A geeky post for video editors…
While working on my FCPXchange utility, I did some experiments to see how well Final Cut Pro kept track of files if you moved them around under its feet. I was quite impressed with the results:
Now, exploring a bit further, later, I realised that it can’t be using Spotlight, at least not exclusively, to track the file, because it could still find it even when I put it in a folder explicitly excluded from Spotlight indexing.
And then I realised that all my changes had been moves not copies. If I did anything which involved copying the media and then deleting the original, FCP could no longer track it, whereas, if it were using Spotlight metadata, presumably it could track that in the copy too.
Now, I don’t know much about the deeper workings of HFS+, but I’m guessing that it’s effectively tracking ‘inodes’ here, which means that the same bit of content can be found, whatever name it may have in folders. This, however, will only work with the original copy on the same disk. If you start shifting files around between disks or servers, you’ll thwart it!
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Hi Quentin,
Just wanted to say I think your FCPXchange utility is fantastic. However, seems like the UI could use some work. Specifically what about just having a drop down menu for each media file that allows you to change it to another. So the drop down menu would be populated with all the media files in the XML. Seems like it would be a quick and easy solution.
Keep up the great work!
T. Payton
Thanks – that’s a good idea… Yes, I’m aware that the UI could certainly be improved. It was my first Cocoa app so I had a lot to learn at once!
Will try to do this in the next version.