I found a cool blog called Tips for Final Cut Pro Editors, with great posts. A must add to your RSS feeds. A recent tip regarding Self Contained vs. Non-Self Contained QuickTime or Final Cut Pro Movies:

A “Self Contained” movie is a video file. It’s got all the information it needs, you can move it to any computer or server and it’s going to play, regardless of anything else around it.

A Non “Self Contained” file is needy. If you move it, chances are it ain’t gonna work. It’s basically a reference file, and is often referred to as a “Reference Movie.”

via Self Contained vs. Non-Self Contained « Tips for Final Cut ProEditors.

My addition and “amen” to his post:

I have learned not to trust non-self-contained reference files . . . especially when dealing with long material, critical material, or when I’m in a time crunch. It always seems little render files get magically moved around by little gnomes and break the reference file. Compressor likes any excuse to crash. And hard drive space is cheap, right? A 25-minute TV episode in DVCProHD 1080i on my machine now is about 20 GB, not too bad.

No related posts.

Filed under: Tutorial