Duplicate events without copying media?

Is this possible? All my events reference media on a shared server, I have an FX event and MX event that are always open, and I open and close job specific events as needed. So If I want to give a project linked to my event(s) to another editor, I assume I need to give them the event(s) as well right?

Back story here is that I'm trying to figure out a way to mimic our five-editor shop's FCP 7 workflow in FCP X. In FC 7, I'd just make a new project, copy the sequence to it, and give it to another editor. Done.

But it seems in X, while I could just duplicate the project and hand that off, They'd need the same event(s) I have as well. Right? But duplicating an event, which just references the shared clips on our server, wants to *copy* all the media - not just the aliases or symlinks or whatever they are - into the duplicate, which I don't want to do.

Anyone got a suggestion which, for right now, doesn't involve a SAN, or disc images or anything like that. If I just gave 'em the project, could they relink to the shared media in their own events? I'm trying to make this as FCP 7 like as possible. The folks I work with fear change... Thanks!

Yes this is possible. How are your workstations connected to your server? Are all your stations linked over LAN?

Check these out for some clues that may (or may not) help.

www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/852-h...e-of-macbreak-studio

www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/872-s...istance-with-dropbox

ronny courtens wrote: Yes this is possible. How are your workstations connected to your server? Are all your stations linked over LAN?

Yep, on a couple OS X server shared volumes...

I am testing a similar setup here and it seems to work. But I won't post this publicly before I'm sure there are no pitfalls.

E-mail me (ronnycourtens@mac.com) so I can mail you a detailed explanation of our setup with some screenshots. Then you can try this and if it works for you as well I will post the workflow on the forum.

It works for me. I have some stuff on a Drobo FS that I share around between iMac and MacBook. So far, I haven't seen any issues, as long as I can find an Ethernet connection for the MacBook in the office. It's a bit slow over WLAN.

Yes the speed of your network is critical when you setup any shared media storage workflow.

The test workflow we are running now simply consists of transferring Event and Project folders at Finder level, the Events only containing symlinks that point to the shared media server. Pretty much as we collaborated in classic FCP before FC Server was introduced.

It's a very fast and straightforward procedure. In this test setup I use a 12TB Thunderbolt RAID and a Mac Mini to serve six FCP10 workstations including two MacPros. So far without any hiccups.

But you always must be careful with Finder actions, especially with database-centric applications. Another pitfall is the control over your shared media storage. When you work with many people on the same shared media you want to make sure no-one can mess up the folder structure on your media server. We have taken these pitfalls into account when setting up the network and I must say it works perfectly so far. When I access the shared media on the Thunderbolt RAID from one of the MacPros I get average Read speeds of 97.3 MB/S and Write speeds of 96.1 MB/S over a simple Gigabit Ethernet connection, which is still faster than FireWire 800 drives connected directly to the MacPro.

There is much more to it than I can describe in a forum thread (including dealing with Render files, Optimized media and external (non-shared) media that is added to an Event on a specific workstation). But we also have sorted out all these things and as I said it works pretty well. It's a viable alternative to the very limited NAS collaboration workflow FCP10 offers at this time.

After watching the MCS tut that Ben linked to can you copy the Event (in FCPX browser) without actually copying the 'Original media' in that Event. Reason is a college has his copy of the original media so I just want to send him a copy of my Event information then he can relink the media his end. Then I was going to share (send) him my project file too.

There is no way you can copy or duplicate an Event in the Browser. The only way to duplicate an Event inside FCP10 is by using the File > Duplicate Event command (CMD+D) which, as the OP said, copies all the media from your Original Media folder into the duplicated Event.

If the two events will not be on the same system, you can do it manually with no problem. As long as your college's media has the exact same names, is the exact same media, manually copy the event, minus original media. On his system, create an Original Media folder, move the stuff in to it.

Just can't have two manual copies being read by the same Mac.

As I said that's not copying an Event inside FCP10, that's doing it on the Finder level.

We do what we gotta do.

As the MBS tut did I would actually copy the Event on to say my MBP from my MacPro so then the copied Event could be zipped and sent. I wasn't going to copy the Event on the same system. The only reason I also asked is because in the tut Steve said not to do it via Finder level.

Marc Lucas wrote: ...Steve said not to do it via Finder level.

Because it makes two copies with the same database ID number, and FCP X can only open one of them. But if it's on two different systems, then duplicate ID's don't matter.