it's only me that edits... but I use a laptop and a macpro when things get serious. I have a RAID array tyed to the Macpro, and I access it with my laptop via gigabit ethernet.
I created aliases, and when I opened FCPX, nothing appeared. I also was not able to change the name of events I created, and while it would write the project name and events to the new aliased directories... when I reopened FCPX the events and projects were missing.
I then tried symbolic links via the terminal. No luck. I then checked ownership permissions, and made sure the permissions were ignored for the drive and everything was world readable and writable. No luck.
Have you had a chance to experiment with this yet?
Thanks

My Final Cut Pro render files seem to end up in seemingly random locations.

I find my Final Cut Pro render files seem to end up in seemingly random locations on the HDD. for example, they will appear in a sub-folder of an unrelated project. I would like my render files destination to be in a sub-folder for the project I am working on. How do you tell Final Cut where to put the render files? Can't figure it out.

By default they are put inside your scratch folder, so if you change the scratch disk and forget to change it when you switch to a different project, your render files will be put inside the other project's scratch folder.
You can change this by going to Final Cut Pro > System Settings. If you click the Set button below your current scratch disk (not the one next to it) you can assign a second location just for the video / audio renders if you desire (this must be on a different disk though).

Why can't FC save the folder locations set for render files?

I wrongly assumed that when you go to system settings to select the scratch disks (root folder where all the audio and video render folders and files go, capture files, etc.) that Final Cut would save the folder locations within the FC project you are working in. Makes total sense, but for reasons I don't understand, FC does NOT save these folder locations and the result is that I have render files scattered all over the place on my hard drive and it is quite a mess! Fortunately, the project file remembers where it put the render files, so as long as you don't remove or rename any project folders, everything shows up rendered on the time line as it should. The problem is, if I'm working on several projects at once, I have to reset the scratch disks every time I reopen a project, otherwise the program will save it to the last scratch location selected and put all of the render files in another project's folder. I often forget to reset the scratch disks when I'm busy and now I have render files mixed up in various project folders.
Why can't you just set the scratch disks one time when you first set up the project and have the project always remember that location, instead of always having to reset them every time you reopen a project. I love Final Cut, but this is a product defect that should be addressed and corrected. If the project file can remember where it is putting all the render files, it should also be capable of remembering the scratch disk locations you originally selected when you first set up the project or better yet, save it to the project's root folder by default. Am I missing something here?

As MtD describes, FCP sets file locations for ALL projects at the system level. It may help to organize things this way so your files don't end up scattered across multiple locations.
Save the project files to your User folder on the boot drive.
For all the other files FCP creates, set them on a non-boot drive similar to this:
Media Drive
----->FCP Documents
---------->Autosave Vault
---------------->Acme Widgets Demo (sample project name)
---------------->Grass Valley Music Video (sample project name)
---------------->Jen's Wedding (sample project name)
---------->Audio Render Files
---------------->Acme Widgets Demo (sample project name)
---------------->Grass Valley Music Video (sample project name)
---------------->Jen's Wedding (sample project name)
---------->Capture Scratch
---------------->Acme Widgets Demo (sample project name)
---------------->Grass Valley Music Video (sample project name)
---------------->Jen's Wedding (sample project name)
----------->Render Files
---------------->Acme Widgets Demo (sample project name)
---------------->Grass Valley Music Video (sample project name)
---------------->Jen's Wedding (sample project name)
----------->Waveform Cache
Of course, you can choose to keep renders or the Autosave Vault folder on other drives ... just keep them off your boot drive. It may not be the way you're use to working, but it's worked well for me the past 14 years. When you finish with a project and ready to delete the associate files, just go to your media drive and delete folders bearing the project's name.
-DH

HELP Set render files location

Hi Guys,
I'm new here, I'm a former FCP editor and I'm now on Pr 5.5. (and will be moving to CC soon) I have a question about setting up where my render files go as of right now they are save to my laptops hard drive and are eating up a lot of space (like they do) and I would like to set it up so that they save to my external hard drive with all my other media files. I have look around online and I can't seem to find a real answer so please forgive me if this a stander noob question that you have all heard a hounded times before.
Thanks

That is what I saw online but my 5.5 Preferences has 2 options "Media Cache Files" and "Media Cache Database" and they are both going to my external drive and when I render it still goes to my Laptops drive.

How can I omit FCPX Render Files from a Time Machine backup?

I want to be able to add my Final Cut Projects and Events folders to Time Machine, but annoyingly Apple have decided to put a Render Files folder within each and every Events folder.
Is there a way of moving the folders to a different location on the hard drive, such as a Caches folder? Or is there some way of telling Time Machine to ignore folders containing the words "Render Files" (using some kind of script perhaps)?

Backups For FCP works like Pro Versioner, only backs up project files, not the media.
CCC will work over networks. I have it running on enterprise systems for my consulting clients. It is a fully professional level backup solution. TimeMachine is a hobbiest, end user app, and doesn't have the control and flexiblity as CCC.
TimeMachine backsup ever few minutes, when things change, and eats up processor resources constantly. CCC can be scheduled. So many advantages of CCC over TimeMachine. One is professional, one is hobbiest, that is basically it.

Render files missing-after duplication and also after moving

I have to replace a drive, which is still working well, so i went ahead and tried to move libraries with all its content (Events,projects,reneder files), which doesnt exist as an option... as far as i was able to figure this out....
then i went ahead to move events, where as one in 5 was movable the others would only have copy as an option.
which strikes me as oddity already...
after this was done i compared the content of libraries between the 2 drives, and was in shock.
the render files were all missing, needless to state here, that i wil NOT re-render weeks of work again...LOL
so i went and googled this, and came to thousands of answers on how to move or copy events to a different location , but always on the same HD.
there was absolutely nothing about moving Libraries with the Events and Projects and render Files all together explained ,.... ANYWHERE!
is there anyone out there who knows how to do this, so the render files actually move over to a new HD and ,...of course,...are reconnected there propperly and usable?
manually moving these render folders will NOT reconnect them to the projects,.... just as a FYI ...
why is there no instructions in the FCPX help menu on moving " Everything "..??
but thousands of article on how to move only parts and pieces .....

using disk utility to do a clone of the old drive to a brandnew drive... would this have done the trick?
you know the restore to destination trick....
or would have these renderd files still not connect since the drive might have a unique manufacturer id number...
yes ...the new drive would have been called the very same as the old drive...
the old drive has a clicking noice so seagate replaced it...
and i am in a challenge to move all stuff over now...to the new drive...

Delete project and render files etc

Is it possible to delete a project and all render files related to the specific project?

Sure. Delete the project from the hard drive. Delete the render files from whatever location they are set to in system settings. You'll probably also want to delete the media from your capture scratch if you're finished with it.

Missing Render Files / Problem Exporting Quicktime Movie

Everything was going great on my 21 minute project.
I had exported it to iDVD via a Quicktime movie and it looked great in widescreen format. It worked perfectly.
Now, for whatever reason, when I load my project, I get a message saying the Render Files are missing. I am unable to locate them anywhere. I had them stored along with my project on an external firewire 400 drive.
So I press "continue" without finding the missing files.
Now when I export my movie, it appears 4:3 with gray vertical bars on the side!
When I view the project on the canvas, it looks perfect as 16:9. Everything looks normal in FCE.
Did a render file get corrupted or something? Is there a way to delete all the "old" render files and tell Final Cut Express to re-render my entire new project? Would that solve my problem?
Any help is greatly appreciated!

I did what you said and the "exported" file says:
Kind: Final Cut Express Movie File
Under More Info it says:
720x480 Integer (Little Indian) Timecode
Total Bit Rate: 30,313
Why am I trying to export?
Before I ran into trouble, I would export my FCE project using the Export Quicktime Movie command.
I then used iDVD (set to 16:9) to burn to DVD.
It worked perfectly before.
But now, all of a sudden, the same project always shows up at 4:3, whether played in Quicktime or when burned to DVD using iDVD set to 16:9.
The version of FCE is 4.0 and the version of Quicktime is 7.4.5
Thank you again for trying to help me!

Render files missing? - need help

I was organizing my files and folders, and I must of moved something that had some render files in it. When I start up FCP, I get the "offline files" message that says all my render files went offline.
It says I have 1 media file offline and 228 render files offline. Th puzzling part is if I just continue, the video plays just fine - no rendering needed, no rendering bar. But I can't export using compressor because it says it can't find any render files.
So when I hit "reconnect", it takes me to the menu to reconnect the media. When I search, it finds nothing.
When I look at my media hard drive, I see my projects and see render folders. So there are render folders there. The only thing I can think of what happened is I had duplicate render folders, and when I cleaned up and organized, I must of deleted the duplicate and erased the trash.
I would think when you render, it would create the render files into the appropriate folder. So I guess the solution would be to re-render the whole video, which is fine since I have the time. Would that the best solution?
And if so, what is the best way to accomplish this?
Sidebar: In my media hard drive, I have a folder that says 'render files' and each video project I'm working on has a folder within. Is that the best method for storage? Or is it best to have each project as a folder, with it's own render files folder within the video project folder?

From the menu bar: Final Cut Pro > System Settings > Scratch Disks.
The second entry will tell you where FCP expects your Render folder to be.
If you have moved the folder with the Finder to another location, the path to it is broken, as far as FCP is concerned.
Either, move the folder to the location that Final Cut Pro expects, change the location in the Scratch Disks window to where the folder currently resides or delete the individual subfolders and render again.

Render files end up inside Final Cut Express package

With all of the discussion here about rendering, I thought I'd let folks know that that 'ol bug that plagued Final Cut Pro for so long (and perhaps still does) is present in Final Cut Express 4.0.1 too: render files sometimes end up inside the package for Final Cut Express. I know this because I just experienced it while running FCE 4.0.1.
With Final Cut Express not running, control-click or right-click on the Final Cut Express application file, then choose "Show Package Contents". After that, open the folder, "Contents", then the folder, "MacOS", and inside, you may see a folder for video render files, one for audio render files, or both.
Assuming that you don't want to render to that location, then with FCE still quit, move any render folders (that you found inside of the package) elsewhere; and delete the four preference files for FCE, according to the instructions given in Tom Wolsky's on-line guide:
http://www.fcpbook.com/Misc1.html
Then start-up Final Cut Express and open System Settings. Once there, choose your scratch location(s): usually /Users/<username>/Documents/Final Cut Express Documents, if you are rendering to your boot drive. (If rendering elsewhere, simply specify a folder at that location.)
Next, move the render files from the package (that are now residing elsewhere) into the respective folders inside /Users/<username>/Documents/Final Cut Express Documents, if in fact you find their respective folders there and wish to use that as a scratch location. If not, or if you have specified a location on another drive, of if you want maximum integrity of your render files, then simply open your project file and re-render everything. But you might want to stop that process just a few seconds after starting it, then check inside your scratch folders to make sure that new render files are now being stored there. After verifying that, you can go back to your project file and resume re-rendering.
This issue may answer the question, "where are my render files". By the way, if you do a "Get Info" on the Final Cut Express application file and "Get Info" reports that that file is huge (say, several gigabytes in size), then it is likely that your render files are being stored inside.
Please excuse this post if the subject matter has already been discussed in this forum.

Eidschun, thank you for this thread. It doesn't matter how often it occurs, this information works on many levels and was a pleasure to read.

Deleting Render Files

I think I'm an idiot. In the interest of clearing out about 15GB of hard drive space on my macbook, I deleted the render files thinking I don't need them (maybe in fact I don't and they can be recreated - let's hope so!)
I've created a video presentation with voice overs and now I have to make some edits to this presentation. So, when I opened up my FCP file and then reconnected the media (I also moved the location of the media folder so I had to reconnect images, video, music, etc.), I was unable to load up the voice overs
The voice over film strips are all in place in the timeline, but I can't seem to load up the voice over audio files... Does this mean I have to recreate the voice overs all over again or are they located in some place I may have not looked, etc?
I pray the answer isn't one that turns south... I think I could cry, all for what? clearing out 15GB of hd space! **** OCD and trying to be neat/organized.

Recordings made with the voiceover tool are not render files. The files would have been recorded to the folder containing your media for the project, unless you specified somewhere else. Do a search in the finder for the file name you're missing.

Configuring Render Files

How do I set up Final Cut to save all of my Render Files to my external hard drives? I have my capture scratch set to save to both of them, but when I render anything the render files are still saved to my Mac hard drive. I'm trying to finish a large project that requires a lot of rendering, but I keep getting an error message that I have insufficient space to complete the final render of my timeline. I have 3 TB's on each of these externals, I just need to know how to map Final Cut to save my render files in both those locations. Any help or suggestions are greatly apprecited.
Thanks!'
Nicole

Go to the menu Final Cut Pro > System Settings and in the Scratch Disk Pane, set the targets for the Capture Scratch and Render files to the drives you want. Then click OK at the bottom of the window.
In the example below, render files are being target to drive "Rendy" and the Capture Scratch files to "Array 1".
If you have set your disks correctly, and are still not getting the expected results, the next step would be to trash your preferences.
MtD

Render files disapearing

Lately I have been having issues with quicktime exporting. When I need to export I go to "export using quicktime conversion" (in this case) or occasionally I just use "quicktime movie". In the past I was able to export this way and then take the files into media cleaner 6 and batch compress them into windows media. Recently, if I attempt to batch compress, I get a message stating that following:
"The movie file "sequence 1-FIN-00000003" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly."
For the past few weeks, if I export one file and go directly into media cleaner, the one file will process fine it was only when I tried to export multiple files, only the last export would compress properly.
Today, I am trying to export "using quicktime conversion" and I am getting that message on the file BEFORE the export. It refuse to export the movie because it cannot find this file. I don't know why this started happening, I can't figure out any settings I have changed or conflicts that may be arising.
I tried throwing the prefs away and that hasn't helped.
I am working on a G5 with dual 2 gig drives, using FCP4.5.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Maria Fowler
Machine Model:     Power Mac G5
CPU Type:     PowerPC 970 (2.2)
Number Of CPUs:     2
CPU Speed:     2 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU):     512 KB
Memory:     2 GB
Bus Speed:     1 GHz
Boot ROM Version:     5.1.4f0

What is happening is the program is looking for render files that seem to have disappeared/ become unlinked. This can be the result of corrupted FCP preferences or moved scratch locations.
* Download and run FCP Rescue. Just Delete (trash) your preferences for now.
* Verify the location of your scratch disk and if necessary change the it to the apporpriate drive. Once set, don't change the location.
* Delete all your render files using the Render Manager. Don't worry, any that are needed will be regenerated.
Good luck.
x

Reconnect media and render files

Hi!
I need advice. On my G4 and four different external LaCie hard disks I have five different Final Cut Pro 4.5 projects running, i e they are finished but I would like to keep them a bit more before I throw them in the bin. OS is 10.3.9.
I thought I had control but I hadn’t. When I look around I notice that my projetcs’ different folders have been created in other places than I thought. Furthermore in some of the folders (Render folders and others) there are more than one project’s files.
I haven’t dared to do anything about it but I want clean up during this summer and so I wonder: Would it be possible to move all the render files, the captured files etc so everything is in neat order, and then open the projects in FCP and reconnect all the media files that I have moved?
I’d be happy for your views on this matter, Björn Obenius, Sweden

Yes it's quite easy.
First you need to set up your scratch disks in FCP preferences. Where did you want to save all you renders, audio, media files, and even back up project files.
This will automatically create new folder to that location.
Next, transfer the media files to the those new folders created by FCP. The folder name Capture scratch/(projectname)/.
For the render files, you can either delete them and start fresh or transfer those to the new folder created by FCP called Render Files/(project name)/
You can condense all of these. When you go back to FCP it will ask you where the files are and you can reconnect them there.

Location of Render Files

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