Creating Independent Media Files from Subclips
After Capturing
When you capture each source tape as a whole media file and then break it into
smaller subclips, you will inevitably discover a number of subclips that you don’t need
for your project. If you are trying to save disk space, you can delete portions of media
files that you know you don’t need. This process affects your media files, so it is
considered to be media management.
You can use the Media Manager to break the original media file into smaller media
files—one media file for each subclip. You can then delete the media files for any
subclips you don’t want to keep.
Important:
It’s a good idea to break your media file into smaller media files before you
begin editing.
To organize subclips you want to keep and subclips you want to delete:
1
In the Browser, create two bins named “Keep” and “Delete”.
2
Review each subclip by playing it in the Viewer, then move it to the “Keep” bin or the
“Delete” bin.
3
Continue watching and sorting subclips until all the subclips are in either the “Keep” or
“Delete” bin.
There are many other techniques you could use to organize your subclips, such as
using two different labels, or using the Good property for subclips you want to keep,
and so on. Use whatever method works best for you.
To delete media not referred to by selected subclips:
1
Delete the master clip (the original clip that refers to the full-length media file).
2
In the Browser, select the subclips that you want to keep for use in your project.
If you used the method above for separating subclips into “Keep” and “Delete” bins,
select the subclips in the “Keep” bin. These are the subclips that refer to portions of the
media file you want to keep.
3
Choose File > Media Manager.
4
Choose Use Existing from the “Media referenced by selected items” pop-up menu.
5
Select the “Delete unused media from selected clips” checkbox.
This tells Final Cut Pro to delete any portions of the media file that are not referenced
by the subclips you currently have selected in the Browser.
6
Choose “Clip Names” from the “Base media file names on” pop-up menu.
This option uses the names of your subclips to name the resulting media files.
7
Make sure the “Duplicate selected clips and place into a new project” checkbox is
not selected.
Chapter 2
Creating Subclips
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Click OK.
Because this is a destructive process (meaning some of your media will likely be
deleted), Final Cut Pro checks to see if any other clips in your project also refer to the
same media file. If so, Final Cut Pro tells you how many other clips besides the subclips
you have currently selected may be affected by deleting media. In this case, any
subclips you didn’t select originally will become offline unless you include them in your
media management.
9
Choose one of the following options:
 Add: Adds the other clips to your selection so that the portions of media they
represent are also preserved along with the media of the original selected subclips.
This may be useful if you forgot to select some subclips in the Browser before you
opened the Media Manager. If a master clip for the media file still exists in the
Browser, adding it to the current selection for media management will result in no
deletion of media; since the master clip refers to all of the media, all of the media file
is considered to be used.
 Continue: Go on without adding any other clips to the selection. If you are confident
that you have selected all the subclips you want to keep, choose this option.
 Abort: If you are worried that you haven’t selected all of the subclips you want to
keep, you can stop the process and start the task over from the beginning, making
sure you’ve selected the correct subclips.
Final Cut Pro warns you one final time that you are about to delete media from the
hard disk, and that this process is not recoverable. This isn’t really as bad as it sounds
in most cases, since you can always recapture footage from tape (assuming your
media files originally came from videotape).
10
Choose Continue to delete media not referenced by the currently selected subclips, or
choose Abort to stop the process, leaving your media file intact.
If you choose Continue, a new, separate media file is created for each subclip. The
original media file that contained the contents of the entire tape is deleted. The
subclips in your project now refer to these individual media files. The subclips you
originally selected become clips in the Browser, as indicated by their icons. The subclips
that you didn’t process with the Media Manager are now offline because the original
media file was deleted.
From now on, when you need to recapture particular shots for any reason, you can
capture only the clips you need (instead of the entire duration of the tape).
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