How Subclips Are Processed
When you create a subclip, you create a new master clip. A subclip is not related to the
original clip it came from. However, both the original clip and the subclip refer to the
same media file. Internally, a subclip is aware of the true Media Start and Media End
points of a media file, but it provides artificial subclip limits to make the clip seem
shorter, making it easier to work with in the Viewer and during editing.
When the Media Manager encounters a subclip, it treats the subclip like any other
clip, using the artificial Media Start and End times instead of the actual Media Start
and End times. This means you can use the “Delete unused media from selected
items” option when processing a subclip to create a smaller media file that is only
the length of the subclip.
Note: In some cases, you may want to delete the original master clip that your subclips
were created from to ensure Final Cut Pro doesn’t attempt to preserve the entire media
file referenced by the original master clip.
Chapter 7
Overview of the Media Manager
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