Visual QuickStart Guide [Electronic resources] : Final Cut Express HD for Mac OS X نسخه متنی

Managing Render Files

Render files are valuable media elements, stored as actual media files on your hard disk like your original captured media files. Final Cut Express names render files according to its own internal naming protocols. You won't be able to identify individual render files by their filenames, so planning your render file management strategy is a critical part of your post-production work. This will become clear the next time you invest considerable time in a single complex rendering process.

Specifying storage locations for render files

You can specify up to 12 disks for storing captured video, captured audio, or render files. As you create render files, Final Cut Express stores them on the disk with the most available space. If you don't specify disk locations, Final Cut Express saves video and audio render files in separate folders (called Render Files and Audio Render Files), which are located, along with your Capture Scratch folder, in the Final Cut Express Documents folder (Figure 18.15 ). Render files are media files and should be stored on the same media drives as your captured media.

Specify storage locations for your render files on the Scratch Disks tab in the System Settings window. For more information, see Chapter 3, "Presets and Preferences."

Deleting rendered files

When you are working on multiple projects, each with multiple sequences, render files can build up quickly.

Freeing up disk space by dumping old render files is an attractive proposition, but use caution if you are deleting render files for your current projects. Final Cut Express uses render file names that are useful to the program but unintelligible to you.

Final Cut Express will automatically delete any render file in your project that has been directly superceded by a replacement render file, but it doesn't throw out leftover render files or render files in old versions of projects. To delete render files, you'll have to sort through your project's render folder, manually weeding out obsolete files and moving them to the Trash (Figure 18.16 ).

For more information, see "Deleting Media" in Chapter 4.