Final Cut Pro Help

wuslogic · Post by **wuslogic** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:26 pm

I'm currently working with an independent movie company as a consultant for their Final Cut Pro software. Well, there is a problem.

The editor has finished editing the movie and is trying to export it into a workable .avi or .mov file to be transported into an image file for DVD creation. The problem is that he just bought his computer on eBay (at least, that's one of the problems) and only has about 15 GB free on his internal HD of 200GB (it is a 2.4 G5, 2 GB RAM system).

The movie file (including all clips being used) is 478 GB on an external HD. Now, my understanding of the FCP program is that you need as much space free as the size of the files being compressed. That would mean that I couldn't compress it on his internal drive but would need to use another external drive to do the actual compressing (which he has).

How do I do this? Is it just a matter of virtual memory on the internal drive and I'm overthinking this? If it does require the other external drive, how do I change the settings to compress it in the external rather than the internal?

I have received no word back from the various proffessional sites I've gone to so I turn to you, the largest collection of video ametuers in the world. Thanks in advance for any help.

PS: Anyone who significantly helps me solve this problem, I'll see if I can get you a free copy of the movie we're working on (time traveling teens to ancient America).

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:14 pm

I use FCP, and yeah, I think you're overthinking it.

Dealing with this exact issue (on a much smaller scale of course), you must have as much internal space open as the file will take up after compression. So, even if you were compressing from one external drive to another, you would still need that amount open on the internal drive in order to compress.

Your best bet is to divide the movie into chunks, just like you would actually burning it to DVD, compress, then if need be, recombine the compressed portions. This is going to take a long, long time. But you're just going to need to do it.

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:27 pm

Kionon wrote:I use FCP, and yeah, I think you're overthinking it.

Dealing with this exact issue (on a much smaller scale of course), you must have as much internal space open as the file will take up after compression. So, even if you were compressing from one external drive to another, you would still need that amount open on the internal drive in order to compress.

Your best bet is to divide the movie into chunks, just like you would actually burning it to DVD, compress, then if need be, recombine the compressed portions. This is going to take a long, long time. But you're just going to need to do it.

Correction: Take up BEFORE compression.