Apple Final Cut Express HD - Manual (Page 901)

Chapter 61 Media Management 901
XI
What You Need to Know to Manage Your Media
To effectively keep track of or manage your media, you must have a good
understanding of the following:
 The distinction between a clip and a media file, as well as the relationship between
the two
 The relationship between master and affiliate clips in a Final Cut Express HD project
 How to effectively sort and search large amounts of data, such as clips in the Browser
or in a sequence
 How to name files concisely and descriptively
 The fundamental nature of your media: frame size, aspect ratio, frame rate, codec,
color bit depth, color space, and audio sample rate and bit depth
Media Management Steps in Final Cut Express HD
Capturing, making subclips, and processing your media are all steps in managing your
media files. Because clips are separate from media files in Final Cut Express HD, you can
easily assign them to different media files throughout the course of a project. This
allows you to switch between low- and high-resolution versions of your media files,
and transfer projects to other Final Cut Express HD systems without media files and
quickly reconnect them. You can also delete unused media files to save hard disk space,
or recapture media files using clips in your project.
Here is one practical example of how media management occurs throughout a project:
Step 1: Capture
Media files are captured from tape to hard disk. A clip that represents that media file is
simultaneously created in your project.
Step 2: Refinement and media management
As you edit, you refine your sequence, using fewer and fewer of your media files, but
those files still take up valuable hard disk space. Once you finish your sequence, you
can remove media files (or portions of media files) you no longer need.
Final Cut Express HD defines unused media as any media file not used by a sequence in
your project. Final Cut Express HD can easily tell you which clips in your project are not
used in any sequences, and thus which media files are likely irrelevant to your project.