Really confused about libraries, events, and projects

Hello,
I'm brand new to editing and I'm having a hard time understanding the difference between libraries, events and projects. If anyone can explain them for me, that'd be great. Thanks

Here some reading material:
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf
Final Cut Pro X 10.1.2: Updating and working with libraries FAQ - Apple Support
http://www.larryjordan.biz/fcp-x-10-1-manage-projects/
http://www.fcpxbook.com/updates/101/
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_x_first_look_10_1_martin.html
And viewing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGogEwnX9yE
Hopefully, the above info will clarify everything about the library/event/project hierarchy. The important thing to keep in mind is you can't work without a library; and that library has to hold at least one event. Your event is a folder that organizes your media according to a wide variety of criteria that you can specify. Your project contains the timeline where you assemble your selects, apply your effects to tell your story and it is stored within the event folder.
You will be happy to hear that those who come to FCP X without much traditional NLE experience (sorry, David) usually pick it up very fast. A guy that I work with didn't even have any iMovie experience and after less than 2 hours of DIY learning, cut a very credible show that aired on a local station.
Good luck.
Russ

Similar Messages

Completely confused by Final Cut x Libraries, Events and Projects???

Hi,
I realise there are lots of different explanations about this topic but still, none of them make sense to me in that, no-one seems to eb able to properly explain the differences between these things and when I follow the guidelines I can never seem to find the video I was working on.
First of all, I have absolutely no idea what 'Libraries' are in Final Cut X
I have used FC7 but forgot everything because X is so different, so I am basically a complete beginner.
When I start a completely new video from scratch I go file>new event> and title it 'whatever footage' for example. I then import all of my footage from that day.
Within that 'Event' I go file>new>project and called it 'whatever' music video, for example.
That way, my 'event' is the whole collection of footage. My 1st project is a music video using that footage and then I have the freedom to create new 'projects' like 'behind the scenes' etc. from said footage.
Yet, whenever Ive done this and come back to FCX I can never ever find my original video timeline with all my editing. Events seem to be a mixture of everything ive ever imported and projects are nowhere to be seen.
Due to the lack of being able to just simply save a project, there doesn't seem to be a concise list of past projects anywhere to choose from?
Can someone please tell me what Im doing wrong or their standard order of workflow? And what the difference between each of the above items are?
Libraries, Events, projects - totally confused!???
many thanks and please pardon my ignorance, just very frustrated by this.
Ash

I can show you an example of a standard workflow.
Lets say I am booked to edit 3 Movies for a client. A Music Clip, an Interview, a behind the scenes clip.
Lets say worst case you get everything in a single folder.
First thing I do is creating a library in FCPX where all the footage (also future generated media, Logos, Photos) will go in.
Now you can create three different events in the browser for each video you are going to edit.
Start ingesting your footage to the different events. (You will see the option in the second window after you’ve selected the clips to import.)
Now you have your library where everything has been imported to but also three events with assigned material.
Selections from the library.
If you want to start with the interview click on the appropriate event, create a project (which will be your timeline) and start editing.
Duplicate your project to keep backups and alternative edits.
Same thing for the Music Clip. Import your Audio, Animations, Graphics to the event. Create projects and save versions.
The next thing you should do is creating keywordcollections in your events to keep your material in order. These are like bins in FCP7
but much more powerful. For example you can add the same clip to several keywordcollections.
The internet should be full of examples by now. I won’t go further.
Now you start with the behind the scenes and at one point you want add Footage from the other events to your behind the scenes event.
Choose the clips you want to use and drag them (holding alt) to your event. You may have created a keywordcollection named footage for behind the scenes e.g. while keywording for the other two videos. This keywordcollection will be imported to the third event.
The clips will not be duplicated on your harddrive since they are in the same library. Events are selections from the library just the same as keywordcollections are selections from an event and a project (the timeline) has selections from keywordcollections.
Its up to you and your “job” how fine you want to organize your material. I would always suggest to create a library for every new job coming in.
Or at least for every new client. For bigger projects you want to create events for each day or even libraries for each day.
There is much, much more to say about libraries e.g. that you can leave your files where there are, letting the library refer to them.
Its a great concept and you are able to manage your material in FCPX like in no other NLE.
Watch tutorials on youtube or buy some from licensed trainers like ripple training for constant quality.
Good luck

If i move my iphoto & iMovie source library / Events and Projects to an external hard disk, due to size, will my existing slideshows work ?

I need to move my photo library and Movies (Events and Projects) to an external hard disk as my 700gb drive on my iMac is now full (*see note below)
I have brought 2 Samsung External drives (3TB each) which I plan to partition each for Photos and Movies i.e 2 partitions on each drive, and will use one for use with iPhoto and iMovie, and the other drive for a dedicated backup. I will backup the remainder of my iMac hardisk to a seperate disk.
What has just occured to me is that after I have moved the libraries I cannot see how existing iMovie projects and iPhoto Slideshows will work, as each Application will be looking for the source files on the original iMac hardisc (I assume).
I am running Snow Leopard v10.6.8 ( I did not want to upgrade to Mountain Lion as I was told the iPhoto and iMovie changes were a 'backward' step. However I now want to upgrade to Mountain Lion, for security updates reasons mainly, and so need to free up my hard drive.
Can anyone advise on the best way to proceed ?
* - the iMac hard disk become full very suddenly, possibly due to duplicates, as I have noticed duplicate events and clips in my iMovies event library. I have noticed that some events are also now not showing, with message 'No video clips match the current selection' (I have not search criteria set).
Thanks

I was planning on manually backing up my external to the time capsule - but is there a way to set it up to back up automatically instead?
Time Machine will backup up automatically - you can not have your iPhoto library on the same volume as the TM backup (it will not work and it would not be a backup)
Dragging the iPhoto library to any external drive will backup it us also
I was also thinking about having the library copied to another external (I mean we're talking about irreplaceable photos here) - would i just drag a copy of the library to that drive as well?
Yes - that is a good idea - I run TM giving me hourly backups and a daily clone of my entire system giving me a bootable backup - plus do an occasional TM backup at our second home so I have one off site
is it possible to deal with my imovie library in the same way? so all my movies and photos are on my external?
Probably - but I use iMovie very little - better question for the iMovie forum
LN

Where best to put Events and Projects with multiple drives...

I just got a new iMac, and I need to know how to maximize its speed with FCPX in terms of hard drives.
My old iMac had two internal drives: a 256 GB flash drive and a 2 TB standard drive. On that iMac, I had the OS and FCPX on the main internal SSD, and my events and projects on the secondary internal drive (the magnetic internal drive).
My new iMac is the latest 27" iMac with an i7 3.5 GHz, 32 GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 video card. It also has USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, and only one internal drive: a 512 GB SSD drive. I am connecting a 6 TB OWC external magnetic drive (with 128 MB cache) to my new iMac via a LaCie Thunderbolt to eSATA adapter (the drive and adapter are a combination that OWC sells, has tested, and recommends). I plan to use Disk Utility to make this 6 TB external drive (which is 3 TB + 3 TB hard drives in one enclosure) raid 0 for fastest speeds.
With this new setup, my initial thought is to put both my FCPX events and projects on this 6 TB external drive. But is that the best option? Would it be better to get another high speed external Thunderbolt drive and put the events on one drive and the projects on another? I have a feeling that putting them on one drive is the way to go, and that there would not be much, if anything, to gain by putting the events and projects on separate drives. But I'd really appreciate any advice.
Thanks!

Hi Russ--
Only in the past year I have implemented a backup strategy. I've never had an internal hard drive fail. Until recently, I had never had any drive failure. Then I bought some desktop external drives from Seagate and paid quite a bit more for Seagate's FW800 adapters for them (my last iMac only had FW800 and USB 2.0). The drives kept getting corrupted, so I was copying terabytes of data back and forth to restore the affected data. Turns out it was the FW800 adapters all along. Seagate was aware of the problem, and had a firmware upgrade, but has done absolutely nothing to publicize the fact. I'll never buy their stuff again.
But I'm still using Carbon Copy Cloner (great software, great support), and now that I switched back to the original USB 3.0 interfaces, the Seagate drives are reliable. So I will continue to use CCC and those drives as my back-up strategy. I was playing with fire for decades by not doing any backups. It's ironic that I only started having problems when I started to back things up!
The speed of the 512 GB internal drive on this new iMac is insane (the external drive arrives tomorrow, so I don't know about it yet). The internal SSD drive clocks in at 697 write and 723 read (compared to 179 and 207 on my old iMac's internal SSD drive). I am anxious to see what the external drive clocks in at tomorrow.

My external hard drive holding half my iMovie events and projects has crashed: how do I restore the events from another source?

My external hard drive holding half my iMovie events and projects has become corrupted. I have now downloaded all the same files (from a backup in the cloud) to another hard drive - but iMovie is not "seeing" those events or movies in that external hard drive. Q1 Is there a way of rectifying that? (I.e. telling iMovie to point to the relevant folders or files on the new external hard drive)
Q2 I have a TimeMachine backup of the corrupted drive in another drive which i keep elsewhere. Is it worth me attempting to restore from that backup? And if so where can I restore to (as the original external drive is corrupted) and how do i go about that restore process so that the events and projects re-appear?
thanks in advance for your help. (I thought i would check re Q2 before embarking on the wrong method!)

When I right click on an image, then went to Go to Folder in Library, it pulls up the new external hard drive where I made the new link. When I try to work on the photos, the image still says file image is offline or missing. When I right click on the image to Show in Finder, it says the image could not be used because the original file could not be found. I eventually did click on their locate and found the image. When I linked those two together, a few minutes later ALL the "?" went missing and now IT WORKS!!!!
That was weird!
Hope this helps someone else in my predicament.

Events and Projects freeze in the browser window

Hardware: Mac OS X Version 10.6.8
2.53 Processor 4GB Ram
Re: IMovie 09 Version 8.06 (821)
I recently copied my entire I Movie library to my external 1T harddrive and have 250 GB of free space left on my MacHD. Once I completed the copy, I erased my library from my hard drive. Everything worked fine until...
The images suddenly froze in the edit broswer/window...across all of my events and projects. The audio works fine but all I get is still images. I tried:
Updating to Version 9.02 & 9.04 ( it won't let me )
Rebooting
Splitting Frames
Using exisiting events to create new projects
Also tried some other ideas but nothing has worked. Shortly beofre this happened, I noticed the audio in many clips started to come through despite using the ducking feature. I figured out how to fix that ( which took many hours of trial and error ). If anyone can give me some pointers to fix this somehow, I'd appreciate it...GREATLY.
Thanks!

A good place to ask questions and advice about web development is at the MozillaZine Web Development/Standards Evangelism forum.
The helpers at that forum are more knowledgeable about web development issues.
You need to register at the MozillaZine forum site in order to post at that forum.
See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=25

FCP 10.1.1 messed up my Events and Projects...

I just updated FCP all the way from 10.0.7 to 10.1.1, but I ran into some major issue that's messing with my workflow. When I launched the new FCP 10.1.1, it asked me if I want to upgrade my Events and Projects folders into a single Library, I clicked Upgrade and it got that done. Then I was asked whether I want to preserve the old Events and Projects, fortunately, I chose to preserve it, and it moved the two folders into a new one now called 'Old Macintosh HD (something etc.). Later when I was trying to use the new version of FCP, something went horribly wrong, and it crashed. I tried relaunching FCP again, this time however, instead of loading the new Library it just created in my Movies folder, it created a new Library in the same folder named Untitled.
So I tried dragging and dropping the older library that contained all my Events and Projects onto the FCP icon on they dock, and it immediately crashed. I then try deleting the 'Untitled' library in my Movies folder to see if FCP would recognise that older Library it created before. No luck it just created another Untitlted library and ignored my old library, tried dragging and dropping the old library, crashed again.
Fortunately I chose to preserve the old folder, and even if I didn't I still have Time Machine to restore them. So now I'm going to try to re-import all my Events from the 'Original Media' folder inside of each individual Event, and redo all the copying and transcoding, etc. That is not a big deal, the big problem is, however, the Projects. I can't figure out how to put my Projects back in place now that the Library is closed off an inaccessible (to the best of my current knowledge). And even if I can get those Projects inside the Library, I still have to relink it back to the media which I am now importing in as new events and thus making it very difficult for FCP to see that they are actually suppose to be connected.
It would be IMMENSELY helpful if anyone can help me with this I still have a pretty big project to finish and I need to finish it preferably in the next week or so since I won't have access to my iMac and editing on my 5+ year old MBP wouldn't be feasible as it doesn't have enough extra storage to hold my 40+GB of clips.

First, take a look at these free videos about the FCP X new library model.
From your description - moving folders around and renaming them - it's not clear what your situation is currently.
I think it would be useful if you would post a screen shot of your Finder window that includes the first library that FCP created when you updated.
You can navigate to that library in the application by choosing File>Open Library>Other>Locate. When you do what happens?
Russ

FCPX Quit Unexpectedly and upon restarting all my events and projects have been wiped, what can I do to get my current project back?

I'm using Final Cut Pro X on my Mac, it often quits unexpectedly but i just restart it and all my projects etc havn't been altered.
Now it did the same again when i was working on a project that was less than 2mins long and a small file and FCPX quit unexpectedly. I restarted it as usual to find not only had my current project been wiped but the events as well.
When trying to import the clips again to an event, i named it the same as the original and got "this event name is already in use" even though there are no events open. Also when i attempted to reopen my current project from Finder it stated "this project can't be opened".
I'm quite upset to have lost the video i'd spent hours working on and would really like to recover it, is there anything I can do?

That's really good news.
Now, I'm sure, you understand the importance of backing up your media, events and projects on at least one other hard drive.
Andy

Should I keep Events and Projects after Exporting my edits?

When I finish editing a video I export it, usually at Large 960x540, or sometimes HD, (even though my camera doesn't do HD) to my hard drive. I make a fair few movies, and often need to burn them to disc/dvd, which I can then do by going back into iMovie and simply exporting to DVD.
The problem now is that my iMovie events and Projects are taking up so much space, so my question is - does burning an exported file to DVD result in a lower quality outcome than burning a project directly to DVD? I'm basically assessing the feasibility of deleting all of the stuff out of iMovie and just keeping my final exports?
Thanks, Dan

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. however, it seems that your events are taking up too much HD space. External HDs are cheap these days and you could sill save the raw footage on an external HD, There are various ways to migrate it there so that iMovie still recognizes the sources of the project, even when the sources (event clips) are stored on an external HD.
I would NOT have/use a DVD as my permanent record of a movie, DVD is just too degraded. HOwever if you really want to rid yourself of the events and open up space, you could export your movie (as you have done) into a Quicktime movie. I have found those look as good (almost or just as good) as the imovie project pre-export. THAT file you could STORE anywhere, on your HD, on a flash memory , or burn on a DVD (as a storage medium, not converted to a DVD) and you will then have a good to excellent version of your movies.
The projects take up little space, they are just information of where to find the events music etc, it is the Events that take up space. SO I would buy an external large HD and move them there, or if not, I would make sure before i trash the events that I have a good looking exported AT version of my movies (share large or HD as you mentioned).
roger

Transfer events and projects between computers

How do I transfer iMovie '08 events and projects from one iMac to another iMac? I need to free up some disk space on the first iMac, and the second iMac has iMovie '09. I am using Time Capsule as a backup for both computers.

Thanks -- I will try that shortly. A wrinkle that I neglected to mention is that the library on the MacBook Air has photos previous to the India trip that will be duplicates of some on the other computers' libraries (and in some cases they're early versions of photos that have been edited on the desktops). Is there a way to transfer less than the full library? Thanks.

Why events and projects

hi all
why change the notion of projects and edits. Events and Projects makes no sense. you dont edit an event. What is wrong with starting a project and having edits within that. ive been a long term fcp editor, and even love the new timeline in X but the front end, its terrible. i just want to make some bins put some clips in them organise it myself. the auto organise thing is handy but should not be the main way of doing things.
Events doesnt even make sense in iPhoto so why adopt it in a 'PRO' editing program

No harm to the projects in trashing render files. Drag the render folder for a specific project to the trash. (However, I'd be surprised if this were the cause of your crashes.) Maybe do it for one and then hide all the other projects. See whether it still crashes.
You can have a dual boot system (I run one) with FCPX on each. I've found, however, that the App Store sometimes gets confused if both are mounted at the same time – so it's possible it may balk at downloading if it sees the other. As I recall (it was a while ago) I installed by using a copy of the app.
FWIW, I find that FCPX runs faster and is more stable on 10.8 than on 10.6.
Returning to your crash problem: Hide your projects in a temp folder. Open FCP and create a new event and import some media. Create a new project. Hopefully that will open OK.
Then close FCP and move one of the hidden projects to the main FC Project folder. Open FCP and see whether it functions OK. Keep repeating, as we're looking to identify a corrupt project.
Russ

Events and Projects not opening after Restoring from broken Hard drive.

Hi all!
I have a major problem. After almost 3 months editing 6 projects within the same library the hard drive died. These projects are for a very important client and are worth a lot of time and money. We always backup all the raw material on 3 hard drives so we do have all the raw material, however FCPX for some reason had stopped making backups of the projects after it was updated to 10.1.2. (The loss of these projects could mean the downfall of my production company.) We had a professional data recovery company recover all the data to a new hard drive without any problem, we can see the libraries and open them, HOWEVER the events and projects within the libraries DO NOT OPEN OR SHOW UP.
I have entered into the library in the finder and everything seems to be there, all the events files show up. But FCPX wont recognize them.
Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks, Tom
You can see here that everything is inside the library folder.
But they don't show up in FCPX.
P.S
Also this file is showing up only after the data was restored.

The journal files are something that've been generated by the data recovery. It's completely hosed the data base.
I don't know if this will work. Try carefully removing all the journal files. Put them somewhere else in folders with the location where they came from. Also move out the currentversion.flexolibrary file. Hopefully without the flexolibrary file the application will generate a new one. Then launch the application.
WHy did you continue to operate when there were no backups, without even a hard drive backup?
Wwhat version of the software are you using? 10.1.2?

Final Cut Pro Trial Event and Project Folders

I've just started my Final Cut Pro X TRIAL for 30 days on my Mac OS X version 10.9.4. I've used Final Cut Pro in a class before, and normally, I save all of my events and projects on an external drive to save space on my computer's hard drive. BUT THERE ARE NO EVENT AND PROJECT FOLDERS under my 'movies' folder in the finder window. Not only do I want to finish up a few projects I've already started elsewhere with saved projects and events, I'd like to be able to save projects and events externally so I can work with them anywhere. I started a first project and event to see if the event and project files would be created in my "Movies" folder, but the only folders created (which was in movies) were "Final Cut Optimized Media" and "Final Cut Original Media". How can I create "Final Cut Events" and "Final Cut Projects" folders in my movie folder, so that when I drag events and projects into these folders, they'll show up in Final Cut? Is this just for the Trial?? Please help...

Hi Tom,
Thanks for your help. I've been trying to update my events and projects into the new libray system, but I'm failing. Maybe you can help. I've tried several ways, but mainly when I got to choose the old event and project files to be updated (either be going to File - -update libraries and events - -locate... or by File--open library--other..--locate...when I highlight my old event and project files (which are on an external harddrive), it either says 'Final cut can't find any events or projects to update' (in the case of updating) or (int eh case of opening) it just keeps making me choose a folder inside the project (with all the different kinds of media and changed files)...argh. Does that make sense? Any help? Thank you.

I'm horribly confused about student licensing and commercial use

As the title says I'm horribly confused about student licensing and using it for commercial use.
I currently have a Student Licensing version of Adobe Creative Suite 4 that I purchased through my school's journeyEd portal.
Seeing how CS5 is now out I was browsing looking at prices (why not upgrade while I'm still a student, right?) and while browsing I bumped into one source that says that Student Licensing can not be used for commercial purposes, and this is when the confusion started. I remember reading before that we are able to use student licensing for commercial purposes, okay time to google search. I found one Adobe FAQ that says I can. .
http://www.adobe.com/education/students/studentteacheredition/faq.html
" Can I use my Adobe Student and Teacher Edition software for commercial use?
Yes. You may purchase a Student and Teacher Edition for personal as well as commercial use. "
and I found this old thread;
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/314304
Where an poster listed as an employee of Adobe states
"There is no upgrade from the CS3 Educational Edition to the comparable CS3 editions sold in non-academic environments. If you have an educational version of for CS3 obtained legitimately (i.e., you qualified for the educational version when you obtained it), you may continue to use that software for the indefinite future, even for commercial use! You cannot sell or otherwise transfer that license, though! When the next version of the Creative Suite is released, you will have two choices: (1) If you still qualify for the educational version, you can buy a copy of that next version (there is no special upgrade pricing from one educational version to another; the price is already very low) or (2) you can upgrade from the educational version of CS3 to the full version of the next version of the Creative Suite as an upgrade from CS3 at the prices published at that time. "
Okay cool, hmm what this? Adobe is asking me if I want to IM with live costumer service agent, sure why not? Then the conversation started and I asked her my question about using my CS4 license for commercial use, she asks for my product code and email to verify my product, then informs me I can purchase the upgrade version of CS5 and use that for commercial, okay great, but not really answering my question. I reword it and give her a link to that FAQ page it goes like this. ..
"[CS Rep] : [My name], I would like to inform you that Adobe Student and Teacher Editions are not allowed for
commercial use.
[CS Rep] : However, you can upgrade your current software to a normal upgrade version, and you can continue
using it for commercial purpose.
[Me] : Then is the FAQ page mistaken? Because it is very misleading if it is. But thank you for the information.
[CS Rep] : You are welcome.
[CS Rep] : I apologize for the misleading information in the FAQ."
. .And after that, I went back to being confused.
SO my questions are. . . Can I or can't I use my Adobe Creative Suite 4 student licensing for commercial purposes? and If I purchase a Student Licensing of CS5 can I use that for commercial purposes as well?
Sorry for the long post, I just want to be perfectly clear on what I can and can not do with my purchase.

The rules differ in various parts of the world. In North America you can use it for commercial work.
There are no student/academic upgrades. The pricing is so low that in many cases you're better off buying another full student license but you are eligible for upgrade pricing for commercial versions once you're out of school.
You may not transfer the student license in any way.
Bob

I open FCPX, see Events and Projects, then they disappear

Here's what's going on:
1. Was using macbook to edit, via an external drive (with events and projects folders on root level)
2. Tried using Imac to edit, so I closed everything out, Unmounted drive and mounted it on iMac before opening Final Cut.
3. Opened FXP X and found that one of the elements was simply not in any of the projects that used it. It is possible, I suppose, that During the creation of these elements I was using a clip stored not in the elements folder, so it was lost track of, but there's no red frames saying I've got detached Video.
4. Tried opening the backup I'd made of events and project folders on my second external drive (events and projects folders also on root level.
5. At first when FCP X opens, I see the projects and events that I want to see, including the missing event appearing in the project list thumbnail sorta timelines in the project browser, but within seconds, projects and events diappear, leaving FCP looking like there are no projects or events. Clean Slate.
6. I notice that the events and projects browsers at first show events and projects as being contained in the external drive. When all disappears, it seems to be because the external drive is no longer recognized or superseded by the Macintosh HD, which becomes the only HD shown in either browswer.
Not sure if the 1st issue (disappearing element) and the 2nd (disappearing events and projects before my eyes) are related.
But at a loss.
Thoughts?

Projects and events can disappear if they are exact copies, clones of other projects and events on other drives.

Really confused about libraries, events, and projects

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