This article came from a request from Brian Galford, who asked: “Where does the file FCP X creates for uploading to Vimeo get stored on your computer, if it does at all?”
Good question. I did some homework and discovered the answer.
When sharing projects directly from Final Cut Pro X to YouTube or Vimeo, Final Cut temporarily holds the shared item within the library. I don’t recommend that people poke around inside the library, as they risk disturbing other items there which could cause problems. However for your information, you can find shared items by following these steps:
To avoid using unnecessary disk space, these shared files are deleted when you quit Final Cut Pro X. But before you quit, you can access them as above and copy them to a different location if desired.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Personally, I don’t recommend sharing directly to YouTube or Vimeo. My preference is to export a Master File, check it for accuracy and quality, then compress and upload to YouTube or Vimeo as a separate step. This gives you complete control over where all files are stored as well as the ability to customize compression settings.
However, if speed is more important and you aren’t customizing compression settings, sharing directly from Final Cut Pro X to YouTube / Vimeo will save time.
Keep in mind that FCP X will delete all temporary files when you quit the application. Also, keep in mind that I urge lots of caution when moving any files inside a Library; especially if you do so while FCP X is open.
SUMMARY
When sending files to YouTube or Vimeo, FCP X creates temporary files during the Export/Share process which are automatically deleted when you quit FCP X.
If you want to retain the compressed files, it would be better to export a master file, then compress it for YouTube, rather than run the risk of damaging the Library by moving the wrong file inadvertently.
2 Responses to FCP X: Finding Files Shared to YouTube or Vimeo
Hey Larry,
I often Share right to Vimeo, but other than the size of the file it’s creating when I do that, there’s no other obvious information about the specifics of the compression. Do you have an opinion on whether the straight-to-Vimeo export is or is not ideal in terms of video quality?
And is there a way to tweak the Share to Vimeo settings if in fact there’s a better way to compress for Vimeo that the auto-share process doesn’t take advantage of?
Is Final Cut doing the compressing when we Share to Vimeo, or is Compressor running in the background somehow?
Thanks for everything!
-Brad
Brad:
If all you need to do is compress for YouTube or Vimeo, these default settings are fine. Tweaking won’t improve image or audio quality. However, if you need to add effects – like a watermark – you’ll need to create a custom setting in Compressor. While this could be saved so that FCP X can access it, in general, I would then follow the two-step Master File to Compressed file workflow.
Neither FCP X nor Compressor actually compress videos. The actual compression is done by a background process which is accessed by both applications.
Larry